SPSFC4 Review: Broken Mirror by Cody Sisco
Blurb:
A fractured mind or a global conspiracy? Uncovering the truth can be hell when nobody believes you… and you can’t even trust yourself.
Broken Mirror is the first volume in a queer psychological science fiction saga that looks at the stigma of mental illness and the hellish distrust and alienation that goes with it.
Victor Eastmore knows someone killed his grandfather, the pioneering scientist Jefferson Eastmore. But Victor, diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome, has been shunned by Semiautonomous California society. Nobody will believe a Broken Mirror. Now Victor must tread the line between sanity and reclassification—a fate that all but guarantees he’ll lose his freedom.
With its self-driving cars, global firearms ban, and a cure for cancer, the science fiction world of Broken Mirror may sound like a near future utopia, but on Resonant Earth, history has taken a few wrong turns. The American Union is a weak and fractious alliance of nations in decline. Europe manipulates its citizens through propaganda. And Asia is reeling from decades of war.
Determined to uncover the truth about Jefferson’s murder, pansexual Victor and his trans friend Elena set out on a road trip that takes them across the American Union from Semiautonomous California through the Organized Western States to the Republic of Texas. But Elena is holding something back, and Victor’s condition worsens.
Amid shifting geopolitical sands, Broken Mirrors like Victor find themselves at a cyberpunk crossroads: evolve or go extinct.
Review:
The first thing I have to acknowledge in this is that when looking into this book, there are two blurbs for what it's about. I suspect this has to do with its release in 2016 and re-release in 2024. Normally, I would just focus on the one that's up on GR, but since the previous blurb is within the book itself, and as of writing this is still visible on the US Amazon (boo, hiss, I know), I feel like it's reasonable to comment on that as well.
I love queer books, but I don't feel like the blurb bit "...pansexual Victor and his trans friend Elena..." does much…well anything... There is actually a scene in the book where Victor not minding his partner's gender is mentioned, and while it's a small line, I think it would have served the purpose much more eloquently than the blurb does. The same goes for Elena and the scene where Victor beats up someone for deadnaming her. The way it's presented in the blurb just felt like lip service and since Cody Sisco is involved in the LA LGBTQIA+ community, he doesn't strike me as a lip service type person.
Onto the book around the blurb. This is a futuristic-AU America but it also takes place in the early 90s. As someone born in ‘93, it’s weird to think of the future as 1991. If you're a Doctor Who fan, just tell yourself wibby wobbly timey whimey and roll with it. Now, I am very clear on how we got to this AU. Lincoln wasn't killed. Archduke Ferdinand wasn't killed and Europe unified. Kennedy wasn't killed but was impeached. That had big spillover effects and the US (and Cuba) ultimately got broken up into nine different nations. California and Texas are largely independent and as someone born and raised in LA, and who knows a few Texans, all I can say is: Of course we’d be our own nations lol. Also Zimbabwe didn't get renamed, which admittedly is a small line in a flashback scene involving a chimpanzee. (The real sci-fi is that in this scene a chimp has empathy. I'm also going to give Cody a pass on this scene because he can't have expected a reader and judge for SPSFC is doing a phd on primate facial expressions and facial communication. That is a rant about chimps and deep dive into peer reviewed science for another day.) So within this US-of-nine-nations, we also have some gang wars which are relevant for parts of the book where Victor ends up in dodgy situations.
Quick round up again, a futuristic-AU America that's made up of nine nations, within which a few have gang wars. With me? We spend most of the book in California and Texas while Victor solves the whodunnit of his grandfather's ("granfa") murder. Of course, because Victor is diagnosed with Mirror Resonance Syndrome no one really believes him. This is where I started to struggle a bit. I spent a fair amount of the book unsure if this was a legal or medical diagnosis and also not being entirely clear on what it was. I think it was around 50% or so that there's actually a definition for the disorder and the impacts of it. As to whether it was a legal or medical diagnosis, the answer is "yes".
In this world, the devastating actions of one man have had enormous effects leading to a stigma in the diagnosis and restrictive legal classification system to protect the wider populace. As a concept, I really liked this. It asks some big questions that those who have a stigmatised diagnosis or a loved one with such a diagnosis will connect with. Being compared to a dangerous person who happens to have the same disorder, the stigma influencing the treatments and how the people with it are approached, the question of 'Who would i be if I didn't have X?' But all that said, I still don't really get what the syndrome is or does. Like Victor spaces out and seems to have synesthesia but beyond that, I've not really got a clue. It does mean that everyone is convinced Victor is under a delusion when he says his grandfather has been murdered.
Because the book pretty much focuses on "People with Mirror Resonance Syndrome are stigmatised and Victor has this but has to solve a murder no one believes happened!", there isn't much in the way of character development in my opinion. (I mean, this whole review is my opinion but you know what I mean.) Victor was loved by his grandfather, has this syndrome and hates his medication. Elena is trans (which we know from the blurb before anything else) and addicted to drugs. The other side characters, Tosh and Ozie are mysterious and a hacker that Victor seemed to know from a previous point in his life. Everyone just feels very…flat. I feel like there was more complexity put into the government and Texan gang wars (which also felt like half an idea rather than something fully fledged) than any character. There is so much happening around the characters that they seemed to be almost forgotten as a consequence. The whole book, aside from a few flashbacks, takes place over about two weeks so there really is a lot happening.
I could keep going and comment on this mysterious data egg that Victor's grandfather gave him, the totally unnecessary scene in the brothel that was a fade to grey rather than black of SA, Elena being a wholly unlikable addict that blames everyone for her choices (arguably very realistic I do have to say), but this feels long enough.
There is an interesting concept here and a valuable commentary on mental health, both in the treatment by the wider public and the psychiatric treatments available. I'm just not totally sure the execution matched the bones of it all.
