The description that Apex Publications gives for Coil, by Ren Warom, is “A futuristic crime-noir that will shock you,” so that is what I went into this book expecting.
At first, this book seemed like it drew most strongly on old, pulpy crime noir novels and modern police procedurals for its character tropes and story beats. The science fiction seemed to be relegated to the setting and some of the character aesthetics. It was good, but didn’t seem like it had anything new to say.
I mean, take a look at the two main characters:
Stark is a hard boiled detective who hates red tape and is driven by his dark past.
Bone (yes, Bone) is a Mort (CSI/medical examiner) who is the best at what he does, but his life consists of work, booze, and cigarettes.
Both of these men are among the best at what they do, but fail to have a life outside of work.
The embody the character tropes of the crime-noir genre.
So, as someone who enjoys pulpy crime dramas, I settled in to read one, not really expecting anything more.
Heh heh. Heh.
I got what I was expecting… until some point a little over a third of the way in.
Then, things got a little weird. And just kept getting weirder.
This was when I went from having an enjoyable read to not being able to put the book down. In addition to bringing the sci-fi elements front and center, Ren starts drawing tropes from a whole list of other genres and subgenres that I didn’t expect, enabling her to surprise me on multiple occasions. (I won’t list those genres here, as they could be considered oblique spoilers, so just in case…)
Now, I need to talk tropes for a second: The general rule in genre fiction is that tropes can be a good thing, but that you need to subvert expectations and/or put your own unique spin on them in order to keep them interesting. Alternatively, if you are going light and funny, you can lean straight into tropes for comedic effect.
Coil leans straight into tropes while taking itself quite seriously. This had me worried a little during that first third, which, I’ll admit, was a little slow. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t pull me in.
Then, tropes from unexpected places started to be thrown into the mix. The book leans straight into them as well, but then moves onto the next so fast that, if you manage to pull yourself away from the book for a minute, you might wonder what exactly is the genre of the book you are reading, anyway.
And that is the brilliance of this book: It builds something new, not by subverting or twisting tropes, but by combining tropes in strange new ways.
What resulted is a book that indeed shocked me, as the description said it would.
I am sold on it, though I do have one final gripe:
At the end of the book, they wrap up the main plotline nicely, but there is a lot of character stuff that is left.
This isn’t a bad thing, inherently; I just want to know what happens to these characters. Because, somewhere along the line, I came to care about these characters.
So, Ren, if you ever read this, are you planning on writing a sequel? Because I will definitely read it if you do.
So, does this book sound interesting to you? Let me know in the comments down below!