Review of “With Love, From Planet B” by Zaayin Salaam, MD

Score: 91+/100 (9.1+ out of 10)

With Love, From Planet B is a very ambitious and unique book by Zaayin Saalam, MD. It blends various genres including speculative-fiction, sci-fi, psychological fiction, and LGBTQA+. It also heavily champions ideas and concepts that can be considered feminist, progressive, liberal, and even New Age. It also explores some themes that, in psychological terms, could be considered, Freudian or Lacanian such as the significance of latent thoughts, particularly in dreaming, and of the repression of thoughts, emotions, and memories both as a defense mechanism and as a natural process.

This is a very deep and highly involved book!

Interestingly, despite the narrative not being particularly fond of organized religion (particularly Islam, the dominant religion of the author's birth country, Pakistan), the book has an undeniable spiritual and metaphysical essence to it. A lot of this book deals with things we (as human beings) can't physically touch, feel, or even see like thoughts, feelings, emotions, and memories. However, that doesn't make them any less real.

There's also a very fascinating theme or concept in this book relating to “the dark.” “The dark” is both the actual state of being dark (the absence of visible light or photons without the sun, bulbs, lamps, lanterns, and torches to emit it/them) and the metaphysical dark—the unknown, the other, the unfamiliar. These things, according to the book, lead to irrational fears like intolerance, distrust, hatred, anger, violence, and eventually even war. It's a powerful and rather brilliant message!

There is a caveat to pushing such brilliant message, however, and that's the risk of being overly-didacted, overbearing, and preachy. The narrative of this book definitely comes across as overly-didacted, overbearing, and preachy.

Like we said in our review of Quantum Consequence:

Be subtle, not forceful.
Be tactful, not pushy.

We want to again use the example of Rise from the Blue by Boade Mandeng as a book that had the complete opposite point of view (a very right-wing, conservative point of view) and that we deemed to be overly forceful and pushy about that particularly message.

With Love, From Planet B also falls into this trap.

You don't want your social commentary and political rantings to be so loud, so boisterous, and so obvious that they completely distract from (and derail) the plot and the characters. Well, we hate to say it, but this book is probably the best example of this happening.

The plot and the characters, while they exist, don't seem as important as the messages and ideas the author is promoting/pushing. Heck, there are times when you forget that these characters are even characters and that there's an actual plot playing out in the background. We're not even kidding. The narrative is just too busy with its social commentary and ranting. It's just too busy with promoting and pushing ideas. Again, that's fine to an extent, but you can't have it completely distract from and derail your story and characters. Let's put it this way: it just stops being fun after a certain point. A little commentary is fine until it becomes a full-blown diatribe about why men, religion, big corporations, and the right are the problem, which this seems to devolve into (unfortunately).

We are so happy that the author has a voice. We're so happy that they have a point of view. We are so happy that they have big, huge ideas and big, huge things to say. The problem is, are those things contributing to or detracting from the story? And what even is the story? We can summarize it for you like every other reviewer probably would:

The year is 2085. Right-wing religious fundamentalists have taken over under the umbrella of a New World Order known as Free OWN, an unscrupulous and corrupt global union of nations. Freedoms are limited. Women in particular are restricted and basically give birth only with the aid of technology. The “truth” (or, rather, the government's narrative) is virtually programmed into everyone. Misinformation is rampant. Religious and political dogma is pushed and promoted everywhere. What used to be America is in shambles after multiple natural disasters caused by climate change—an enormous fire on the West Coast known as the “Last Fire” and multiple “category 9” hurricanes on the East Coast—and another civil war between the red and blue states (probably fought by people who read the last eight books in this contest and grew to hate the other side).

The Earth is like 4 degrees Celcius warmer.

IQs are 20% lower and androgen levels have plummeted from what they used to be. Pretty much everyone is mentally ill and requires medication. People don't have physical sex and many deny their own bodies and sexuality.

There is “8G” WiFi in this society that starts slowing down, showing ads, and asking you extra questions when you start searching for things the government doesn't want you to (or when you try to manually input information). People are glued to their phones and hardly look up, getting most of their information from the internet, which—at this point—is controlled by the theocratic oligarchs. So, there's some more social commentary for you in case you needed more.

Autoimmune diseases have run amok, probably because of the rejection of inoculation and vaccination.

There's a severe rejection of science and math by these alt-right nut jobs.

Ideas are pushed like “math magic” which is the playful way of calling your mathematics heresy.

Natural disasters caused by climate change are downplayed or hidden by the state-controlled media and social media platforms (through algorithm manipulation or outright deletion of the content).

We are told that “Climate change discriminated by latitude, which meant it discriminated by skin color.” And the way that the character came to that conclusion is because their home country, Pakistan, along with the rest of the Middle East and parts of Africa were destroyed by tsunamis. But wait a minute... didn't the mostly-white Americans get hit by massive fires and hurricanes? Didn't Europe erupt into war and become “the most violent place” because of the changes. Didn't South America get turned into an inhospitable, unlivable desert? So... it almost seems like climate change didn't discriminate after all. It screwed everyone.

And it's all our fault because we ignored a warning about global warming in 2015.

Oh, yeah, there's also an AI called ROB and a few rival AIs, one that appears to want to nuke North America and destroy ROB or something like that, and the other is Unity, the heroic feminist/female-AI that the characters expect to save everyone (because, of course, men suck and are responsible for everything bad).

Anyway... we finally get to know our main characters: Dr. Zara Ali and her wife, Lexi, giving readers some LGBTQA+ representation. As a side note, this is the third consecutive lesbian couple in a book we've read this year in which one (or both) happen to be doctors. Is that... like a trope or cliché at this point? At least the author of this book is an actual MD, so it kinda makes sense this time around. But, like, what are the odds? Maybe our brains ARE all connected! Dun dun duuun...

In any case, notice how we're 800+ words into this review and we're finally mentioning the main characters. That's kinda how this book feels. They're afterthoughts. It's not about them, it's about the world, the universe, society—macro ideas and far-reaching concepts. And, to be perfectly honest, that's kinda unfortunate because Zara and Lexi had a ton of potential if they weren't completely overshadowed by the world-building and the social commentary.

Lexi is a mathematician and occasionally philosophizes about how the universe (and events therein) can be predicted and explained mathematically, which is actually a pretty interesting concept (and at least partly true). Heck, that's how physics leads to us being able to plan, calculate, and launch missions to space. It's how Evel Knievel could confidently jump the Grand Canyon. It's mathematical.

Dr. Zara Ali has a very interesting job/role. She's a Master Lucid Dreamer who is able to use dream technology to essentially astral project, exploring and discovering knowledge that those who are locked exclusively in their physical bodies simply can't. That's, perhaps, an analogy for the experience of being trans. In fact, characters often repeat the phrase “My body is not real. My thoughts and feelings are not real.” This, again, seems to be thinly-veiled social commentary about how society expects us to reject how we feel even when we have a conviction (being LGBTQA+) that we are, for example, trans, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. A lot of this book criticizes organized religion and societies for encouraging people to deny their “true selves” or to even hate themselves. There's actually some ammunition to that. Organized religions like Christianity and Islam are often infamous for encouraging people to experience a sense of guilt and shame—guilt and shame for not following God's law or rules (or that of a church or doctrine). So, we don't necessarily fault the author for this social commentary.

We do kinda wish that they didn't quote passages from religious texts that appear to encourage people to accept and experience shame, deny themselves, be intolerant, and/or to suffer as a kind of martyrdom almost as if to demonize people who live by or believe in these texts. We also wish they didn't feature Muhammad, Moses, and Buddha out-of-character (perhaps as idealized versions of the subconscious or to further the establishment's AI's message). It just seems... wrong. It seems a bit mean-spirited and disingenuous too. Like, why portray these venerated religious leaders in a way that's so unlike the religious and historical records? Why be so contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian? It just seems arbitrary, unnecessary, belittling, and disparaging.

In fact, going back to those passages in which peoples' IQs and androgen levels are insulted... that seems mean-spirited too. It really brings down the mood and comes across as persecutory and accusatory, the opposite of what the author was probably going for. It almost seems like the author is pointing their finger in your face and saying, “YOU DID THIS!” It's not a fun or enjoyable experience. In fact, it's kinda painful in that regard.

Notice how we could barely write two paragraphs about the characters without completely going off the rails about the social commentary. That's literally how this book is, for better or for worse.

Anyway, Zara and Lexi are able to lucidly dream and reach places that are inaccessible to others including an enigmatic world known as Planet B.

They meet and see all sorts of strange people and things including some octopuses that start talking to and encouraging them (yes, really). However, perhaps the most amazing thing (or people) they encounter are women with a very interesting philosophy: valuing the dark. Again, the dark isn't just the physical state of darkness, it's also concepts and ideas that are foreign, unfamiliar, unseen, or unknown. These are the things we repress or even fight against including people who are different from us or with ideas we disagree with. The dance/song that the women sing to explain their philosophy is the absolute best-written part of the book. Heck, it's the highlight!

Now, with that said, that was also probably the preachiest and most man-hating part of the book. Basically, these women basically talk about the “Three Spiritual Diseases”:

1. The fear of the dark, as explained earlier (twice)
2. “The male-god virus” (which we interpreted as “misogyny “ for the sake of our sanities). And by the way, basically every major male philosopher of the ancient world gets listed as part of the problem. This also includes how women in the world of this book give birth without intimacy, enjoyment, control, and consent and how that it's linked to a DNA mutation that they've essentially been bred like prized Farm Fair animals to have, probably so that evil men can push their evil agenda of evilhood and control. It's weird how ridiculous yet plausible that sounds.
3. “The disillusioned desire to have gods to worship”

So, we interpreted #3, as we did certain passages in both the Codex Sohrakia and Quantum Consequence as:

“Organized religion and dogma suck.”

Do you guys, like, watch the same YouTube videos or attend the same classes or something? It can't be a coincidence that so many authors are echoing the exact same things at relatively the exact same time.

You know, at least this section of the book has a few truly awesome quotes. One of our favorites is:

“From the sword to the gun that imitates the phallus. Look at how they feel proud instead of feeling callous.”

That's a Freudian concept if we ever saw one.

Just about everything these shaman women say, even when it's wild and crazy as hell, is still written so well with a combination of rhyming and alliteration techniques. These women should have a rap battle!

There's another awesome quote:

“Attention! With our modern attention economy, we literally pay with our attention. Our attention is owned. It’s a commodity and a currency.”

The writing in this book (along with the world-building) are some of its exceptional qualities.

This book is incredibly ambitious and unique, and that's both to its benefit and detriment. We applaud the author for being bold and trying something new. The thing: it's a bit... too much. It really seems like the author was trying accomplish way too much and contain far too many themes, concepts, and ideas into one book. For that reason, it comes across as disjointed and lacking in cohesion. The pacing is also thrown off by this. There are huge, 2-3 hour sections of this book that just seem like wandering, meandering, directionless mind-trips (and they pretty much are). That really explains why this book is so long, perhaps 80-100 pages longer than it arguably should be. There's so much wandering and meandering with the characters trying to find themselves and their way. Meanwhile, you almost get the sense that the author herself was trying to buy time en route to finding direction and a plot. So many times, we found ourselves saying or thinking, “Yeah, and where is this going?” or “Interesting passage. Is it going to play into what happens next?”

We kept wanting the people in the book to just get to the point and get back to the plot. At least our patience was somewhat rewarded since the last hour or so started to tie up some of the plot threads, use some of the many lessons the characters learned, and actually featured some action toward resolving the ultimate conflict.

If we were going to compare it to any one thing, it would be the Star Wars Sequels. They had their own charm. They had some action. They had some interesting story threads. However, a lot of the men like Poe and Finn were either evil, useless, wrong or ended up sucking. The women (Holdo, Rey, and arguably Rose) won the day because... of course they did.
There's just a sense of something not sitting right with this book. It just seemed a bit too preachy and a bit too mean-spirited, going after so many people (at least half of the human population) in one book: men and religious people in particular. And most of all, the plot got relegated to the background for like 85% of the book. We started with something resembling a plot, got incredibly sidetracked, then returned to something resembling a plot near the end. This probably could've just been a non-fiction philosophy book, and it probably would've been fine.
Oh, on a positive note... beside the writing and some of the world-building, there was one other aspect we liked: the sex between the main couple in this book actually seemed satisfying, earned, and deserved. It wasn't just thrown at us willy-nilly in the first 10-30 pages like other books have done. And it didn't just happen in machine-gun fashion like these people were frisky rabbits or something. No, it was gradually built and worked toward throughout the book. There was actually tension and suspense about whether or not these two would ever actually be able to be physically intimate with each other. That's something we commend the book and the author for.

Check it out on Amazon!