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| Cover by http://www.blacksheep-uk.com |
Alastair Reynolds
Gollancz, 10 January 2019
HB, 432pp
I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of Shadow captain via Netgalley.
Following from 2016's Revenger, Shadow Captain picks up the fortunes of the Ness sisters, Arafura and Adrana, now that they have found each other, destroyed the dread pirate captain Bosa Sennen and seized her ship, the Nightjammer.
If Revenger was subtitled The True and Accurate Testimony of Arafura Ness, then Shadow Captain is written from Adrana's. Together the two volumes dramatise the distrusts that have been sown between the sisters - in particular by Bosa's attempts to condition Adrana to be her successor. Bosa is a wonderful, monstrous creation, not one women but a whole series pursuing her cruel schemes out there in the darkness on the edge of empty space... Bosa may be dead, but the grip of the shadow captain is still tight on this book, with a real doubt as to whether or not Adrana has a bit too much of Bosa in her.
This story is very much a yarn in the best, Stevensonian vein. It may be set millions of years in the future, after the Earth and all the planets have been shattered and reworked into millions of worlds that form a could around the sun. There may have been umpteen 'occupations' - civilisations reaching across the solar system - in all that time. There may be aliens ('crawlies'). But it's a pirate novel, all the same, as 'sun jammers' - spacecraft propelled by vast sails to catch the solar flux - ply their trade, 'privateers' raid cryptic, deadly vaults - 'baubles' - which contain client treasure and technology and above all, in the way that the story is ruled by lust for the clinking 'quoins' which have become humanity's universal store of value. Rumoured to contain human souls, rumoured to... well, there are all sorts of rumours, the quoins have an air of mystery about them, a mystery that Bosa was apparently determined to crack.
Reynolds pays close attention to the mood and language of his book, adopting a distinctive vocabulary (references to 'coves' and 'leagues' abound) that reinforces the nautical atmosphere. Together with the scattering of small ports furnished by his millions of artificial worlds and the fragmented, disparate nature of the society that inhabits them, we have the perfect background for a story of escape (the Ness sisters originally ran away from their safe home to escape boredom and marriage and to seek adventure), treachery, revenge (of course) and battle (of course).
As the story opens, the two sisters are reflecting on their position. Their ship, Revenger, formerly Nightjammer, and her ex captain, have such a grim reputation that they're liable to be engaged on sight by any legitimate vessel (and most that aren't). Nobody is likely to believe the story that Senn is no more - it's just the sort of ruse she'd invent to take in an unwary captain. So how can the sisters and their crew trade for necessities and recruit the new shipmates they need? Will they be driven into a pariah existence, on the edge of the Empty, everyone's hand against them?
Reynolds has great fun with this scenario, with the mistrust between the sisters and with the lingering doubts about Bosa while steering his craft - sorry, the language is catching! - from skirmish to mystery to raid. There's even an extended sequence with a distinctly noirish feel, taking place on a beaten up space station ruled over by a grotesque crime boss and where it actually rains most of the time. Yes, I know that sounds as though it shouldn't work but work it does, creating a real atmosphere of menace and threat.
Behind all this, of course, is the deeper mystery, the story of the Occupations, how they happen and why they end and the nature of the quoins. The successive civilisations - interspersed by ages of barbarity - mean that humanity's history and destiny is shrouded, hidden (and one begins to suspect, there are those who want it to stay that way). Driven by nothing more than sheer curiosity, the Ness sisters are determined to find the truth - if not swallowed up first by pirate ghosts, deadly baubles or some other catastrophe they bring down upon themselves - and I really, really hope that Reynolds writes that resolution to the series.
Excellent space opera-y, pirate-y adventure. Strongly recommended.
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