Counting Heads is a failure. Sold as a futuristic thriller revolving around the efforts by various combative factions to seize a cryogenically frozen head, Mr. Marusek spends far more time lavishing attention upon his world than he does attending to his plot which, half the time, has nothing to do with a frozen head, much less any search for it. The characters are interesting and Mr. Marusek can certainly write well, but this is world-building porn, not a story driven by any goal, at least not any goal that matters to the reader.
Writing science fiction is a difficult balancing act. It must challenge our way of looking at the world without veering too far away from what we can relate to. For if we can't relate to the characters in any meaningful way, we cannot care about what befalls them. Mr. Marusek spends the first 200 pages trying and failing to convince us to care about his characters and then the next 200 pages thrusting them aside in favor of the plot he neglected in the first 200! That's hardly what I'd call balance. Frustrating, annoying and unsatisfying for anyone not completely captivated by world-building fiction. (2/5 Stars)
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