Jane Doe wakes up in a space port clinic with amnesia. She has been gang-raped, left for dead, and the troopers say her DNA isn’t tagged. Her only solace is a kind doctor, a strange yet seemingly benevolent alien, and her thirst for revenge, for Lex Talionis.
R S A Garcia’s debut novel is about a woman recovering her strength and identity in a world where star-ships roam the sky and fascist corporations can buy troopers for a pittance. This is a thriller for the ladies: it shows a strong female lead come into her own and negotiate the frightening world around her. The writing style is incredibly well fashioned and includes enough action, romance, and mystery to keep any reader happy.
Plot 6/10
The main plot of this novel is very simple, and generally constructed in a thought out way. Underneath that, it has many subplots which add to the timbre of the novel. There are elements in the ending that feel rushed, or tacked on. However, Garcia isn’t afraid of any surprises that an everyday thriller might steer away from, which is quite refreshing.
Writing Style 8/10
One of the best things about this book is its world building. The italicised thought processes, and the fictional excerpts at the start of each chapter, give the reader just the right amount of information without intruding on a readers creative suspense of disbelief. The author’s strength, is describing a fantastical future in a completely down to earth and believable way. Whilst other debut authors can be quite clunky with their exposition, Garcia is truly talented at this.
She also has an aptitude in eliciting poignant emotive responses, due to her pacing and structure. Lex Talionis softens you up with sentiment, it draws you in with mystery and suspense, and finishes you off with page-turning action. To achieve this however, the pace of the story is quite slow for the first half. My only real criticism of Garcia’s style in Lex Talionis is that it leaves too much information to be revealed at the very end. This gives it a very unbalanced structure. The novel would be massively improved with some elements introduced earlier so that the novel would be more substantial at earlier points in the story arc.
Characterisation 5 /10
Thrillers as a general rule are quite a difficult arena to build characters in as so much vital information is usually left to the grande finale. Lex Talionis is no exception. Whilst the dialogue is written quite excellently, because Garcia has little time in which to pause, the characters are not always well developed. The difficulty with writing a complex story with so many minor characters is that a lot of them become rather two-dimensional and are rather crudely placed for an explicit narrative purpose. What is well developed, however, is the dynamics between characters, especially the main cast.
Overall 6.5/10
Lex Talionis has some great strengths, and any weaknesses it does have can be either attributed to the limits of the genre or Garcia’s relative writing youth. Her greatest skills are her ability to describe and explain with absolute clarity and credulity; creating suspense as well as releasing action and emotion in an expert way; and creating character empathy with inner monologue. Where the novel falls down is its lack of balance, plot and hooks in the first half. This novel risks losing a reader by not providing a firm ground whilst the novel is building. However, once the action kicks in, a reader will see why it was written this way. The starting pace makes the reader vulnerable and raw to the roller coaster of events and emotions that soon follow. Whether this gamble pays off will vary from reader to reader.
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