Following on from Alastair’s recent collaboration with Stephen Baxter, here’s a solo effort that is also worthy of your attention.
From the publisher: The galaxy has seen great empires rise and fall. Planets have shattered and been remade. Amongst the ruins of alien civilisations, building our own from the rubble, humanity still thrives.
And there are vast fortunes to be made, if you know where to find them . . .
Captain Rackamore and his crew do. It’s their business to find the tiny, enigmatic worlds which have been hidden away, booby-trapped, surrounded with layers of protection – and to crack them open for the ancient relics and barely-remembered technologies inside. But while they ply their risky trade with integrity, not everyone is so scrupulous.
Adrana and Fura Ness are the newest members of Rackamore’s crew, signed on to save their family from bankruptcy. Only Rackamore has enemies, and there might be more waiting for them in space than adventure and fortune: the fabled and feared Bosa Sennen in particular.
Revenger is a science fiction adventure story set in the rubble of our solar system in the dark, distant future – a tale of space pirates, buried treasure and phantom weapons, of unspeakable hazards and single-minded heroism . . . and of vengeance . . .
So, if I started a plot summary with ‘Two girls run away from their parent in search of travel and exploration…” you might be rather expecting a sea-faring adventure novel, rather like something from C S Forester or Patrick O’Brian.
What we have here is an entertaining pirate romp set in the last great frontier of space. It’s something like Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Diving series, with a touch of Firefly (or say Chris Wooding’s Retribution Falls) to bind the characters altogether. Of course, as this is an Alastair Reynolds novel, things are never quite the same as you may think.
I particularly like the idea of ‘history’ in my SF, the fact that what we’re reading is a legacy of what has gone before, and here Alastair doesn’t disappoint. There’s a rich backstory hinted at, with thousands of worlds having had a succession of historical rises and falls and with them a range of cultures. This leads to subtle hints throughout the story of how the planets became derelict, how valuable resources were left behind and what can happen when you reactivate machines from the past with little back-up.
It is the legacy of these many histories that forms the basis of this story’s buried treasure. Much of the paraphernalia of those previous lives – weaponry, armour, artifacts – have been sealed off on planets that only occasionally let visitors go there. These ‘baubles’ have been mapped by the space mariners that travel between them, and so there is a living of sorts by picking up basic debris when they open. The holy grail, of course, is to get to one before anyone else and find something previously unearthed.
It’s great fun.
To go with this, Alastair has developed a language that reflects this. ‘Lungstuff’ is used as a term for the atmosphere or air, ‘squint-time’ is sleep, a ‘swallower’ is a black hole and so on. It’s not too difficult to get your head around but it does help the reader feel that they are reading of a different environment.
Despite this epic background, Alastair does well to maintain focus on a relatively small focussed plot. The two main teenage characters – Adrana and Arafura/Fura – are likable, endearingly naïve at first but with enough arrogance and bluster to carry their bravado off. They work well as a team when they’re not trying to score points off each other. By contrast, Captain Rackamore is pirate swagger, with a definite touch of the Darian Frey’s about him. (For those with a historical bent, I’m even thinking touches of a brooding Poldark.)
The girls’ main role on the ship is that of a Bone Reader, the people who, like the Twins in Heinlein’s Time for the Stars, are used to communicate with home base, and listen out for other spaceship’s messages, so that they can get the drop on baubles before others. This communication is achieved through the Readers linking themselves to a Bone Skull (more ancient technology with a mysterious background.) Not everyone can do so and there is risk. The users can be driven mad by it, or eventually lose the gift as they get older.
“We’re speaking of an ancient technology none of us properly understand. Just because we use it doesn’t mean we know it.”
The hope is that they will eventually replace Cazaray, the current Bone Reader, who is currently training them to succeed him. The advantage of siblings being Bone Readers is rare and potentially a game changer for Captain Rackamore’s Monetta’s Mourn.
So far this is pretty much what I expected from Revenger – a fast paced story with a great set-up, potentially limitless world-building and great characterisation. What was surprising for me is that although the story is set in a universe with a lengthy history, the main perspective is very tight. Notionally written by Fura, this creates a narrative that focuses on a few characters. For an author who often involves big epic backgrounds and huge concepts, this one feels more compact. The setting is there but it is less important than the motives and beliefs of the characters. Science fiction with emotional heart, if you like.
But then, just as things seem to be settling down into a tale of piracy and mercenary larceny, Alastair does something in the plot that turns the whole story upside down. When the Monetta’s Mourn is attacked by the legendary pirate Bosa Sennen, the consequences are huge. Many of the characters are killed and the sisters are separated because Bosa takes Adrana to work on her ship. Much of the rest of the book is about Fura getting revenge on Bosa and finding her sister again.
From such a description you could be forgiven for thinking that Revenger is a Young Adult book. (In fact, it is being advertised as such on certain websites.) Whilst it can be said that there’s a lot of the usual tropes evident for such a claim – no sex, or even romance, with two young main characters on a bildungsroman journey of exploration and discovery, for example – but personally I didn’t find it to be an obvious claim. You can read it as an adult book easily, and in fact the violence that is there is quite extreme, though perhaps less so than, say, a video game.
The emotional growth of the characters, and in particular Fura, is executed supremely well. The characters we see at the end are definitely different from those at the start of their journey, and Alastair does a cracking job of showing how this happens.
If I had any niggles with the book then it probably be the ending. After such an exciting setup, in the denouement the book seems to opt out for an ending that’s main purpose is to allow a sequel or two. Whilst I could argue that (again) it shows the author playing with our expectations, I did feel that there were things at the end that negated much of what had gone before. It did not ruin the book for me, but I guess that (again) I should point out that there is a cliff-hanger ending of sorts.
Nevertheless, in summary, Revenger is a pleasing return to form for an author whose last few solo books have left me a bit disappointed. Revenger is, by turns, exciting, interesting and even horrific. It is most worthy of your time.
Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
Published by Gollancz, September 2016
432 pages
ISBN: 978-0575090538
Review by Mark Yon, August 2016
