There’s a candour about Prime Meridian that won me over from the start. Amelia glowers off the page, her daily frustrations and challenges all too familiar to anyone desperate to hang on to their dreams when faced with an uncaring world. This is a future so near you can smell it, made up of daily trade-offs – the value of Amelia’s time vs the cost of reaching her clients; the need for privacy vs the expense of drinking coffee in cafes; friendships vs social utility. She navigates snobbery and casual sexism, avoiding the gangs as assiduously as she avoids her sister.

It’s hard not to consider Amelia as lonely as she is frustrated, stewing in her own self-loathing. She takes money from people she despises because it’s still better than any of the dead-end jobs her sister keeps pushing her at.

All of which makes this novella sound dreary and depressing, but it’s not – just as Amelia isn’t unlikeable in spite of her hard edges and uncompromising pragmatism. I fast found myself rooting for her, perhaps because – even though we’re seeing them through Amelia’s bias – the people she interacts with seem entirely deserving of her disdain.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia depicts her supporting cast mercilessly without ever stuttering into caricature: Fernanda’s uncaring showboating; Anastasia’s snide, undermining comments; the solicitous yet somehow disinterested attention of Elías, who seems to be more attached to his idea of Amelia than the reality of who she is and what she wants.

Easily the most likeable member of the cast is Amelia’s client Lucía, an aging B-movie actress who is as fascinated by Mars as Amelia herself. Her memories of shooting cult movies with billowing dresses and rayguns, space pirates and out-of-place Vikings add a vibrancy and warmth to the story – and leave their mark on Amelia, drawing her out of her protective shell. Lucía’s Mars is as fictional as the girl on the Visit Mars billboard Amelia stares at; but both seem at times more real than the actual colony beyond Amelia’s reach.

This is arguably not SFnal at all in spite of its near-future setting and love affair with the Red Planet, but I’d urge any SF reader to pick it up. I enjoyed it for its tone of voice and the skill with which Moreno-Garcia captures her cast in the briefest of vignettes. It cements my desire to read all of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s work – this has nothing but its setting in common with Certain Dark Things, and I’m fascinated by the literary edges and chameleon qualities of her work.

Set in a near-futureish time, this novella revolves around main character Amelia's struggle to eke out a life in Mexico City and her unceasing (if out of reach) desire to move to a colony on Mars.

Though it is set in the future, it is a future that seems scarily imaginable: The untenable life of a young person without means; The out of control gig economy; The society so divided by class that it's falling apart.

As with all Moreno-Garcia's work, her characters are fantastically rich (which is no easy feat in a novella). Amelia's humanity really shines through and carries the novella.

I would recommend this book to all of the disenfranchised millennials returning to their parents houses after college, or to anyone having trouble finding their way in the world.

In the foreword, Prime Meridian is described as a ‘quiet masterpiece’ and I have to agree. I can’t find any other description that sums this novella up more succintly. I can only say that through Prime Meridian, the author documents the internal struggle and frustration faced by current younger adults at about 20-25ish years old, especially concerning their career life. It is often during this age that most people have just graduated from some kind of tertiary studies and are at that stage where rejection is norm and dead-ends are all you seem to face.

After I’ve figured out the theme that this book revolves around, I had originally thought that ‘this doesn’t look too good, the protagonist is starting to sound what generations before mine would say ‘whiny’ ‘. I also grew frustrated that she repeatedly allows Élias back into her life, and get stuck into this self-pitying state that she gets from comparing herself to others. But to be honest, our lead behaves as most people in reality would, and I respect the author for writing this character as it is. I was mentally begging Amelia to take some kind of action, do something to change her life for the better. Rest assured that this book ends on a hopeful note. The author took the time to really explain and create empathy for Amelia, which I appreciate because much too often the Amelias of real life are dismissed as ‘self-entitled’ and ‘ungrateful’ when they try and share their experiences and what they’re feeling, usually using social media.

Prime Meridian is a rather quiet novella, following the low-key struggle of life in Mexico City for its protagonist, Amelia, while she dreams of life in the colonies on Mars. There's no intense action, just an emotional undercurrent of bitterness and the fear that she'll never escape Mexico City and her life there. There's an honesty about Amelia's character -- not always likeable, for the reader or for the people around her -- but always truthful, doing what she can to live her life and not kidding herself about it.

To say too much about this book wouldn't spoil it, but I don't think I can go too deeply into it. It's wrenching in a way that has nothing to do with big worldwide events or apocalyptic calamities. It's just about people, and the hope of getting out.

A fantastic novella of extremely realistic and grounded science fiction. Actually, it this story is barely sci-fi or even speculative fiction and while it may exist in a near future where resources are scare and the divide between haves & have-nots is wider than can be imagined, it is less a fantasy than it is a gritty coming-of-age tale.

An affecting and nuanced novella that examines everything from class, poverty, gender, generational conflict, capitalism, nostalgia, and how to hold onto dreams of something more in the face of dreams stymied and deferred. Fascinating world-building that feels very much like it grew out of the world we live in today, so much so that I wish I had been able to see more of it in the short text.

(I received an early ebook copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley. My opinions are my own)

Wow. I had no expectations going into this. I knew three things: the cover was gorgeous, it was listed as Sci-Fi, and the main character wanted to go to Mars.

What I got was leagues above and beyond.

The first thing you should know is this is a quick, fast paced story. It's written in the clipped, straightforward style reminiscent of the Lost Generation. This does not mean the writing is not beautiful and full of precious gems (it very much is). Ideally what I want you to understand here is, you don't need to commit yourself to an epic, sweeping tale. You can sit down on a rainy afternoon in a coffeeshop and take out half of it. It will leave you looking at that coffee shop and rainy afternoon a little differently.

I wont go into too much detail about the story because my lack of expectation is what made it so enjoyable for me.

What I will say is that it is full of hope. Hope, and want, and the power of decision. If you are feeling lost in your life, this is a story for you.

Wow I'm not sure what I expected from Prime Meridian, but this wasn't it. This novella is a raw portrayal of life at the fringes, scraping dollars together, of clinging to a dream when every little thing seems to go wrong. At times it's hard to like Amelia, although to me it stemmed from how much she hated herself, but I think this barrier to really falling for her amplifies the story and gives it an essential depth. She's the kind of character you really root for, even if you'll never call her "your baby".

Also. Lucía. I love her. I love the unlikely bond between Amelia and her, the way it shifts as the story progresses. I love the unclear, human messiness of a lot of the relationships in this novella, and I think it's one of its strength.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a very short story (56 pages in Bluefire reader on an iPad), and it's less of a sci-fi (notwithstanding the cover which I pay little attention to anyway!) than it is a 'sigh and fie on you!' story, but in the end it was just the right length. Any longer and it would have been padded, and I would not have liked it so much. Any shorter, and it would have been inadequate.

The world this is set (Mexico in the near future) reminded me very much of the kind of world William Gibson created in Neuromancer. This author does it just as well if not better, but here it's nowhere near as hi-tech, so it's more relatable. In this world lives twenty-five-year-old Amelia with the emphasis on old, because that's how she feels. Another two years and she won't be able to make money by selling her blood to old farts who think it will rejuvenate them. Amelia's only dream is of visiting the colony on Mars.

She lives with her sister Marta, who extracts a steep price for her sister's iffy employment prospects by using Amelia very nearly as a full-time baby-sitter and school bus for her kids in lieu of a decent contribution to the rent and food. Other than her blood, Amelia's only utility seems to be through her assignments from the Frienderr app which pairs companions with people in need of one.

Amelia doesn't even do so well at that because she's really not a people person, but she manages to keep a regular gig with an aging B movie actor named Lucía, who likes Amelia to sit with her while they watch her old movies and she talks about them. She's supposedly working on a memoir, but doesn't seem to make much progress.

Things look like they might change for Amelia when her old and wealthy boyfriend Elías shows up, "renting" her company on Frienderr. Amelia feels like she has to go because she really needs the money. It's obvious that her boyfriend wants her back, but you never get the impression that things are going to follow your typical romance novel path, or worse, your typical young-adult author path, especially since when he left before, Elías did so abruptly and without a goodbye.

That's the beauty of this novella, because the author keeps throwing you for a loop as soon as you get comfortable with the way you think this story is going. She never takes the easy path either, and I could see that right from the off, because she wrote it in third person whereas a lesser author (and your typical YA author!) would have gone for worst person voice (aka first person) which would have ruined this story for me, as it has far too many others which I've DNF'd sadly.

You can't enjoy a painting if your nose is pressed to the canvas nor appreciate a posing model by putting their skin under a microscope. There needed to be a certain distance from this character so you could properly enjoy who she was becoming, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia delivered it like an expert sculptor, exposing every graceful curve, chipping steadily down to every artful dimple and shadow with very little waste, nearly every line contributing to the final image of a strong woman, the like of which we see far too little in sci-fi stories.

The sole exception to this, for me was the movie dialog. Some chapters began with a lead-in, in the form of a movie script based on one of the movies Amelia watched with Lucía, but tailored to Amelia's life. I took to skipping these because I felt they took away from the story rather than added to it. If the last one had been left in place, but the rest removed I would have probably ended-up building a santuario religioso to this author! And that's another joy now that I think about it: she's Mexican by birth and uses some Mexican terms in the story without any apology and without a tedious translation en suite. I appreciated that: that she treated her readers like adults, not students who needed to learn a foreign language. It was perfectly done.

I loved this story and I highly recommend it. I shall be looking at other work by this author and I wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

Amelia is me in many ways and I think that's why I enjoyed this book. There's something about feeling like you've "passed your prime" and lost all opportunities you once had. I think the best thing about this book was that it's a novella. It is a snapshot of a life that once had dreams, close enough to touch, blow away in the wind.

The sci-fi aspect was more of a subtle theme than a major plot point and I really liked that. It focused on real circumstances faced by those who aren't privileged to be living luxuriously. I also love the use of the main character that dances on the thin line of these two worlds (not including Mars) that co-exist but never meet, showing that money - and the lack thereof - is a lens in which each person only sees their world and how to survive in it. With Amelia, we see her having a choice to be poor with her emotionally abusive sister, be a mistress to a rich ex-boyfriend who can't live outside of his wealth, and going to Mars, a place that is an ultimate haven she dreams of being on.

I really liked how realistic this book was to me and I think people in my generation can appreciate the familiarity in wanting to choose a life for ourselves.

<blockquote><i>”Mars, Amelia’s Mars. Always Mars, in every stolen and quiet moment.”</i></blockquote>
What a gorgeous novella. Though not without its flaws, this was a sincerely refreshing read and it satisfied my need for a good scifi story.

The world-building is way more exquisite and deep than most novellas and even some full-length novels, and it was believable in a way that I totally believe that the Earth could devolve into this in a few generations. It’s set not in a dystopia, but in a near-dystopian universe where no one knows their purpose and everyone just meanders around, filling the days with nothing. There’s no work and everyone is poor and the world is moving at a slower pace.

Amelia wants to move to the colonies at Mars, but she’s stuck at home working meaningless odd jobs and instead can only stare at the advertisements and dream.

I really enjoyed reading about all the characters. Amelia isn’t likable, per say, but she’s not supposed to be. She doesn’t smile, and she gives off an angry vibe, and that came across in the writing really well. The side characters were all fleshed out and unique, and all the relationships between Amelia and the people around her were developed beautifully.

The writing was what really shone in this novella for me. It was poetic and raw at the same time, and just all-around beautiful. The blurb was what drew me in and I’m glad that the writing reflected the same gorgeous style.

The one flaw that I could find in this novella was the plot. Though it showed the slow, meaningless farce of Amelia’s life well, the novella used a pretty severe case of deus ex machina when it came to resolving Amelia’s storyline and her dreams and regrets. I wish that there had been more buildup towards the eventual solution, and that there had been more resolution. I know it can be hard to avoid tropes like deus ex machina in a shorter piece of writing, but it still happened, and I felt kind of cheated.

However, that shouldn’t stop people from reading it. The pros really did outweigh the cons, and it was somehow slice-of-life and science fiction all at once. <i>Prime Meridian</i> was a wonderful novella and I wish I could get more from that universe.

Prime Meridian is an engrossing novella, set in perhaps the near future in Mexico, and starring
Amelia. She dreams of going to Mars, but I feel that she really wants independence and control over her life and destiny.

The burden of being or feeling trapped and impotent is soul-destroying, but the hope of hope and having a purpose or a goal to work towards feeds the will to live.

I am intrigued by this author, and would like to read more.

*eARC Netgalley*

This novella creeped me out. It was a snapshot of stymied dissatisfaction, a life arrested on its course and plunged by force into a stagnancy leading nowhere. If I sound overly flowery, like I'm trying to write a literary-sounding review of <i>The Great Gatsby</i> or some other profoundly uncomfortable classic work, it's because that's what <i>Prime Meridian</i> was like. <br>
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Only I don't need any American Lit teacher to tell me, "You see, <i>Gatsby</i> was so influential because it encapsulated the essence of the 1920s-" because I KNOW exactly what this novella is encapsulating. It's encapsulating the very stage of life I'm currently going through. As a 23-year-old who, at 18, had lofty, high hopes for my future and is now desperately trying to reel my off-track life back towards those hopes... like I said, <i>Prime Meridian</i> creeped me out. It's too real. <br>
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I would have given this novella at least three stars just for everything I've already mentioned. The fourth star is because it ended on a note of hope, saying that not all lost dreams are really lost. I was completely, one hundred percent expecting <i>Prime Meridian</i> to end in despair, or at least ambiguously -- but it didn't, and I love that.