After being tantalised by one (action packed) chapter at the British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon two years ago, Embers of War topped my WANT list.
Publishing is slow.
I’m familiar with Powell’s shorter work thanks to Interzone, but I’ve not read all his Ack-Ack Macaque series. Yes I’m aware of the comparisons between Ian M Banks, Heinlein, and all those other stratospherically impressive authors. Those aren’t the reasons Embers of War made my WANT list. (Hint: The clue is in the brackets!) Titan Books has earned respect for the quality of stories they publish and that helped. I can’t even say that my love of Alsatians made me want this book so bad, not from that one reading. Though someone did say Firefly, and Adventure and Space. What wasn’t said was just how both fun and sensuous this book is.
Blurb:
The sentient warship Trouble Dog was built for violence, yet following a brutal war, she is disgusted by her role in a genocide. Stripped of her weaponry and seeking to atone, she joins the House of Reclamation, an organisation dedicated to rescuing ships in distress. When a civilian ship goes missing in a disputed system, Trouble Dog and her new crew of loners, captained by Sal Konstanz, are sent on a rescue mission.
Meanwhile, light years away, intelligence officer Ashton Childe is tasked with locating the poet, Ona Sudak, who was aboard the missing spaceship. What Childe doesn’t know is that Sudak is not the person she appears to be. A straightforward rescue turns into something far more dangerous, as Trouble Dog, Konstanz and Childe find themselves at the centre of a conflict that could engulf the entire galaxy. If she is to save her crew, Trouble Dog is going to have to remember how to fight…
Wait. Sensuous? – That’s not a word you generally associate with space opera. No it wasn’t a mistake, no don’t pick this book up expecting a ship load of buxom lasses either. THAT’S AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT GENRE!
Powell gives us all the space-opera-y goodness, and more. Every character is well-developed. Ashton Childe, based on genre norms, is probably the most obvious character: our male mercenary just trying to cut out a living.
There’s a great range of female characters, starting with Trouble Dog. Powell portrays the ship as loyal and as fiercely protective as a German shepherd could be. Mix this with sentient indignation and resentment and you already have plenty of emotion to deal with. Add the skills of a computing behemoth and you can see why the unarmed ship is such a threat.
Sal Konstanz holds Trouble Dog on a tight leash, trekking about with a ‘meh’ attitude, not wholly invested in her role until the civilian ship goes missing. Trouble Dog’s captain presents a fantastically masculine attitude, and mirrors her ship’s regret of past actions.
Ona Sudak is a poet dealing with her age and influence – but with age comes experience. Laura almost embodies your stereotypical woman in space.
Separate from the rest of the human crew, there is Nod. Nod is the overlooked alien on board. Fixing, observing, and fixing a bit more, with a limited sympathy for humans and their uniquely odd ways.
Of course, anything with a Firefly comparison would be lacking without at least one outpost shoot-out scene, and you simply have to have a suitable space battle – or two or three. Powell doesn’t cut corners there either. His battle scenes that flow with precision and power.
What might throw a few readers is the choice of perspective. With three main points of view (and Nod!) all written in first person it could be easy to get confused. That’s what chapter titles are for – and all that character development I’ve mentioned. As a result you have a much more immediate sense of action, and Powell uses it well to address the time delay between the sending of an SOS and our heroes arriving to save the day. This is well used to add yet another layer of tension.
There is no cliff hanger, nothing obviously unresolved, but the world building and scope that Powell has invested into Embers of War suggests the next in the series will be bigger, better, and offer more bang for your buck.
Don’t read Embers of War because you like Clarke, or Banks. Read it because you enjoy reading pace-y complex space adventures. Or space battles. Or sentient ships and impressive world building. Or well written characters. Or dogs. Or read it because you like Gareth L Powell’s other work.
Or for Nod, if nothing else.
But do read it, because before long blurbs will be comparing new and upcoming works with Gareth L Powell.
Author Website:http://www.garethlpowell.com/
Twitter: @garethlpowell
Publisher: Titan Books
Published: Feburary 2018
Availability Kindle, and Paperback.
Review copy courtesy of the Publisher
© Shellie Horst – SFFWorld.com April 2018
