Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Mourning Dove
SERIES: EMPATHY #2
AUTHOR: R.R. Campbell
PUBLISHER: NineStar Press
LENGTH: 373 pages
RELEASE DATE: April 29, 2019
BLURB:
In the aftermath of the calamitous Human/Etech research study, Chandra and Kyra struggle to reclaim the life they shared in a pre-EMPATHY world, while Ty, armed with knowledge of EMPATHY’s programming language, seeks revenge on the Halmans for the harm that’s befallen his friends.
As a North American Union investigation into the happenings on the compound looms, a grief-stricken Peter works to resurrect the memory of his mother from a harvested nanochip, and Heather scrambles to keep her family—and their company—together. Alistair, having abandoned the family business, plots to save his hide and that of his wife while she strives to stay one step ahead of a husband she has no reason to trust.
Far to the north amid civil unrest, a recently retired Rénald Dupont investigates the disappearance of his friend and former colleague, Meredith, despite grave threats from an increasingly skittish North American Union government.
As old and new foes emerge, spouse is further pit against spouse, brother against sister, and governments against their people. In the end, all must choose between attempts to reclaim the past or surrender to the inevitable, an intractable world of their own creation.
Mourning Dove is an evocative, sweeping symphony of love, revenge, and desperation in cacophonous times. It is the second installment in r. r. campbell’s epic EMPATHY sci-fi saga.
REVIEW:
After letting the complex plot settle in for a bit, I was eager to continue with the drama of the first book in Campbell’s sci-fi/political thriller “EMPATHY” series with this book, Mourning Dove. It leaves more unanswered questions than resolved ones, but it does reveal more about these characters, and we do get drawn deeper into this futuristic world.
It’s been months after the first book in which the catastrophic events of genius billionaire Wyatt Halman’s EMPATHY experiment occurred and destroyed the lives of everyone involved. Chandra, a patient in the experiment, is rendered mute and unable to read or write due to the presence of M3RI, a malevolent hacker virus, in her EMPATHY nanochip. Her wife Kyra, who was comatose in the first book, is trying to help her through her healing, but it’s frustrating being unable to communicate with the person you love the most, and she feels Chandra pulling away. Ty, a game developer and rejected EMPATHY patient, is trying to shut down Human/Etech for good, but he knows there are constant eyes on him no matter what he does. Meredith, the journalist set on taking Human/Etech and the experiment public, is missing and presumed dead, leaving journalist Rénald Dupont searching for both her and the truth on the streets of Costa Rica. And the remaining members of the Halman family are fractured as they try to save face—especially youngest son Alistair and his new wife-of-convenience, Ariel.
This book feels like the natural response to a story like Imminent Dawn, in which every character made monumentally bad decisions with mushroom-cloud impacts on everyone around them. Even the characters we’re supposed to root for—Chandra, Ty, Meredith—all screw up so badly they almost become irredeemable. Though this may be too simplistic, I’d say with confidence that most of the characters in this series are total and complete idiots who are so out of their depth that they’re barely treading water. The man who was above it all, Wyatt Halman, is dead, which leaves a bunch of dumb-asses scurrying around trying to cover tracks, clean up messes, and blame it all on someone else. It doesn’t inspire a lot of trust in these characters, but it does make for some interesting reading.
With so many alternating chapter points of view, it’s hard to keep track of all the narratives, but there are definitely strong and weak elements of the story. I was most invested in the Chandra/Kyra and Alistair/Ariel plots. Chandra and Kyra’s love is the heart of the series, the endgame we’re rooting for. Chandra underwent the horrors of EMPATHY to reconnect with Kyra, so it is heartbreaking to have to see them struggle when they finally get to be together. On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum are Alistair and Ariel, two human disasters who think they’re playing chess but are barely playing checkers—and certainly not with each other. Alistair’s wannabe political savvy and Ariel’s genuine airheaded demeanor make for a train-wreck of a fake couple, especially during drawn-out court scenes and interviews. Both couples provide the story’s pathos, but in totally opposite ways.
The parts that slogged for me were the more political bits. The first book in this series defied genre, but it was more of a sci-fi/body horror drama, while this book is pure political thriller. The parts with Rénald and his activist wife and Ty and the Merry Hacksters were often slow and convoluted, making me eager to get back to the parts driven by characters and the scientific experiments. It feels like a huge overarching mythology is being built around the wrong elements. I want to know more about EMPATHY, not about the state of the country’s politics.
I’m being a little harsh with my middling rating, but I’ve read two books in this series now, and it hasn’t wow-ed me yet. These are long, complex books with many characters, plot threads, and small mysteries. To keep readers invested in these types of books, there needs to be strong characters and fast-moving plots, both thing that this series wrestles with. I’m still interested in figuring a few things out involving EMPATHY, Wyatt Halman, and the fate of the characters touched by the failed experiment, but I can’t say I’m eagerly awaiting the next book. I like slow-burn reads, but there is such a thing as too slow.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: