Review - Slow Gods by Claire North

Slow Gods

Claire North
Orbit, 18 November 2025 
Available as: HB, 422pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy 
ISBN(HB): 9780356526188

I'm grateful to Orbit for sending me a copy of Slow Gods  to consider for review.

After three books telling the story of what happens at home while Odysseus is adventuring, Claire North still has something to say about the gods - though here they are not Olympian deities but mighty computer systems, going about their inscrutable business across the galaxy. One, in particular, is referred to as "the Slow" because it eschews faster-than-light "arc travel". But one might equally accuse them of being "slow" to act against injustice and oppression in human affairs, which are illustrated in the opening sections of this book by the sad story of Mawukana na-Vdnaze. 

Maw has the misfortune to be born in the polity known as the Shine, a nakedly exploitative territory that works its common people to the grave to support the small minority who are Shiny - possessed of an indefinable mix of wealth, flair and assertion which gives them a passport to success. 

Maw does not have Shine, and his fate follows from that, leading him to a transformation ("I am a very poor copy of myself") which makes him, in the eyes of some - including himself - a monster, a ghost. 

The focus of the book is, in part, how Maw deals with that monsterdom, and seeks to be, if a monster, then a monster on the side of the angels - whether that means resisting the Shine, or working hard on the crisis of his time, the foretold collapse of a binary star system. When it occurs, this supernova will create an intense expanding shell of radiation and extinguish life for hundreds of lightyears. This will obliterate many of the Shine worlds, but also the planet Adjumir, on which a galaxy-wide rescue effort focusses.

I loved the way that North describes Adjumir and its people - "describe" is perhaps the wrong world, they conjure it up through stories, songs, language and the behaviour of the Adjumiris and especially Gebre, a spiky archivist who Maw meets on his rescue mission. Throughout this book we get snippets of history, turning into laments for what's been lost, for the fractured lives of exiles in the Adjumiri diaspora.

There's also haunting love story between Gebre and Maw, who only meet on two occasions - a fusion of duty, desire, loss and inevitable fate which gives the book its core, and a core of steel.

Entwined about that core are conspiracies, plots, secrets and lies, as well as the reprehensible behaviour of the Shine authorities. They see the threat of the coming supernova and refuse to act, indeed suppressing knowledge of it in their territories. (Thank goodness no nation today would act like that, ignoring a planet-killing threat for their own selfish convenience!) 

Through all this, we see Maw's gradual coming to terms with what he is and what he's done. This is often through the exploration of the myriad languages of the Galaxy and their customs and social structures, particularly a diverse assembly of genders (expect multiple systems of pronouns). It's a slow awakening for him, the dry tones of the editorial Maw writing this at some later point in his life counterpointing the passion of what he did and said in his story (and we're warned, this won't always be a reliable account). He's a character who finds it hard to forgive himself for some terrible things, something that, perhaps, allows him an insight into the otherwise inscrutable minds of the gods. I recall the frequent pleas in the Bible to a mighty God who yet permits suffering. How long, O Lord, how long? How long will the unrighteous prosper? How long will the innocent be oppressed? Rescue your people! Reveal yourself before the nations in your might, and cast down the evildoer!

A question we, in our day, might well ask...

Slow Gods gives a hint, a flavour, of the true complexity of that prayer, and of what it might take to answer it. Because there's always a cost to action - as Maw discovers one awful night on Adjumir. And it does so in a warm, generous narrative where monsters and failed, imperfect beings may contemplate their own very essence and deeds and seek redemption, even if - as suggested in a coda to the story - that seems to obliterate justice. 

Slow Gods is an enthralling, intelligent and absorbing story which revives the genre of space opera and adds North's distinct tone of moral questioning. A brilliant book. Buy this one as a present for the SF nerd in your life, and if that's yourself, just buy it!

For more information about Slow Gods, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - Beyond the Reach of Earth by Ken MacLeod

Beyond the Reach of Earth (Lightspeed Trilogy, 2)

Ken MacLeod

Pyr, 18 July 2023

Available as: PB, 328pp, audio, e

Source: Advance copy (UK edition)

ISBN(PB): 9781645060659

Warning - there are spoilers here for Book 1 in this trilogy, Beyond the Hallowed Sky, which I'd strongly advise you to read first. (If you haven't read it, or are hazy about the details, there is a helpful precis in Book 2, but the first book is so much fun, you really ought to read it).

In a clever sequel to Beyond the Hallowed Sky, MacLeod returns to his near future world (the book is largely set in the 2070s) dominated by three blocs - the Alliance (Anglosphere including rump UK), the Union (ex EU, including Scotland) and the Co-ord (Russia and China). The Union is particularly interesting, embodying a post-Revolution society and therefore viewed with especial suspicion by the other two (this is hilariously illustrated in some spoof tabloid headlines that crop up towards the end of the book).

MacLeod is very good, as we've seen in other books, at plausible just-over-the-horizon politics and societal development - indeed his portrayal of societies and their relationship with their citizens is one of the things I always look forward to. As a subject it's as fascinating and important as the future tech in these books. Or perhaps I should say that unlike many SF writers he appreciates the interplay between both: the societies influenced by the tech, the path of the tech driven by the science, and all deeply enmeshed with strong, relatable characters who just belong in their background. 

Above and beyond that, this book has a deeply satisfying, ramified plot involving espionage, slightly scary AI (I really want to know more about Iskander, the universal intercase to the Union's predictive/ assistive AI which attempts to preempt the needs of its citizens - but also, it's hinted, serves other goals besides) and a more than slightly scary robot. For me, all that made Beyond the Reach of Earth very enjoyable to read.

A spirited rendition of The Internationale didn't go amiss either, performed here when some Union settlers arrive on the newly discovered planet Apis, albeit escorted by the perfidious Alliance English who have shuttled them there for obscure reasons in their FTL spacecraft. And indeed the settlers bring their own distinct approach to Apis, refusing to fall into the "homesteader" mode urged by their hosts. Politics are never far beneath the surface here, whether the politics of superpower deterrence, threatened by the discovery of FTL travel and restored by the strangest of means, politics between the constituent entities of the "economic democracy", the Union, which come into play when the state gets its own FTL craft though the ingenuity of a small shipbuilding firm and a causal loop, or the attempts by the various powers to deal with the enigmatic Fermi, aliens of unimaginable power who occupy outcrops of rock on Earth, Venus... and Apis.

And if aliens incarnated in rocks shaping the future of humanity sounds familiar to you, it's an idea that MacLeod himself has fun with, some of his characters spotting the parallel to a certain bestselling SF series of the late 20th century. (This being Book 2 of 3 we don't get to find out how close a parallel that will turn out being).

In summary, this is smart, well-written SF, great fun to read and every bit as good as Beyond the Hallowed Sky. It's a middle volume of a trilogy that builds on the first, rather than just marking time waiting for the conclusion - which nevertheless I'm really looking forward to. I'd recommend.

You can purchase Beyond the Reach of Earth from Amazon here.

#Review - Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Nona the Ninth (Locked Tomb, 3)
Tamsyn Muir
Recorded Books, 13 September 2022 
Available as: HB, 477pp, audio, 17 hours 46min, e  
Source: Audio subscription 
ASIN: B0B1QRHPH9

Nona the Ninth is the third part of the Locked Tomb sequence, after Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth. 

It is very hard to describe the relationship between this book and the previous because, first, that requires both of the other books to be thoroughly spoiled and secondly, the relationship is pretty obscure. (If you like things neat, cut, and dried, you'll find the progression infuriating).

On the other hand, as a self-contained story, it's s bit easier to describe what is going on, and I think Nona can be read perfectly well at that level (though you will then miss some allusions to the others).

Nona is a young woman living on a planet or colony world that is either itself in rebellion against the Galactic Empire or part of a wider uprising (details are not exactly clear). The rebellion is driven by a faction called the Sons of Eden who are themselves riven into cliques will to fight each other. The Sons of Eden object to the Emperor's necromantic power (necromancy is the fundamental fact of all the books). Nona is cared for by three adults called Camilla Heat, Palamedes and Pyrrha who are either sheltering from the conflict among other refugees, or outright lying low. The four, and Nona in particular, are of interest to the Sons of Eden (which features members with names like We Suffer and We Suffer, and Crown Him With Many Crowns). Nona is either attending or working at a school for refugees kids, at which she becomes entwined with Hot Sauce and her gang.

There is a lot more going on here of course. Key issues in the book include Nona's identity - both the nature of the strong, kind and resourceful girl we see stepping off the page here, and who she might really be (whatever that means - if you've read the other books you may have a hint of the issues but no spoilers!)

Camilla and Palamedes do seem to be the same characters as their namesakes in early books, although there is a wrinkle on that which is never directly stated but which you'll work out.

I should add that it's actually a lot easier to follow all this if you read the audio. As ever, Moira Quirk performs miracles in bringing the various characters to vivid life and she gives them distinct voices which makes it much more straightforward to follow what is going on when some of the more, er, obscure things happen. If you can I'd strongly recommend reading the book that way.

In terms of plot development within the Locked Tombiverse, at one level there are few surprises here - the rebellion, and the Empire's difficulties, were already established - but at another, there is a lot of detail about the deep origins of the Emperor, making clear that, yes, this is our universe, and sort-of showing what the original sin was that led to the Locked Tomb.

On the other hand, Nona the Ninth is an absolutely brilliant episode in the wider story, Nona herself being a gloriously character who is absolutely having a great time in her life, despite the variety of weird and creepy things going on around her. Muir allows her a much more uncomplicated network of relationships and friendships that anyone in the earlier books did (even if we suspect there are some ulterior motives going on) and that gives the book a much lighter atmosphere than its predecessors. Away from the gothicism of the Nine Houses, it seems that humans can still breathe a bit and that is good to see.

All in all, a delightful story which I'd highly recommend. It seems this trilogy has now stretched to four books and I won't argue with that, not one bit, if Muir keeps delivering such sharp, engaging episodes.

#Review - Beyond the Reach of Earth by Ken MacLeod

Beyond the Reach of Earth (Lightspeed Trilogy, Two)

Ken MacLeod

Orbit, 23 March 2023

Available as: PB, 368pp, audio, e

Source: Advance copy

ISBN(PB): 9780356514802

I'm grateful to Orbit for an advance e-copy of Beyond the Reach of Earth via Netgalley to consider for review.

Warning - there are spoilers here for Book 1 in this trilogy, Beyond the Hallowed Sky, which I'd strongly advise you to read first. (If you haven't read it, or are hazy about the details, there is a helpful precis in Book 2, but the first book is so much fun, you really ought to read it).

In a clever sequel to Beyond the Hallowed Sky, MacLeod returns to his near future world (the book is largely set in the 2070s) dominated by three blocs - the Alliance (Anglosphere including rump UK), the Union (ex EU, including Scotland) and the Co-ord (Russia and China). The Union is particularly interesting, embodying a post-Revolution society and therefore viewed with especial suspicion by the other two (this is hilariously illustrated in some spoof tabloid headlines that crop up towards the end of the book).

MacLeod is very good, as we've seen in other books, at plausible just-over-the-horizon politics and societal development - indeed his portrayal of societies and their relationship with their citizens is one of the things I always look forward to. As a subject it's as fascinating and important as the future tech in these books. Or perhaps I should say that unlike many SF writers he appreciates the interplay between both: the societies influenced by the tech, the path of the tech driven by the science, and all deeply enmeshed with strong, relatable characters who just belong in their background. 

Above and beyond that, this book has a deeply satisfying, ramified plot involving espionage, slightly scary AI (I really want to know more about Iskander, the universal intercase to the Union's predictive/ assistive AI which attempts to preempt the needs of its citizens - but also, it's hinted, serves other goals besides) and a more than slightly scary robot. For me, all that made Beyond the Reach of Earth very enjoyable to read.

A spirited rendition of The Internationale didn't go amiss either, performed here when some Union settlers arrive on the newly discovered planet Apis, albeit escorted by the perfidious Alliance English who have shuttled them there for obscure reasons in their FTL spacecraft. And indeed the settlers bring their own distinct approach to Apis, refusing to fall into the "homesteader" mode urged by their hosts. Politics are never far beneath the surface here, whether the politics of superpower deterrence, threatened by the discovery of FTL travel and restored by the strangest of means, politics between the constituent entities of the "economic democracy", the Union, which come into play when the state gets its own FTL craft though the ingenuity of a small shipbuilding firm and a causal loop, or the attempts by the various powers to deal with the enigmatic Fermi, aliens of unimaginable power who occupy outcrops of rock on Earth, Venus... and Apis.

And if aliens incarnated in rocks shaping the future of humanity sounds familiar to you, it's an idea that MacLeod himself has fun with, some of his characters spotting the parallel to a certain bestselling SF series of the late 20th century. (This being Book 2 of 3 we don't get to find out how close a parallel that will turn out being).

In summary, this is smart, well-written SF, great fun to read and every bit as good as Beyond the Hallowed Sky. It's a middle volume of a trilogy that builds on the first, rather than just marking time waiting for the conclusion - which nevertheless I'm really looking forward to. I'd recommend.

For more information about Beyond the Reach of Earth, see the publisher's website here.

#Blogtour - The Stars Undying by Emery Robin

The Stars Undying
Emery Robin
Orbit, 10 November 2022
Available as: PB, 516pp, e, audio
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356519388  

I'm grateful to Orbit for sending me a copy of The Stars Undying to consider for review, and to Tracy for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Gosh. What can I say about this one? The Stars Undying really got its teeth into me - it made me resent everyday intrusions (eating, sleeping...) that stopped me reading it.

An achievement, I think, the more so since you'd think a book self-proclaimedly inspired by the empires of Ancient Rome and Egypt (ie the story of Caesar, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra) is going to have to work hard to overcome the reader's assumption that they know what's coming. Some pressure, perhaps?

Well, there's no way Emery Robin lets that pressure show, or that The Stars Undying seems to be straining for effect. Rather, this beautifully written, exciting and sensual novel of rulers, religion, warfare, empire and artificial intelligence (really!) drew me in from the very start. It's a lowkey opening - we see Gracia, a young princess of the planet of Sayzet, fleeing her sister and escaping off planet - but the wiring is immersive and enthralling from there right though to the when Gracia... well, that would be a spoiler, but it's an amazing scene. Gracia's development though all her tribulations and challenges is fascinating, sometime horrifying and always unpredictable: at the beginning she may seem out of her depth, a victim, a loser, but there are depths to her where she finds the resolve to beguile great men - and women - and to plot her own path forward.

Also fascinating is Ceirran, the Caesar figure here, a restless protagonist - I'd hesitate to call anyone here a hero - Commander of the forces of Ceiao, general, politician, schemer, a man in a hurry - but so much more. Both of these, however, are made richer as characters by the complex cultural, religious and political background which Robin sketches - here's where the inspiration from Rome and Egypt really counts, but you also have to  recognise the Hellenistic layer in the background to early BCE Egypt, which Robin also references: the sweep of empires and the deaths of gods and conquerers has left the galaxy portrayed here richly textured, with Gracia, Ceirran and many others having to negotiate a treacherous landscape of historic animosities, debts and paradoxes. 

This is nowhere more true than in the capital city of Ceiao, where Ceirran, an outsider on the make, clashes with the descendants of priests and kings. He's aided by his close supporter, Captain Anita who is one of the most fascinating characters I've come across in science fiction or fantasy for a long time - able, cynical, full of contradictions, equally at home on the training field, speaking in Council for Ceirran or dancing in a scuzzy bar, she attracts and repels Gracia from the start, and the tension between them crackles from the pages of The Stars Undying.

While this is a novel characterised by sweeping distances - it's not bothered about covering billions of light years - towering themes (love, treachery, loss and vengeance to name but a few) - and often, a sensuality that simply grabs - it is also a book where the small things count. Details of conversations. The voices here - Gracia and Ceirran, yes, but who is speaking to whom, and why? And actions on the margins. All matter to the working of a complex and satisfying story that satisfies on many, many levels.

All in all, a brilliant book I'd have no hesitation in recommending (and I'm counting down the days till I can read a sequel!)

For more information about The Stars Undying, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy The Stars Undying from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, Waterstones or Amazon.

#Review - Catalyst Gate by Megan E O'Keefe

Catalyst Gate (The Protectorate, 3)
Megan E O'Keefe
Orbit, 24 June 2021
Available as: PB, 608pp, e, audio
Source: Advance e-copy provided by the publisher
ISBN(PB): 9780356512259

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of Catalyst gate, via #NetGalley.

Catalyst Gate is the third book in The Protectorate trilogy (after Velocity Weapon and Chaos Vector). The Protectorate is absolutely the kind of trilogy you need to read in order and if you haven't read the others, and you want to understand whether to read the trilogy, you need to go back to my earlier reviews and not read on here because spoilers. (Hint: you should read the trilogy).

If you've been following The Protectorate you will almost certainly want to read the third part, so part of me wonders what I'm actually doing in this review. I often have this with trilogies, and my answer is basically (1) How well is the author closing off her sequence - does this book stand comparison well with the others? (2) How good is the trilogy overall?

Taking these questions in order, my answer to the first would be, VERY WELL. There are a lot of moving parts in The Protectorate. The story follows Sanda, a commander of the Fleet who's been through all kinds of weird stuff; experimented on by a hostile power; deceived by the first incarnation of the AI known as Bero into believing that her world has been smashed and that she has been marooned in deep space for decades; romanced by plausible rogue, spy-for-hire and, potentially, artificial lifeform, Tomas; framed for an assassination and hunted by her own side; and much more besides. It follows Sanda's brother Biran, a rising politician and Keeper in The Protectorate, who has discovered that its history and politics and a lot less pure that he believed. There was also the group of gutter rats who, for most of the first two books, were coping with the consequences of their disastrous heist-gone-wrong, as a result of which their leader Jules has become the loosest of loose cannons, allying with the alien entity known as Rainer.

In this third book O'Keefe deftly takes forward all these main protagonists (and more). She still has plenty to say about them all - we aren't just going through the motions - even as Rainier's endgame approaches. There are further surprises, and a series of calculated risks taken by all involved. Things kick off very quickly at the beginning of the book - there is no lengthy recap, but O'Keefe still manages to keep the reader in the frame about backstory and motivations so that the story develops organically and everyone feels "real". Yes, there were a few (a very few) exceptions, when I asked myself "why did he/ she do that?" but I feel that is inevitable in any sequence of this length.

As well as the characters, we are still learning more about this universe and its history. This is far-future SF, following humanity long after it has left Earth, and it turns out there are secrets to be told about that whole history. Topically they're bound up with the originals of "Prime Inventive", which I had always seen as a society but which is actually the descendant of a private company - the one which happened to win out in the contest to explore space. Firmly believing that nothing good can come from over-mighty corporations, I wasn't surprised to learn there'd been dirty work at the crossroads and that it involved the alien tech whose origin and purpose has been a prominent theme through this trilogy. And yes, we finally discover more about that too. 

I am, I think, moving on to my question (2) above and my answer is that while each part of this trilogy has been very good indeed, the whole has a kind of commonality and progression which makes it more than the sum of the three parts. Seen together, these books present questions - and warnings - about our stewardship not only of this planet but of the wider Universe, about loyalty, the nature of humanity and the corruptions of politics. In some ways the most human characters we meet here are composed of bits and bytes or of naneites; or are unregarded outsiders or junior players. The gilded priesthood of the Keepers shows a tendency to guile and self-interest rather than the common good, making it ten times harder to deal with the threat of Rainier and that's not an aberration but totally in keeping with the history and politics of Prime. In contrast, Sanda and her Fleeties, the rogues and criminals of the Grotta, Bero and Tomas, have a sense of humility and fragility that fires their suffering into strength and integrity. As O'Keefe writes of Sanda, 'Those pressures collided against the woman... compressed her, made her as hard and immovable as the deep ice...'

O'Keefe integrates these themes and makes her three novels into a single, coherent whole, no easy task in such a vast story, creating an absorbing and convincing world with compelling characters whose stories are told with humour and grit. I'd unreservedly recommend the sequence, if you've been waiting to see how it would turn out, and Catalyst Gate as its culmination.

For more information about Catalyst Gate, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - Residuum by Dominic Dulley

Cover by www.headdesign.co.uk

Residuum (The Long Game, 3)
Dominic Dulley
Jo Fletcher Books, 18 February 2021

Available as: PB, 497pp, e

Source: Advance e-copy

ISBN: 9781529410747

I'm grateful to Jo Fletcher Books for an advance e-copy of Residuum via NetGalley.

Residuum is the third part of The Long Game, after Shattermoon and Morhelion. (Note - there are spoilers here for those previous books).  SFF being what it is, I suppose that means it may be the final part of a trilogy - or perhaps not, there are some intriguing threads here and I hope there will be more books.  What's undeniable is that Orry (Aurelia) Kent, the hero here, definitely deserves a break, after losing her father to space pirate Cordelia Roag, losing her ship, hooking up with morose loner Mender, and helping the Imperator out of several nasty scrapes.

And at the start that's just what she's doing, relaxing with her brother Ethan on the pleasure planet, Halcyon.

However it isn't long before Orry's in trouble again, fomenting revolution and on the run from the Arbiters. Whereas in previous books Orry and Ethan were in control (kind of), running some grift or other largely with personal gain in mind and only reluctantly getting drawn into Galactic politics, here trouble comes looking for them and the book is essentially a series of heists and escapes as they attempt to turn the tables on whoever - whatever - has them in its sights. They'll make some strange friends on the way (perhaps...) and get deeper into the mysteries hinted at in the previous books: the fate of the race known as the Departed and its sought-after tech, the militaristic Kadirans, and the secrets kept by Roag.

It's a fast and furious story, matching Orry and co's talents (we must also include Quondam, the renegade Kadiran, and Dainty Jane, the sentient ship) against increasingly deadly environments, from a planet infested by rogue, human-eating tech to a waterworld run by cephalopod warlords. That means that an aspect I loved before, something I'd tentatively describe as a sense of cosiness, is lacking. What I mean by this is the situation of the small crew on a small ship, isolated and slightly bored on their long journeys but capable, between them, of dealing with pretty much anything that comes along. The more frantic pace here diminishes that, meaning less time spent on the travels and generally interacting and less attention given to the remarkable ship, Dainty Jane. (She does, though, have some excellent scenes of her own).

However that didn't actually diminish my enjoyment of the book. In a sense Orry has grown rather, though these stories, going from having to step up in Shattermoon after the attack by Roag and her father's death to someone who can drop in confidently on Fleet Admirals and demand support. She's also developed something of a moral core, looking rather disdainfully at the Ascendancy and its Ruuz aristocrats (hence the opening scenes on Halcyon). Watching her engage with a series of challenges, leading up to a true Galaxy-menacing threat, was enthralling, making for an addictive book that simply demanded I keep turning its pages. It's all I might have wishes for as a fulfilment for The Long Game (as I said, I hope there is more to come). The writing is also, as in the previous books, smart and on-point and the characters, with whom we're now pretty familiar, engaging and fun to be with.

I'd recommend Residuum, although it really needs to be read in sequence. (But then, if you haven't read the first two books you shouldn't be down here at the end of this review).

For more information about Residuum, see the Jo Fletcher Books website here.

 

Review - Chaos Vector by Megan E O'Keefe

Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

Chaos Vector (The Protectorate, 2) 

Megan E O'Keefe

Orbit, 28 July 2020

Available as: PB, 546pp, e, audio

Source: Advance PB supplied by Orbit

ISBN: 9780356512242

I'm grateful to Orbit for a free advance copy of Chaos Vector.

Following Velocity Weapon, with Chaos Vector O'Keefe takes us further into the twisted world of The Protectorate. 

Further meaning both deeper and higher.

Deeper, because while the first book focussed on a relatively straightforward rebellion in a remote system, where the planet of Icarion was challenging the local leadership of the galaxy-spanning Prime government, Chaos Vector goes beyond that conflict, revealing more about the hidden forces which have been shaping the destiny of Prime. 

Higher, because even beyond those shady figures in the background, there are greater powers at work. O'Keefe's writing is like a constantly revealed map, with each new unfold opening fresh perspectives on what went before, showing things that seemed close together as distinct and offering new symbols and features to fit into the pattern.

We begin, as in Velocity Weapon, with Major Sanda Greeve. All she ever wanted to do was to defend Prime, to protect her brother, Keeper Biran. Yet after her gunship was destroyed at the battle of Dralee, everything went wrong. She's been kidnapped by a rogue AI, put on trial for piracy by Icarion, experimented on, spaced by a traitor Keeper and - now - framed for said Keeper's murder. Sanda is pretty cross and is searching for the truth. 

Probably a bad move, as the hard-bitten gang of Grotta outcasts comprising Jules, Now and Arden discovered for themselves in the previous book when they raided the wrong warehouse for the drug Wraith and poked their noses into the wrong places in that wrong warehouse. Now they're scattered and in hiding.

We saw these two threads of story evolve in parallel throughout Velocity Weapon but not come together and I think this was a brave decision by O'Keefe, allowing each strand to develop at the right pace rather than forcing things together too early. It's not too much of a spoiler (I hope) to say that in Chaos Vector, they finally merge, as Sanda gets command of a ship again and forms her own strange but effective crew, fit to discover the weird corners of this universe. The strange gates that link distant systems. The unknown, powerful military forces that seem to have infiltrated Prime itself. The far-flung research stations pursuing knowledge that Prime forbids. It all takes off here, but to Sanda's frustration she's not free to pursue her own vendetta, but has responsibilities thrust on her - for Prime, for the Keepers and, of course, for her brother Biran. While he fights his own bureaucratic battle in conference chambers and over score links - trying to put out the fire that Icarion lit in the first book - Sanda follows a trail of breadcrumbs halfway across the galaxy.

This is a fast-moving adventure, full of epic battles, treachery, sudden reverses and above all, secrets. EVERYONE here is hiding things and the details are revealed slowly and sparingly - trust is in short supply. The real tension is not only, or not primarily, from physical conflict (although there are moments of high adrenalin conflict you have to read over and again just to be sure you got them right) but from the emotional drumbeat, the rhythm of the story, as all that is dependable, sure, and safe falls away leaving survival to the quick wits and desperate gambles of Sanda, Tomas, Biran and the rest.

If you thought at the end of Book 1 that you were beginning to understand what was going on, you'll soon realise you don't. And while a great deal is clearer by the end of Book 2, I'll guarantee that there are more surprises and twists in store in the next one - which is fine by me, I just need to get my hands on it!

Following up with the second in a series is a tricky thing to do, with the need to offer more of the same while also adding in the new, prompting the reader on what happened in the first part without too much recapping, and offering enough of a self-contained story to satisfy those strange creatures (I am sometimes one myself) who read individual volumes as standalones. O'Keefe succeeds with aplomb, delivering an intelligent space opera with compelling and flawed characters working their way through a messy, shady world where nothing is as it seems... just perfect SF really.

For more information about Chaos Vector, see the Orbit website here.

Review - Blue Planet by Jane O'Reilly

Blue Planet (Second Species, 3)

Jane O'Reilly

Piatkus, 16 July

Available as: PB, 343pp, e

Read as: PB 

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of Blue Planet.

In this third volume of Jinnifer Blue's galaxy-spanning adventures, we're reunited with familiar characters from the previous books - principally Jinn herself and Dax, of course, still in their smouldering will-they, won't-they not-relationship, even after the events of Deep Blue - but also my favourite evil Sittan empress Talta (now sadly diminished, boo...), Bryant, and of course Eve.

A lot has happened in Blue Shift and Deep Blue and this isn't a trilogy where you should pick up Book Three first - for a start you'll be missing out on so much of that smouldering (the TENSION...) as well as cringing at Dax's antics in the last book (Jinn's too good for him!) I'm not going to give a recap of all that because you should have read it, but as this book opens, humanity, already battered by environmental disaster, as about to be subject to all-out war by Talta's ships. Despite being experimented on, enslaved and delivered to the enemy by her devious mother, Jinn's still standing up for the humans and seeking to warn them of the danger. Do you think anyone listens...?

Blue Planet is a clever, satisfying and exciting conclusion to the Second Species trilogy. Alternating between Jinn and Dax's adventures in deep space, Eve trying to find a cure for Bryant after afflicting him with a deadly toxin, Talta's increasingly unstable and fragile rule on Sittan, and Ferona (Jinn's mum) struggling on a dying Earth after losing her privileges and her high office, this story gives the answers we have been waiting for, allows some an opportunity for redemption (even if they then confirm how vile they really were) and settles that all-important smouldering.

O'Reilly keeps her story humming along - this isn't one of those final volumes that loses its way just tying everything up - and produces a few surprises (do I see a bit of a Brexity tone ion Earth's avowed isolationism as announced by a senior politician at one stage?) but in general tone it's very well aligned with the first two books: a dashing space opera that focuses on the characters, far from being hard science fiction but emotionally engaging and inventive and, above all, FUN! If you've been following the series you need to read this to complete the experience. If you're one of those people who wait till a trilogy is finished before you try (I know - weird) the be told: you, also, need to read this (as well as Blue Shift and Deep Blue).

Finally, there are heartfelt thanks from the author in her acknowledgements not only to the loyal readers and to those who helped make the book, but also to those providing the services which we, in difficult timers, all rely on - and a plea that they will be remembered as well when better times come. A plea we should all echo.

For more about the book, see the publisher's website here.

Review - The Light Years by RWW Greene

The Light Years
RWW Greene
Angry Robot, 11 February 2020
PB, 327pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for providing a free advance e-copy of this book via NetGalley.

The Light Years is a slightly different take on science fiction. Focussing on two central characters, Hisako Saski and Adem Sadiq, who are contracted by their parents to marry. The twist is that while Adem, a young man in his 20s, is aware of the deal (even if he didn't actually seek it), Hisako isn't even born yet.

What evens things up is special relativity. Adem's family make their living aboard a trader starship, able to travel every close to the speed of light. A few months spent aboard for him is equivalent to ten or twenty years for those left behind. This is the truth of relativity, a branch of physics often conveniently ignored in SF. Here, it's a cornerstone of the plot. For Adem and Hisako, it means that by the time he's returned from his latest trip, she has been born, gone through childhood, adolescence, taken her degree at university, fallen in and out of love, formed a band (and left it) and much more.

And she's learned what her contracted fate is. She must marry Adem - the bargain ensuring life, she would have literally been illegal otherwise under the strict birth control laws of her homeward - and remain married for two years. There are no other obligations, yet understandably, Hisako resents Adem and she resents the choices her parents made on her behalf.

On the whole, Greene explores this situation - for both Adem and Hisako - with tact and empathy, allowing his characters to breathe and to drive what subsequently happens. Portraying Hisako is more difficult, obviously, because the book covers more than 20 years of her life and they are turbulent years, years of development and change. Understandably, not a great deal happens to Adem in the few months of his life before the wedding. It's frustrating that Hisako's life over the corresponding period has to be represented by individual episodes showing her as a young girl, at high school, and then as a somewhat stroppy teenager. These scenes have to do a great deal of work in showing Hisako grow up and I was impressed that Greene manages to do this so well given the am out that couldn't be shown. It would have been perfectly reasonable to give Hisako a whole book and Adem a few pages at the end, really.

Another main theme here is the unequal, far-future society in which Hisako, Adem and their parents live. There are stark disparities between rich and poor, no sign of democracy and many unregistered, indeed illegal, "refugees" who, if they are lucky, end up in shanty towns such as "la Merde", if unlucky, frozen forever in stasis posts or trafficked virtually as slaves. It becomes clear that these "refugees", like everybody else, have fled Earth before it was destroyed in a solar flare, sealed I those pods. The fortunes of humanity depended very much on who arrived first and who arrived where - this, of course, being influenced by their position and wealth n the first place. They result is a society scattered across several planets where a war of all against all is vigorously fought.

Key to the future of the remaining colonies is the most technology of Earth, embodied in the ancient starships, various drifting wrecks and in scattered instances of the dead cultures and societies that created it. The goal of many - including Adem's parents - is to get themselves a piece of that knowledge. That part of the plot didn't, for me, motivate quite so much as the simple, touching plight of the two young people and their need to navigate their complex society.

This is a refreshingly intelligent SF story, with few bangs and zaps (indeed the only real section of combat occurs in an immersive simulation which Hisako plays - learning as she does how much propaganda and hate there is against the inhabitants of "la Merde"). Rather, problems are solved by courage, intelligence and negotiation, the chief obstacles being lack of trust and lack of knowledge.

Its perhaps then not for everyone but I found it an excellent read and once I began, it pretty much didn't leave my hands till I was finished.

For more information about The Light Years, see the publisher's website here.

Review - Velocity Weapon by Megan E O'Keefe

Velocity Weapon
Megan E O'Keefe
Orbit, 13 June 2019
PB, 505pp

"The last thing Sanda remembers is her gunship exploding..."

I'm grateful to the ever awesome Nazia at Orbit for a free advance copy of Velocity Weapon.

Debut author O'Keefe's novel is a proper serving of space opera - a genre I don't read regularly, but when I do, it has to be just right. And this is. We have a space war, political machinations, galaxy spanning civilisation, futuristic technologies, a doomsday weapon, and a nagging feeling that someone we can't see is pulling the strings. All smoothly written, with pace and verve - and more to come.

When Sergeant Sanda Greeve wakes in a survival pod after the disastrous battle of Dralee, any joy at her survival is soon tempered as she's told it has been hundreds of years since Dralee. Both her homeworld and Iscariot, planet of her enemies, have been destroyed by Iscarion's new planet-busting weapon, along with her family, and she's now stranded on an enemy ship. The Light of Berossus, the only human left alive in the system.  The Light - or Bero, as he prefers to be known - is himself a character in the person of a brooding AI who welcomes Sanda (as well he might after so many years alone). But as she explores the ship and begins to discover what went on there, she has to question what he knows - and what he did...

Between chapters detailing Sanda's discoveries in the year 3771, the book follows her brother, Biran, in 3541 - the time of the battle itself. Biran has just passed out as a Keeper, one of the ruling class of his planet. Keepers are implanted with chips containing the plans for the Casimir Gates that link humanity's colonies in disparate start systems, and they also direct affairs on those colonies. Believing Sanda to be marooned in her survival pod, Biran is about to risk a great deal for her.

There is also a third strand - a heist organised by a group of criminals led by Jules, on another, unidentified, colony world. This might risk breaking the flow of the other two narratives, but O'Keefe's writing and plotting easily makes Jules' adventures absorbing in themselves, not least as she uses them to feed us additional information about the doings of the Keepers. In a neat contrast to Biran's high-mindedness, Jules seems pretty much amoral - she just wants to get a break, and claw her way up from the bad side of town. But the existence of that bad side and the way that people like her are treated does rather undermine the glittering vision of future society that Biran holds. How this will play out in future volumes remains to be seen but I think the idealism of Keeper society may actually mask some dark secrets.

The story itself was a joy to read. O'Keefe's writing is, as I said above, always compelling and the story itself moves along at a rattling pace with many surprises, reversals and twists (even as the seeds are planted for a much bigger story than a squabble in a remote system). The book may not be groundbreaking, but in giving Sanda a leg damaged in battle O'Keefe places a character with a disability centre stage (and gives the book overtones of Treasure Island) and she also has the original of her spacefaring civilisation be Ecuador, not the US, Russia or China, making it a little different. Spending time with Gunnery Sergeant Sanda Greeve is fun - she is a protagonist with a lot of whoomph, rather overshadowing comms specialist Tomas and indeed, little brother Biran.

I would strongly recommend this book - and am looking forward to its sequels.

For an extract from Velocity Weapon, see the Orbit website here.

Review - Shadow Captain by Alastair Reynolds

Cover by http://www.blacksheep-uk.com

Shadow Captain (Revenger, 2)
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.

Review - Deep Blue by Jane O'Reilly

Cover design by www.nickcastledesign.com

Deep Blue (Second Species, 2)
Jane O'Reilly
Piatkus, 10 January 2019
PB, 310pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

Deep Blue picks up the story of Jinnifer Blue, space pirate and daughter of Senator Ferona Blue, in a pacy space opera set two centuries hence. Earth is in trouble, after overcorrections for global warming bring on a freeze that is destroying life. To survive, humans must relocate to a distant planet - but this will involve travelling through alien controlled space.

Fortunately, Ferona has a plan to bribe the aliens by trafficking them genetically altered men and women. She's ruthless enough to subject her own daughter to the process, and so we find Jinnifer endowed with superhuman strength - and other talents - fighting back against her mother, seeking to rescue her lover, Caspian Dax, currently fighting for his life in the arena of Sittan.

This is a story with great pace and drive. It reads as though O'Reilly had a lot of fun creating it, and lives and breathes through its characters - burdened as they are with loves and hatreds, guilt, fears and all the baggage of being brought up in the hellish underworlds that exist below every Earth city.

I wouldn't recommend it to diehard fans of hard SF - at least not the picky sort, you shouldn't be reading this if you care about the practicalities of explosions in space, or of actual space travel - but if what you're interested in is a good story driven by plausible characters (and with a nice streak of romance too) all set against a glittery backdrop of stars, phase drives and deeply bizarre aliens, then it may just be for you. You do though need to read the first book - Blue Shift, reviewed here - first and ideally go straight on to this one.

As with the first book, O'Reilly leaves things hanging on a cliffedge, Jinn's swashbuckling and her mother's political scheming evolving in parallel, and that sets things up for an explosive finale to which I'm really looking forward.

Blogtour review - Shattermoon by Dominic Dulley

Shattermoon
Dominic Dulley
Jo Fletcher Books, 4 June 2018
PB, 433pp

I'm grateful to Jo Fletcher Books for an advance copy of Shattermoon and for inviting me on the tour. (As well as the book, they also sent me instructions for making an Origami spaceship - - see below - how do you think I did?)

This is an absorbing adventure set in far future space (Earth is a distant memory). It's part mil-SF, part space piracy, part grift. and ALL space opera.

Orry Kent, her brother Ethan, and father Eoin make their living fleecing the Ruuz nobles of the Ascendency, currently by riding the wave of popularity of rare books, some dating back to Earth itself. We meet them in the middle of their latest scam, gulling Konstantin, heir to the Count of Delf.

But then Orry gets greedy and takes a liking to a certain pendant acquiring of which wasn't part of the plan. Soon, Konstantin is dead... and the Count wants HER dead. So does notorious pirate Morven Dyas... in fact, EVERYONE seems to want her dead. So begins a breathtaking romp taking in space battles, an abandoned alien civilisation, mercenaries, arrest, escape and a sentient spaceship with PTSD.

In tone it's a bit like what must be going on round the corner in Star Wars - indeed, it reminded me rather of the recent Solo film, (which I intend as praise). We don't see the manoeuvres of great powers here, but the little people - con artists, orphans on a marginal world, a lonely space captain, all making their way as best they can, all damaged, all vulnerable. (In making the comparison with Solo I should say, though, that the book has rather darker themes with some scenes that make it definitely adult. For starters, Dulley has no compunction in killing off his characters, often in very nasty ways, and being dashing and adventurous is no guarantee of coming through unscathed. Some of those nobles are also pretty debauched!)

While there is a wide cast of characters here, it is, though, Orry's book. Present in every scene, she is a convincing protagonist, desperately scared for much of the time (she has an especial fear of spacewalks) yet resourceful and good in a fight. She's a key part of the grifting team, competes the "collapses" that steer the family's ship, Bonaventure, and her impulse to take that pendant in the House of Delf drives the story.

Of course there's a reason why everyone wants the pendant... I won't say what it is because that would rather spoil the story, but it does draw Orry and her family (and a couple of stout friends she makes in the course of the story) into wider and more dangerous matters. It's all a long way from running cons on unsuspecting nobles, but Orry's ability to blag her way into (and out of) pretty much anything comes in useful. She may, though, have come to the end of her career when she crosses the Imperial Fleet in the form of Captain Naumov, who seems a truly implacable foe.

I would like to have seen the idea of an Empire ruled by aristocrats challenged here, although Orry and her family are happy to milk said nobles for all they can get. But for all that it's an exciting read with a capable and cool headed protagonist. I was impressed by the way that Dulley gets a naval feel to the action, the book reminding me somewhat of Hornblower.

Looking forward to the story continuing in the The Morhelion Exile.

Review - A Matter of Oaths by Helen S Wright

Cover by Phil Beresford

A Matter of Oaths
Helen S Wright
Bloomsbury Caravel, 23 November 2017
PB, e, 424pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of this book.

A Matter of Oaths was, as the preface by Becky Chambers (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit) makes clear in an interesting introduction first published in 1988 but seems to have gone relatively unnoticed then. Bloomsbury Caravel have now rescued it from obscurity and republished it.

The book certainly deserves that second chance, for at least two reasons.

First, we are endlessly told that women writing SFF, or SFF that features female or POC or LGBT protagonists, is a recent development (and, a certain sort of SFF fan implies, an unwelcome one which means sacrificing plot to diversity).

It shouldn't need saying, but both assertions are rubbish, and A Matter of Oaths is one data point that shows that argument up for what it is.

Secondly, it's simply a rattling good story, the sort that would capture the imagination of any space opera aficionado.

Prepare for a galaxy where endless war is fought between two immortal Emperors who have divided it between them; for modified humans ("webbers") who can mesh with their spaceships and who provide the forces who fight for both Emperors as part of a semi-independent Guild; a mysterious officer whose memory was wiped (a disgraceful thing, as it suggests he broke his Oath); Outsiders who menace the Empire's Convoys (and a very well realised escort sequence which made me recall CS Forrester's Hornblower novel - surely the original inspiration for this whole genre?); and real, credible human interactions between the ship's company.

Prepare to meet Rallya, Commander of the patrolship Bhattya, currently assigned to convoy escort duties, and her officers Vidar and Joshim. Rallya is a celebrated Commander, renowned for her abilities as a webber, but now ageing rather and facing the decay of those abilities. So she's apprehensive about her future, just as Joshim is facing up to the need to manage her replacement. As the story opens, though, these three are more concerned about filling their vacancy for a First Officer. A candidate presents himself - but it soon becomes clear that Rafe has something of a Past...

The plot is very much driven by the interaction between the four officers, and by the gradual unravelling of Rafe's memory-wipe. There's a background of high honour, as the title suggests: the Oaths sworn by the webbers, their Guild and by the two Emperors. For any to break these would put them outside the pale: but as becomes clear, that leaves plenty of scope for mischief (in which regard, I was reminded rather of the murky status of Asimov's Laws of Robotics).

Wright is especially good at taking her weird, hypothetical technologies and describing them so that they sound utterly unexceptional, part of everyday life. Of course a ship can't Jump when it's in the "mass shadow" of a space station or fleet. That just seems obvious. Of course the webbers would interact with the hardware using code systems such as "the standard fives used upon the cargoships, the eights of a surveyship, the extended tens of a patrolship". Just look at the passages where Rafe  finds, commissions and explores an ancient web system ("He sent [Magnify] with a pointer to the area of the diagram and watched it reform on a larger scale, spanning four of his input matrices. he thought he would go crazy, shifting them from their old relationship to the new upside-down back-t-front world...") or where the team are engaged in combat with an Outsider raider.

I don't think I've seen such a convincing description of an invented technology since Terry Pratchett's history monks and their time cylinders (complete with load shedding). (I note from the biography on the Bloomsbury website that Wright worked "in a wide variety of Information Technology roles in the electricity generation and supply industry". Pratchett was at one time press officer in the Central Electricity Generating Board... I wonder if that industry spawned other first class SFF writers in the 1980s...)

She also makes the story seem vividly part of a larger whole, of being in media res, as though it's the middle volume of a trilogy - there is a central plot against the Empire which is partly, but not wholly resolved, leaving everything set up for a sequel; that ancient web which points to some previous story (plus the whole epic that's hinted at of the Empires being divided); Rallya's regrets over what happened thirty five years ago (no details are given) or Rafe's whole backstory.

Despite being nearly thirty years old, the story doesn't seem particularly dated (though of course the dominant technology being "The Web" made me smile) except perhaps that were this book written now it would probably be twice as long; there is little delay here between the ship setting out on a journey and it arriving. But that's not necessarily a bad thing!

To sum up, an engaging story that definitely has that stay-up-till-midnight, just-one-more-chapter vibe, that features a blazingly diverse cast of characters and that plays exuberantly in a convincing and feature-rich universe.

I wish I could read more about Rallya, Rafe & co.

The author's website is here. Bloomsbury's page is here. The book is available here, here or here. Liz Bourke's "Sleeps with Monsters" review here is excellent.

Blogtour review - Blue Shift by Jane O'Reilly

Blue Shift (The Second Species Trilogy, 1)
Jane O'Reilly
Piatkus, 5 October 2017
PB, e 327pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for a copy of this book and for inviting me to take part in the blogtour.

This is the story of Jinnifer Blue, privileged offspring of Senator Blue, child of the protected Dome, and of dread pirate Caspian Dax, scion of the squalid Underworld.

It's set in a not so distant future where climate collapse - though cooling, rather than heating - is rapidly making Earth uninhabitable. While some colonies have been established nearby on asteroids and the like, the future of humanity lies in the stars - if we can get there.

And if the aliens whose territory lies in the was allow transit.

It's a harsh, almost dystopian, world that O'Reilly describes, one where the privileged have it easy while the poor suffer. It's grim in other ways, to, from the conditions on the prison ship A2 to the routine use of sexbots for pleasure to a trade in Underworld children to the political machinations behind the plot of the novel. Blue's, and Dax's, stories intertwine as they rightly shouldn't - she a pilot for the Security Service, he a bold outlaw - but they also come to the attention of powerful people.

I was impressed by the way that O'Reilly creates convincing worlds on the variety of space stations, mining bases and craft. It's very much written in tones of industrial grime. These are used settings, not the pristine, optimistic colonies and ships of a 2001 or a Star Trek. In these settings she deploys pretty much non stop action - both combat, and, in a couple of scenes, some very steamy sex, making the descriptions of both effective in driving the plot forward.

For all that, my favourite character in this book wasn't either of the main human protagonists but the intelligent droid, Theon, whose cool, slightly detached humour often lightens the writing and provides a contrast to both the passion and the violence of the humans. He has history with Dax and I'd like to hear much more about this.

The story is very much the first part of a trilogy, with things ending on a cliffhanger: I felt they'd perhaps been somewhat pushed into that, perhaps slightly against the way I'd understood the characters - but it might equally be I hadn't understood how damaged Dax has been by her mother's attempts to control her. The remaining volumes will, I hope, shed more light on that.

For more about the book, see here. You can buy it here, here or here.

Review - Acadie

Acadie
Dave Hutchinson
Tor, 5 September 2017 (e)  / 13 October (PB)
PB, 112pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via NetGalley.

The first humans still hunt their children across the stars.

The Colony left Earth to find utopia, a home on a new planet where their leader could fully explore their genetic potential, unfettered by their homeworld’s restrictions. They settled a new paradise, and have been evolving and adapting for centuries. Earth has other plans.

The original humans have been tracking their descendants across the stars, bent on their annihilation. They won’t stop until the new humans have been destroyed, their experimentation wiped out of the human gene pool.

Can’t anyone let go of a grudge anymore?
This is a fun - and thought provoking - novella from Hutchinson. It's very much a change of mood from his Fractured Europe sequence, or at least, it seems to be on the surface.I very much enjoyed seeing Hutchison sketch on a broader canvas (although this is a fairly short narrative - I read it on my commute home - the ideas in play here could easily have filled a full length novel, so in places "sketch" is the right word: we know what's happened and where we are from the few bold strokes we see, but a great deal is implied).

Our protagonist is Duke, "Mr President", a man elected to lead his deep-space Hab largely on the basis that he doesn't want the office. Waking from his hundred-and-fiftieth birthday party, Duke steps into a crisis. The Hab - and all of the others that make up the colony - may have been discovered by deep probes from earth.

Whether they have, why they are on the run and what they do next, is the subject matter of this story and I won't spoil that. What I will say is that Hutchinson delights in easing the reader's feet out from under them: building up characters as sympathetic then gradually casting doubt on their motives, letting the narrative go one way then sowing seeds of doubt.

It's a great example both of daring space opera - the central conceit of how the colony survives - and great storytelling (is everyone telling the truth? If not, who is lying to who?) and, as I said, is great fun while also raising questions about AI, genetic manipulation and reality.

I'd strongly recommend this, not least as a good starter to the author's work.

For more about this book see the Tor website here.

Review - Cold Welcome by Elizabeth Moon

Cold Welcome (Vatta's Peace Book 1)
Elizabeth Moon
Orbit, 13 April 2017
PB, 431pp

I'm grateful to Orbit for a copy of this book to review.

Admiral Ky Vatta should return to her childhood home a war hero, but on the way her shuttle is downed by sabotage. Marooned in a hostile landscape it’ll take every bit of wit, skill and luck she can muster to lead her fellow survivors to safety, knowing that the mysterious enemies who destroyed the ship are on the hunt, and may have an agent in the group ready to finish the job at any moment. And was the sabotage an attempt on Ky’s own life, or someone else’s?

Reading this book was in several ways an unfamiliar experience for me. I hadn't read anything by Moon before - in particular her central character Admiral Vatta has featured in a whole series ("Vatta's War") and so has plenty of backstory and I don't read a great deal of military SF or spaceopera.

Still - something about this book grabbed me.

In many respects it's a survival tale. When the shuttle goes down, Vatta is left as the most senior officer commanding a ragtag of passengers who just happened to be sharing a flight with her. They're not even members of her fleet. They land in the inhospitable Southern Ocean of her home planet, in the winter, and she's responsible for keeping them safe and leading them back to civilization. It's an appealing concept for a story, made more so by the possibility that there may be a traitor on board the life rafts, and doesn't really depend at all on any SF - survival is survival and, as Moon makes clear in her acknowledgements, the principles remain the same whether you're writing about Shackleton's voyages or remote events on a planet far, far away.

As are the burdens of command, the prejudices, fears and divisions that can doom an expedition, and the depths of endurance that can be drawn on to defy the odds. Those, really, are the themes of this story: there is some plot about Vatta's family, her lover, and wider events which eventually intersects with her story, but mainly it's down to her. The loneliness of command is perhaps similar whether exercised on the bridge of a starship or on a liferaft.

Moon plays something of a blinder here. If, like me, you haven't encountered Vatta before you may find her admirable, but hard to immediately like. (A little too correct and perfect, perhaps (though thankfully not protocol-bound like her aide, Jen). Readers who followed the earlier adventures will I'm sure have got past this, but it took me a whole to be at ease with the Admiral. However, the opening sections of the book are so action filled and challenging that one scarcely notices this - by the time things let up a bit, Vatta has got under one's skin, so to speak. It's a clever structure, helping to introduce a solid and compelling character even if you haven't read the earlier series.

From then on, the book introduces elements of a mystery, as well as some murky commercial rivalries and politics, which both affect Ky in the remote Southern winter and her family, spread across the galaxy. Exactly what is going on is never quite clear - there are further books to come and no doubt some of these events will be explored there. Certainly the book stops right in the middle of things, leaving the reader desperate to know what will happen next. By then, Ky Vatta has set herself a quest. There are some obstacles to achieving it but if we've learned one thing form this book it's that she's not easily put off.

Excellent start to a new series, whether you have already read Vatta's War or not.