asianamlitfans | A Review of S.L. Huang’s Zero Sum Game (Tor Books, 2018). (Reply)

A Review of S.L. Huang’s Zero Sum Game (Tor Books, 2018).
By Stephen Hong Sohn

Let me be frank: I wanted to like S.L. Huang’s debut Zero Sum Game more than I did. To be sure, it has quite a lot going for it: a very likeable protagonist, an intriguing mystery plot, and engages in an interesting meld of noir and speculative fiction. But the denouement was definitely not of my personal preference; it left me feeling a dejected. In any case, let’s get B&N to pave a little bit of the story path for us, as per usual: “A blockbuster, near-future science fiction thriller, S.L. Huang's Zero Sum Game introduces a math-genius mercenary who finds herself being manipulated by someone possessing unimaginable power… Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight, and she'll take any job for the right price. As far as Cas knows, she’s the only person around with a superpower...until she discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world’s puppet master. Cas should run, like she usually does, but for once she's involved. There’s only one problem... She doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.”

I sometimes wonder who writes these descriptions, just because they can be so indirectly inaccurate, but perhaps that’s what a marketing team might want. In this case, the opening of the novel sees Cas Russell on a mission to help rescue Courtney Polk, who seems to have gotten into some trouble with drug denizens. But, things get immediately very complicated when Courtney Polk disappears, two of her closest allies are killed off, a fellow mercenary Rio emerges with some key information, and something related to a thing called Pithica seems to be behind everything going from bad to worse. Cas Russell strikes up a tentative alliance with a detective named Tresting, who seems to be on a similar path, but a figure who Cas originally thought was Courtney Polk’s sister (a character named Dawna Polk) ends up being someone else entirely. If I’ve confused you, it’s only because Huang’s novel is quite the complicated plot, with a number of twists and turns.

Here’s where I provide my plot spoiler warning, so look away or be blinded by all of the reveals! The reason why the description ends up stating that Cas “doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore” is because, as the readers soon also discover, Dawna Polk is something of a telepath. With her ability to read people’s minds, she can also use psychological sleights of hand to make them do whatever she wants. Some people are able to resist more effectively than others, but the strain of this resistance causes severe headaches. Cas is one such resistant person, but she too eventually succumbs. Why this plot device is SO interesting is that Huang uses a first person narrative perspective. Thus, when Cas is under the control of Dawna, the narrative can get confusing because she does not seem always to be acting logically. Even once she becomes aware of Dawna’s power, the readers are left a little bit in the dark, as Cas is, about which thoughts are hers and which are really Dawna’s commands. In this sense, this novel is the acme of the unreliable narrator, one which is especially intriguing because the narrator is made unreliable against her own will.

In any case, one of my constructive critiques of the work is that I really wanted more of the mathematical elements in this text. Diagrams, pictures, etc. would have all worked really well to get a sense of how Cas’s mathematical mind works. Instead, Huang resorts to descriptions and terms that many simply won’t be fully familiar with, so the impact of what Cas is able to do with her mind is somewhat lost. Finally, as I mentioned at the outset of the review, I found the conclusion really lacking. It’s basically a détente, with the battle between Cas and Pithica forces coming to a standstill, which is in some sense where the novel really began, so… I’ll leave it there. Rest assured, dear readers of these reviews, I’ll still read whatever else comes my way from S.L. Huang!

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Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Leslie J. Fernandez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Leslie J. Fernandez, PhD Student in English, at lfern010@ucr.edu