Skip to main content

Revenger (SF) - Alastair Reynolds *****

I confess I got this rather back-to-front, reading the second novel in this series, Shadow Captain before this, the first. If anything, Revenger is slightly better than the second title, though both are excellent, and my opinion of the second book has been raised by reading this one, because it benefits from the context.

We follow the Ness sisters Arafura and Adrana into space in this far future adventure. What I didn't realise on reading the second novel, which is written from the viewpoint of Adrana, is that the first was written from the viewpoint of Arafura, and this contrasting approach really opens up some interesting aspects of what's going on and the differences between the sisters.

By far the best thing about this book is Reynolds' superb world-building. This is a very different solar system, millions of years in the future, when the planets have been long demolished producing millions of small habitats which have been repeatedly occupied and lost in a series of rises and falls of civilisation (the so-called Occupations). We see Arafura go from a rather spoiled brat sister to the older and more cynical Adrana to being a hard case who is driven to take on a piratical captain. Seeing the development of Arufura's character gives her a bit more depth than is clear in Shadow Captain, where she merely comes across as difficult, manipulative and far too young for her actions. It's interesting to wonder if the less pleasant Arafura in the second book is intended to be real or just Adrana's biassed viewpoint.

There are also elements of the back story here which help explain some aspects of Shadow Captain, notably the nature of the coinage 'quoins', which play a significant part in the latter - it might have been helpful if that revelation had been brought through to the second book.

One oddity that struck me in Shadow Captain, but even more so here, is the peculiar use of language. Given this is set millions of years in the future, we can't expect them to be speaking English - so anything we read is effectively posed as a translation. That being the case, I don't understand why just a few words are rendered in a peculiar fashion. (I'm not talking about the 'common' usage, such as 'ain't' and 'coves', which is fine as dialect.) Most notably, air is called 'lungstuff'. This seems designed to give the writing an appropriate period feel for the piratepunk atmosphere (there may not be such a word, but there ought to be), but it sits strangely and seems unnecessary.

Overall, a great story with so many interesting ideas that translates the classic shipboard adventure into the far future with great aplomb.
Paperback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Infinity Plus: Quintet (SF) - Keith Brooke (Ed.) ****

When I was younger there was nothing I liked better than a good, deep, dark (frankly, often downright miserable) science fiction story, and this collection delivers excellent modern examples that would have fit easily into a thoughtful if downbeat 70s collection such as the 'New Writing in SF' or the Interzone magazine of the day (one was actually first published in Interzone, in 1987 - the rest date between 1989 and 2010).

If I'm honest, I prefer more upbeat fiction now, but that doesn't stop me appreciating the quality of these five stories, put together by the SF website and publisher Infinity Plus. I've rarely seen a better contradiction of Margaret Atwood's putdown of science fiction as being limited to 'talking squids in outer space.' What we have here is pure character-driven storytelling with not a mention of space, spaceships, ray guns or aliens. It's the inner world, not the outer trappings of sci fi tropes that interest these writers.

On…
Post a Comment
Read more

The Lost Planets - John Wenz **

Reading the first few lines of the introduction to this book caused a raised eyebrow. In 1600, it tells us, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake 'for his radical views - that not only was the Sun just one of many stars, but those stars likely had planets around them as well.' Unfortunately, this bends the truth. Bruno was burned at the stake for holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith - for conventional heretical beliefs amongst which his ideas on cosmology were trivial. This was an unfortunate start.

What John Wenz gives us is a people-driven story of the apparent early discovery of a number of planets orbiting other stars, made by Peter van de Kamp and his colleagues at Swarthmore College in America, most notably connected to a relatively obscure star called Barnard's star. Wenz is at his best dealing with personal conflict. The book really comes alive in a middle section where van de Kamp's discoveries are starting to be challenged. This chapter works wel…
Post a Comment
Read more

Bone Silence (SF) - Alastair Reynolds *****

Of all the best modern SF writers, Alastair Reynolds is arguably the supreme successor to the writers of the golden age. He gives us wide-ranging vision, clever concepts and rollicking adventure - never more so than with his concluding book of the Ness sisters trilogy.

Neatly, after the first title, Revenger was written from the viewpoint of one sister, Arafura and the second, Shadow Captain, had the other sister Adrana as narrator, this book is in the third person. It neatly ties up many of the loose ends from the previous books, but also leaves vast scope for revelations to cover in the future if Reynolds decides to revisit this world (he comments in his acknowledgements 'I am, for the time being, done with the Ness sisters. Whether they are done with me remains to be seen.')

As with the previous books, the feel here is in some ways reminiscent of the excellent TV series Firefly, but with pirates rather than cowboys transported into a space setting. Set millions of years in…
Post a Comment
Read more