ESCAPE VELOCITY

A space cruise takes a dangerous turn as a handful of old school chums reunite after 25 years apart.

Hobnobbing is the name of the game aboard the Prestige-Class Space Habitat Altaire, but the stakes are higher for some people than for others. Husbands Henry and Nick Gallagher yearn for life in the brand-new civilian colonies on Mars but need to earn more MERIT points—a sociopolitical currency of sorts—than their straight peers to get their hands on a piece of the pie; being wealthy and attractive can’t help them overcome the “gay penalty,” which punishes infertile couples with lower MERIT scores. Mirroring the men’s plight, the Altaire’s majority-Filipino staff find themselves catering to people who, though undeserving of their status, enjoy a higher caliber of living solely by virtue of their birth. The cast list soon swells, with a broad conglomerate of wealthy characters rehashing a friend’s death some 25 years on. Unfortunately, the novel swiftly begins to lose focus, making it impossible to distinguish between important characters and extraneous ones. Whose story is this, really, and why does that question grow increasingly difficult to answer? While this collection of red herrings might have made for an intriguing premise, Manibo jumps from one character to the next too quickly for the reader to forge any sort of lasting interest in them. The dialogue is sometimes stilted, and the exposition almost always reads like a dry recitation of events, further dampening what might have been an exciting tale of near-space intrigue.

A forgettable novel of high-stakes interpersonal conflicts.