Eyes of the Void - Adrian Tchaikovsky

Eyes of the Void is the sequel to the excellent Shards of Earth, which we reviewed, well, far too long ago now. I think the sequel must have been held up by the pandemic. But in any case, it's going to be on shelves soon, so it's time to give it a look and see whether it's worth reading. .

Yes.

Just wanted to get that out of the way right off the bat. This is top quality space opera. It has characters you can sympathise with, and empathise with. It has some aliens that feel like people, but also feel different, with perspective soutside our experience. It has some humans that feel like aliens, too. Some because they've modified themselves in personal ways that change the way they present, some because of the way their society shaped them, and some just because their perspective has shifted out past the lens of common experience. This is one of Tchaikovsky's strenghts: giving us a vast array of different possibilities embodied in people. This is a universe steeped in the waters of conflict, one aware of the costs, but it's also a universe teetering on the ege of transhumanism, of defining, redefining and ignoring what different people think it means to be human. The breadth of imagination on display is stunning. From the technologically super-powered clams, whose dialogue is delphic enough it requires interpretation by human acolytes, through the society of tank-grown women, determined to save both the universe and themselves, to the shattered remnants of a grimy human polity, struggling to rebuild itself after an apocalyptic conflict, and beyond that into the truly unknown. Every few pages you're left thinking "Oh, that's pretty cool." In its depth and detail, grandeur and grime, there's a living, breathinng universe resting in the pages in front of you, and it always feels vibrant and real. 

The characters...well, in a way there's no surprises. You'll know the central cast of reprobates from the previous book. I still have every sympathy for Idris, a man brought out of time, both metaphorically and physically. A man crushed by the things that were done by and to him during a past war, now desperately trying to rebuild in peace - or at least, prevent atrocities from happenning again. And his crew of smart mouthed, feisty folk are as diverse, exciting and entertaining as ever. Watching a ships lawyer duel with swords as well as words (and sometimes both at once) will never not be fun. As is seeing a giant scorpion battlebot go on a rampage. But I digress. Idris is people. Sad, sometime slonely, feeling a little broken and displaced, but definitely people - and so are all the other folks around him, whether or not they're, well, human. Tchaikovsky shapes his characters with care, giving us people we can feel for, people we can forgive, people we can understand. Whose pain he draws so artfully you can feel it searing your own soul, and whose joy can leave you turning pages on a grey day with a smile.

Basically, to be a little less lyrical for a second, both our protagonists and their foils anre fully realised people in their own right, not ciphers on a page. They live and breathe and feel real, and as a consequence, we, the reader, feel alongside them. I know I've missed these folks, and I bet you have too. 

The plot - well, I won't spoil it. If nothing else, this is another brick thick story, so I'd probably struggle to spoil it if I wanted to, because there's just so much going on at any given ti,e. But somehow it all hangs together, the tightly woven strands of interweaving story and character drama coming together to make a narrative tapestry that is a thing of beauty. And also a thing that will leave you turning pages late into the night, wanting to know what's going toi happen next. I will say that there's some amazingly depicted space battles, some wonderfully byzantine politics, and a cavacalade of love and joy and sorrow and wrath and defeats and triumphs enough to go around. You're not going to be bored, that's for sure. 

In the end, you're probably here to know if you should reaad this. If you're in the market for a vital, intriguing, fascinating, explosively entertaining space opera, then yes, yes you should. 

Back soon!

We’re moving house this week, so nothing new until we’re back online!

The Justice of Kings - Richard Swan

Sir Konrad Vonvalt is an Emperor's Justice. That means he rides the length and breadth of an empire, bringing the promise of truth, and law, to a fractious and diverse populace. It means investigating murder, it means dabbling in dark powers, and sometimes, just sometimes, it means digging into the truth behind treason. Vonvalt is someone willing to serve the law, to dive into those depths, to follow a trail of evidence wherever it might lead, confident in himself, his team, and the primacy of the law. 

Vonvalt isn't the voice we hear from here though; It's his clerk, Helena, looking back on events with an eye on future triumphs and tragedies, judging herself, her employer, and his associates, through the more jaded lens of history. The Justice of Kings is one part fantasy, one part political intrigue, one part murder investigaiton, and laced through with loss, tragedy, and shared humanity. It is, in sum, a wonderfully well crafted work, and one I want to recommend before diving into some of the detail. 

The world that Vonvalt seeks to keep in order is an unstable one. An Empire slowly being bound together over generations, but still at the stage where those most recently conquered are quickly pressed into conquering their neighbours. It's a patchwork of people who, a few years before, were burning each other's cities to the ground, reaching out and finding the next people ot incorporate. An expansionist machine, with a human cost. And it's an engine of religious orthodoxy, cycling in existing religions and superstitions, and capturing them in its own insitutions, for its own ends. It's driving forward a single cutlure at the point of a sword, and calling it peace.

But it's also, well, peace. Inside the borders, trade goes forward, life goes on, and people don't seme to kill each other, well, not in large numbers, usually. Religions are absorbed, not destroyed, cultures synthesised rather than obliterated. Small comfort to the recently conquered, but they can have a bath and sometimes a functional sewage system for their trouble, and be fairly sure that nobody's going to steal their things at swordpoint. At least not without a trial. 

In the end, the Empire is a fascinating, complex place, a world balanced on precarious politics and progressive but troubling policies. It carries shades of early Imperial Rome in its ancestry, and shades of Rome's successors in the possibility of its decline. Still, for now, the Empire stands tall - a scintillatingly imagined tapestry of a million lights. Or, perhaps more fittingly, a rich gumbo, each flavour something new. 

And swimming in that gumbo are Vonvalt and his team. Helena we come to know well. Young, incisive, with a past that's less troubled and more horrific, she provides the lens through which we see the others. But her older self, looking back, is willing to probe at her own mistakes and victories, at the trail of decisions that leads forward into her now. Helena is passionate, thoughtful, perhaps unsure of herself and who dhe wants to be. Guarded, wrapped in her own emotional armour, and not quite sure how to extricate herself from it - but also able to look through clouds of smoke to the heart of a case, or see what must be done. 

Then there's Bressinger, a veteran of the wars (well, aren't they all, in one way or another), Vonvalt's hard right arm and body-man. At first glance, someone living a long life of slow decline, an attack dog occasionally let off the chain - but Bressinger's loyalties, and history, are more complex than one might expect (though I shan't spoil them here). 

And of course, Vonvalt. A man who, like Bressinger, survived occupation and went on to perpetuate it. A man with a keen sword arm and a keener mind. A man with a zealotry for the law, and the intelligence to exercise that law finely. A man given absolute power of life and death, the power to issue judgments in the Emperor's name - and the ability to use other, less savoury, less natural powers to make sure those judgments are correct. Vonvalt is cultured, clever, morose, difficult, and genuinely entertaining to read. All of their choices matter, but his, perhaps, are the most impactful - as he struggles to make the law work in a society which isn't always ready to accept it, or is in fact actively hostile to the idea of anything other than naked power backed by a blade. Vonvalt has drive, and focus and determination, and a certain flexibility within his bounds, but is perhaps ill placed to believe in any serious shifts to the social order. 

In any event, they are all fascinating characters, and my simple summary does them a disservice; as readers, we gain a view on all their richly textured lives a the story progresses. But at least go in knowing that these, your cor eprotagonists, are not ciphers. if they are not always likable, then nor are people. if they are prone to sympathy and empathy, blind rage and revenge, that makes them all the more human, the more like us. They are the angels and demons on their own shoulders. 

The story - well, I won't spoil it. But there's a murder investigation to dig your teeth into, one that is fair to the reader in what it reveals and when. perhaps you'll guess how things happenned before it comes onto the page, but perhaps not - I was always a few delighted steps behind the revelations. There's some cracking twists and turns there, enough to keep you intrigued. Then there's the dense, low fantasy politics, with knights on the march, and questions of canon law versus secular authority, and a sense of things fraying at the edges. Where we see the less-than-normal, it has a n impact; snd ewhere we do not, the politics are still dleightfully byzantine whilst also making clear the high stakes in the game. There's blood and death aplenty if that's your thing, breakneck chases, sweeping battles that end in blood and fire, and queit moments of reflection in the eye of the storm. The story, I think, sometimes wants to show us more than it has time for, but what it does give us is an excellent read.

That's a good note to end on actually: this is an excellent read, thoroughly enjoyable, and I suggest you give it a try.

A Practical Guide to Conquering the World - K.J. Parker

I'm going to open with, this is an excellent K.J. parker book. If you're already a fan, then you'll know what you're getting here. Cynicism, witty banter, a lot of wry humour, and politics, scheming, and people whose motives are less than clear. It's maybe a little less dark than some of their other work, but still not afraid to explore the truth of what people are actually like, behind the stories that they write for themselves. 

Actually, that's one of the central themes here. The protagonist is trying to make the best of the situation from the preceding two books in the series - the destruction of the Empire he called home. At least until it was burnt ot the ground. Now he's living on charity and trying to work out where ot go from here. Saving his skin leads to consequneces that escalate his visibility, which leads to more actions, well, in line with the story title. 

Felix, the protagonist, is wonderfully drawn, and fits the mode of other Parker leads. He's introverted, intelligent, has a deep affection for books and knowledge, and mostly wants to be left alone. His narrative is self deprecating, sharp edged and unforgiving, but it also cloaks a lot of his motivations. Why Felix does what he does is a bit of a mystery, not just to the reader, but to himself. There are always reasons privuded, both to him and us, and the joy is that they're always sensible, plausible reasons. But it often turns out that they were also bullshit. Or they were true, but in service to a different goal. Parker is a star turn at creaitng characters with multi-layered motivaitons, and that's not changed here. 

The story is one I don't want to go into great depth on, because its evolution is par tof what make sit so conmpelling. But the progression from lowly translator sleeping on the floor, to someone conquering the world, and afterwards, is artfully paced, and the world is one which is filled with detail and vividly realised. There's a lot of politics and talking, and a lot of careful planning of battles, and seeing how that actually goes - and the epxloration of expectaiton and reality in military matters is compelling enough to keep you turning pages, and it certainly serves to build tension. 

In the end, this is, well, it's K.J. Parker. This is an author interested in history, in the lies we tell the world and outselves. In digging into things which are true and hidden, and working out if there actually is a nugget of truth under all the nonsense. Or if we are driven to do what we do by the winds of circumstance and historicla chance. There's whip-smart characterisation, a story whose pacing is set up perfectly to ratchet tension and keep you turning pages, and some rock solid worldbuilding. It's a story that's an absolute pleasure to read, and one I'd recommend to existing fans; it does also work as a standalone for neophytes, but the extra textural details you get from the preceding books are great fun, so maybe read this last.

Anyway, overall, a highly entertaining read, and one I do not hesitate to recommend. 

Last Exit - Max Gladstone

Alright. Lets talk about Last Exit, a standalone novel from Max Gladstone. A story about people jumping between worlds and back again. Sometimes those worlds are physical, real things that show us different versions of ourselves. And sometimes those words are all in the mind, living out the story of what was and what could have been, the loss of promise, the loss of pride and what you’re willing to sacrifice, or hold onto, and why. 

Which is all a bit vague, but believe me when I tell you, first of all, that Max Gladstone is one of the finest writers working in science fiction today, and secondly, that even for him, this is a damn fine book.It’s one that will challenge you, make you think. But also one which will make you feel, from the razored pain in your gut as inevitable tragedies roll on, to the searing hope of the struggle against them. And, you know, it’s also got a story in there sharp enough and smart enough that I was found reading it at 3am, even though I knew I was getting up with a tired child a few hours later. That may make me an idiot, but it speaks to the power of the prose between the covers on this one. 

Zelda is, at least arguably, the protagonist. At university, she learned to skip between parallel realities, and taught her friends. They were an adventuring party of questers, heroe sin search of a grail - looking to turn back a tide of rot which was shattering the worlds they found. And then, at the last, at hideous cost, they failed. The survivors scattered to the winds, to live their lives, to forget what they’d sene, or to prepare for it. Only Zelda was left, walking the ways between the worlds, a penance and a punishment in one. But now, things have changed. Now, Zelda has to get her team back together, despite the losses, despite the scars, despite history or lack of it. Or their world is going to end.  

The book promises a lot in that premise, and I’ll say this, it absolutely, one hundred percent delivers. From shattered dystopian hellscapes filled with flesh-eating annites, to Mad-Max style road-warriors, from bandit camps to eldritch castles, we can see a whole host of worlds other than our own, imaginatively constructed, as real as we feel them to be, and as horrifying, too. This is a book showing us our future in a handful of dust. And our own world has that lived in feel, too. The glint of grit and sheen of slime over chrome that makes us feel a little on edge outside the door. The smiles and rages of passers-by, the sorts fields, the halloween parties, the quiet drinks and intimate encounters that give us all life and feeling are, well, all there. This is a space which blends unreality with the real, and makes it feel true. 

Part of that is the characters, of course. In large part who they are, their shared history, quiet wounds and old loves, those are revealed through the course of the text. Which…makes them rather hard to talk about. So, we can talk a little about Zelda, who we meet first, and we can talk broadly about her supporting cast without spoiling anything. And I have to say, I do rather like Zelda. She’s a walking wound on the world, a scarred over trauma looking for an excuse to be done with everything, to wash her hand sof all of it. To atone for losses she thinks she caused, living with her own hubris, her own mistakes, and arguing against her past self whose notions of heroism and pride led her toward what she feels is a catastrophic error, an error from which other people bore the cost. Hardened, perhaps not, but calloused, yes - living an existence on the boundaries, on the space between things, Zelda is counting the cost of old choices. Trying to save the world one incident at a time, scouring the country to fight back a tide of things that almost no-one else knows about, and even fewer are able to convince themselves to care about. Zelda is worn, and tired, and the only thing she’s more done with than your shit is her own. Zelda is worn down, smart, exhausted, bitter, and so wrapped up in her own anti-legend that she maybe doesn’t have the best perspectiv eon things. 

And that’s true of all of her friends, to be fair. The survivors of the team that failed to save everything years ago. They’re still, in some ways, living in that past. Trying to move on from it in their own ways, or reacting to it, defending themselves from a trauma deep and real and painful, looking back at their own youth and trying to understand it, make it make sense. These are people who have been hurt, paid a price for what they thought was something, and came to nothing, people who have seen the cost of believing the narrative - but who also know their friends, know them as people, love them, and don’t know how to make the world and their friendships stand together.There’s…a lot that will get unpacke dhere, about truth and the lies we tell ourselves. About age old pain, about hurt and how it shapes us as children, as adults.. About how we chose to be who we are, shaping the things that shape us in turn. And about the power of hope, and love, and friendship, and how even when those things may not be enough, they can be enough. 

This is a story about how people who failed ot save the world are going to have to try again. About love and loss, about tragedy and understanding, and deciding who we are as people, who we want to be. About trying to change the world, in one way or another, and about deciding to do better, to be better. It’s a fierce, fiery gem of a book, one with edges so sharp you’ll cut yourself, and a light so bright it’ll show you things you’ve never seen before. It’s a damn fine story, and very much something you’ll want to read.

Back in 2022!

 Hello friends!

It's been a long hard couple of years for all of us. 

Thanks for sticking with us this far, and I hope you've found something here that you enjoy, or something that makes you think. Or even something that made you smile, made you feel seen, made you feel not alone in this community of readers and writers exploring the idea of humanity through other lenses.

We're off to recharge our batteries until January; we'll see you all then. In the meantime, keep fighting, keep smiling, you got this.

Through Struggle, The Stars - John Lumpkin

Through Struggle, The Stars is the first part of a military-focued science fiction duology by John Lumpkin.

First up: is it good? I’m going to say yes. If you’re in the mood for a hit of mil-SF, this is going to hit a lot of good points for you. It has well thought out, well described space combat. It has kinetic, visceral ground engagements. The writer has clearly done their research, so there’s a lot of cool, plausibly defined tech on display. And we get to delve into a part of the military sphere that you see less often in the genre (Military Intelligence). There’s valour and duty and blood, hard actions and harder consequences. There’s a story that kept me interested and turning pages. That said, there’s some flaws, too. More on that in a minute.

Our protagonist, Neil, is a young graduate of the US military, in a world where the US is now a declining power in a space-diaspora universe, uncomfortably wedged below China and Japan in terms of political power. Still, the US is out there in a universe with systems connected by artificial wormhole,s colonising in the name of truth and democracy. Neil is a little introverted, perhaps, and a little unsure of himself, a man trying to shake off the trappings of his adolescence. This works pretty well most of the time - as Neil learns the ropes of his new role in the military, so do we. As he gets to know his commander and her officers, so do we. As he befriends his lower-decks colleagues, so do we. He’s an accessible everyman, with a precise, thoughtful intelligence which means that the reader is never that far ahead of him in uncovering mystery or considering consequences. I do find there’s a tendency to tell us about his insecurities, rather than letting internal dialogue or external circumstance highlight them; for me that felt a little narratively heavy handed, but its not a deal breaker, and you may prefer that style. Neil is smart, a little naive, a little rough-edged, pushed into a pond and trying to get his feet under him. 

In this he’s aided by both those above him, and some of his friends. The latter are a good bunch, and we do occasionally get to see things from their viewpoint as well as Neil’s. I think when we look at them in isolation, they work - having thoughts and feelings and needs enough of their own to feel rounded. Some of the interactions with neil feel a little flat, though; I was particularly flummoxed by a romance which seemed like it lacked chemistry, one where the characters on the page were wondering why they were bothering as much as I was as a reader. But the friendships, the banter, the camaraderie, the pivots from the small joys to the higher duties, these all ring true. 

If we diverge for a moment, we can talk about space battles. Occasionally, Neil, being part of the intel section of a ship of war, gets into some scrapes. And those are marvellously drawn. Well thought out, considered, but at the same time having a tension and a pressure to them that makes every kinetic strike at once a tragedy and a relief. It’s a ballet of equations and superior firepower. I can’t stress enough how much fun the battles are to read, how quickly you’re drawn in, and how real it feels. The conflict is marvellously done. 

I’m not sure the same is true of the central antagonist.  They’re, well, just a bit of a monster, really. Some of the secondary challenges that Neil and his ship face over the course of the story are people doing what they think is the right thing, but the central pillar is one of psite and malice and just, general awfulness. Which is fair enough, in its way, but it would be nice to see a more nuanced driver for some of the problems thrown in the path of our hero, beyond moustache-twirling baddie. That said, the villain is suitably entertainingly horribly villainous, so I can’t complain too much. 

The story is all military engagement, politics, mysteries and mayhem. And it’s no bad thing. You can chew on it happily, and have a good, action-packed time.I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say it’s entertaining, and an adventure, and that you’ll have a good time reading it. There’s all the duty and honour you can shake a stick at, some good heroics, and some skulduggery and realities of war mixed in there, too. It’s a clever, entertaining read, so if you’re looking for some Mil-SF, give it a try.