Tag Archives: Book Reviews

Stars and Bones- Gareth L Powell

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“I’m afraid there’s a fundamental gap in translation. I do not belong to a society. I owe allegiance to no one, and I am unique. I am immortal. There can be no philosophical restraints placed on my behaviour.”

“So you can just do whatever you like?”

The kid shrugged. Tiny stars glimmered in the depths of her eyes. “Who’s going to stop me?”

Source: Review Copy

Publisher: Titan Books

Date of Publication: March 1, 2022.

When humanity finally got around to destroying itself, it was to be in a maelstrom of nuclear fire.  Yet at the penultimate moment, an alien presence revealed itself by using its god-like powers to eliminate mankind’s offensive abilities.  In that same moment, the Angel—as it came to be known—cast judgement on the people of Earth.  As punishment for their terrible stewardship, ranging from pollution to global warming and eventually nuclear war, humanity was evicted from the Earth. However, the “Angel of the Benevolence” was not without mercy, installing mankind on a flotilla of Arks bound to travel the stars in perpetuity, in the hopes that with time—and a little guidance—they would grow to the potential the extraterrestrial being could see in them.

Seventy-five years later, the fleet of the “Continuance” has flourished, its inhabitants instilling each Ark with their own distinctive characteristics. They’ve become a post-scarcity society, evolving without fear of war or famine, each resident free to pursue their desires as long as they respect those of their neighbours.  And if a resident is bitten by wanderlust, they can join the vanguard of scouting ships using faster than light travel through the “substrate” to explore new worlds, looking for resources and guarding against potential threats.  On a long dead planet designated Candidate-623, the crew of the “Couch Surfer” become victim to an incorporeal entity that kills without mercy and in horrific fashion, a threat that eventually finds its way back to the fleet to endanger the rest of humanity.  It will fall to the sister of the dead crew’s navigator and her own rescue crew to unravel the mystery of Candidate-623 before humanity falls prey to a malevolence beyond human comprehension.

***

Gareth L. Powell’s Stars and Bones is simultaneously Horror, Mystery, and Space Opera, each coming to the fore depending upon which act you’re in.  The first act is clearly Horror, with an unseen and unexplained force literally dissecting victims as they flee, an unstoppable force that has wreaked havoc on at least one planet, piling the bones of its victims in neat stacks.  As in any good horror plot, a motley crew of characters, motivated whether by duty, curiosity, or simple greed, manage to attract the attention of this malevolent entity and at the same time ignore the entirely sensible entreaties of their navigator that they need to leave, and leave NOW!  This rational character, Eryn King, happens to have seen the bodycam footage of her sister’s ill-fated visit with the others during their briefing once on Candidate-623 and has drawn the sensible conclusion. While the others ignore her and go out to investigate the last known coordinates of the previous crew, Eryn has the foresight to have the engines running.  After the predictable slaughter ensues, she and her surviving crewmates, xenologist Li Chen, a sentient cat named Sam, and the self-aware ship “Furious Ocelot”, flee back to the fleet to warn them of the danger.  But in classic fashion, they’ve been tracked home, and the mysterious force has followed them utilizing the very ship they had been searching for.  It has brought along a whole new bag of tricks beyond simple evisceration and once established on their home Ark, commits carnage on a macro and micro scale.  Macro in that their Ark is being slowly subsumed into a gray goo; micro in that as the entity learns from its dissections, it begins to duplicate its victims flawlessly, allowing it to infiltrate the fleet in a much less haphazard fashion.  Its goal is seemingly to devour everyone and everything and remake them as extensions of itself.  It’s the ultimate mimic.

From there the Mystery begins, and in the second act Eryn and company are tasked by the ruling council to track down the one man who might be able to help identify and stop the spread of infection.  Enlisting the help of detectives Vic Sheppard and Jean-Paul Genet, who first recognized the entity’s mimicry of its victims, they attempt to find Frank Tucker, hoping that he can contact Raijin (the name of the angelic entity that both saved humanity from itself and banished them to the stars).  Frank was their original contact with the Angel, stemming from his discovery of the “substrate” (think hyperspace) in the moments before Earth’s nuclear war and that discovery piquing the interest of Raijin.  After several conflicts with agents of the entity plaguing the fleet as it tries to stop them, Eryn and company manage to find Frank, who in turn leads them to Raijin and the unravelling of the origins of the nightmare they face.

Ultimately, the third act swings back into a blend of Space Opera and hard Sci-Fi as Eryn and crew head back to Candidate-623 for a final showdown with the malevolent force.  It’s a nice bit of genre-bending, going beyond what at first appearances is simply a gore fest.  Without spoilers, it gets a thumbs up.  Go grab your copy now.  With spoilers, continue reading…

**Spoilers**Spoilers**Spoilers**

At first glance, the horrific nature of the first act comes off as gratuitous, almost unbelievable in a work of science fiction, but as the nature of the horror becomes apparent, the reader is able to decipher the puzzle he’s created and the scientific theory behind it.  It’s a skilful use of K. Eric Drexler’s “gray goo” theory combined with the curiosity of a sentient being trying to understand the Universe around it without a guiding influence.  Its choices are terrifying and horrific, but understandable given the circumstances of its creation. And Stars and Bones asks the question that, given god-like powers, what would an infant with no parental direction do?

It’s also an exploration of unintended consequences.  Frank Tucker’s creation of a wormhole at a most fortuitous moment may save mankind from self destruction by attracting Raijin’s attention, but it also condemns them to be cast out of their home. A self-replicating starship accidently interfaces with a nascent entity of immeasurable power, with unforeseeable consequences for the Universe.  Even the rescue mission Eryn King and the crew of the Furious Ocelot embark upon—their direct actions that are intended to save life have the opposite effect.  Rather than saving the crew of a small exploration vessel, they unleash a power that kills millions.

Finally, an overarching theme Powell employs time and again through his body of work is that of family.   He repeatedly creates groups of damaged characters and binds them together until they are no longer just co-workers or crewmates, but a true family.  Whether it’s the diverse crew of Trouble Dog in his Embers of War trilogy, or Ack-Ack Macaque and his coterie of curiosities in the trilogy of the same name, there’s always a strong thread of familial relations. In Stars and Bones, we have the brotherly/sisterly relationship of Eryn King and the avatar representing the starship she is bonded to, the adoptive mother/daughter relationship between her and her deceased sister’s child Madison, and the relationship between Raijin and humanity as it shepherds them across the stars.  It’s only in the lack of a relationship between Raijin and its wayward offspring, the amoral God-child developing in a void, that causes the conflict driving the story.  The antagonist of the novel suffers from not having that close relationship, from not receiving the guidance and encouragement of—family. On the opposite end of the spectrum, everything Eryn does is for her family, her community, and by the climax of the novel, for humanity.

***

Gareth L Powell is a multiple BSFA award-winning author, winning Best novel for Ack-Ack Macaque in 2013 and Best novel for Embers of War in 2019.  He maintains a website at garethlpowell.com

Hive Monkey-Gareth L. Powell

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hive-monkey-gareth-l-powellIf joining the Gestalt meant an end to loneliness, he could see how they might find doing so attractive; but it wouldn’t work for him.  He’d still be the only monkey in a sea of apes; still just as alone, however many humans he had crawling through his head, chattering away about their human feelings, and human problems.

Reynolds could go fuck himself.

Source: Netgalley (review copy)

Publisher: Solaris Books

Publication Date: December 31, 2013

It’s been a year since the events of Ack-Ack Macaque and our simian anti-hero is finding life outside the game to be a bit of a reality check.  Back in the VR universe he was alpha primate, a virtually indestructible ball of wise cracking fur with itchy trigger fingers.  Never defeated, nigh indestructible, he took on all comers with ease and fought the good fight for King and Country with nary a thought of the future.  Released from his virtual prison, Ack-Ack managed to save the real world from the nefarious plans of Queen Alyssa Célestine and her cult of the Undying.  But that was a year ago, and now Ack-Ack finds himself lacking a purpose.  Without the constant excitement of eternal combat that his time in the game provided, he’s been reduced to piloting Victoria Valois’ airship Tereshkova from place to place and spending his spare time reminiscing the glory days while flying around in an antique Spitfire.  For a macaque of action, the doldrums of this new reality are taking a toll, as is the realization that he’s an anomaly.  As the only sentient monkey on earth, he feels very much alone.  Alone—and horny.

When approached by a spokesman of the Gestalt, a cyber-cult whose members have wirelessly connected their gelware to create a collective “hive mind”, he’s torn between two thoughts.  The first—to accept their offer in the hope union with the Gestalt might alleviate his loneliness.  The second—to tell them to go fuck themselves while flinging some poo.  Finding the balance, Ack-Ack rejects their overture with a sucker punch and assumes that’s all she wrote.  Cultists being cultists however, they refuse his refusal, pursuing his membership with a most cult-like determination.

Meanwhile, a down and out Science Fiction writer by the name of William Cole is struggling to cope with the loss of his wife Marie and failing horribly.  He’s in a downward spiral, fueling his grief with drugs and alcohol.  But when someone takes a shot at him outside his apartment, his instinctive impulse is still self-preservation, all flight—no fight.  Hours later he’s in Victoria Valois’ cabin aboard the Tereshkova, begging asylum so he can flee to the relative safety of the sky.  That relative safety proves very short lived.  After a confrontation with a dying stowaway to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance, Cole finds himself embroiled in a cold war that literally crosses universes, unlikely ally of both Ack-Ack and Victoria as they attempt to stop the Gestalt from hatching a plot, which if successful, will have consequences for the collective individuality of humanity—including the daughter he never had.

With Hive Monkey, Gareth L. Powell has once again written a novel that is not what it seems at first glance.  There’s hidden depth to his story of a hard drinking, hard fighting monkey, and it manifests itself in several themes that are there for the reader to see if they take the time to look.  If I were to sum it up in one sentence, Hive Monkey is an exploration of the individual’s perception of reality. It’s also an exploration of the idea of reality itself, whether it is Ack-Ack, whose consciousness began in the virtual and was then transported to the real, or Paul, Victoria’s ex-husband, whose essence, his “soul” as it were, was transported to the virtual when his body died.  In the first novel, the cult of the Undying wanted to evolve beyond their physical bodies, attaining immortality by creating a virtual society that would interact with reality by means of artificial bodies.  This time around, the Gestalt wants to do away with individual consciousness and live in a shared reality.  This underlying them of alternate/parallel realities is woven throughout the architecture of these first two books of Powell’s triptych. 

Now the idea of a Hive mind is not new to science fiction, the obvious comparison being the Borg Collective of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, or the alien parasites of Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters. However, Powell has managed to put his personal stamp on the idea, right down to the creepy Mr. Roarke outfits the Gestalt wear. Their technological superiority is explained by their ability to act as a bunch of parallel processing computers, their adaptability to most situations by their common awareness, and their interest in Ack-Ack the result of—well, you’ll find out.  Then there’s the name, “Gestalt” whose definition, “an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts,” explains their desire to collectivize the universe.

While reviewing Ack-Ack Macaque, I mentioned the care Powell took regarding world building.  He created an alternate future that bore much similarity to the one we inhabit, while introducing features that suggest the road less travelled.  From dirigibles becoming the dominant form of air travel to the unification of France and Britain into a greater commonwealth, Powell gives his future a unique brand of authenticity.  With Hive Monkey, he’s graduated from world building to universe building, exploring the idea of multiverse theory, a set of infinite possibilities resulting from our everyday decisions  Ack-Ack’s universe parallels our own with significant differences, just as that of Bill Cole’s (William’s doppelganger) is both parallel to yet significantly different from both.

As for the mild (and only) complaint that the previous novel’s villain didn’t have enough stage time to be fully fleshed out, I’m glad to see that it’s been addressed more than adequately this time around.  After all, we’ve met this villain before without realizing it and his motivation is all the more understandable for it.  It also helps that just as you think you’ve got a hold on what’s going on, Powell throws in a delightful twist that shakes up both Ack-Ack and the reader.

Now I’m not sure if I’m perhaps reading too much subtext into this novel, but I will say this: If you’re simply looking for a fun adventure with some bizarre yet compelling characters, then this book is for you.  If however, you’re looking for something with a little more depth to it, a sci-fi novel that’s more than what it seems, then this is also the book for you.  Whether it be an exploration of our perceptions or simply a fun shoot-em-up, Powell has managed to find the balance between thoughtful existentialism and pulp adventure.

Hive Monkey is the second of a trilogy beginning with Ack-Ack Macaque and ending in the forthcoming Macaque Attack. It will be released in the United Kingdom December 14th and in Canada on December 31st.  Gareth L. Powell maintains a blog at garethlpowell.com and both he and Ack-Ack Macaque can be found pontificating on Twitter.

B+

On honesty and Book Reviews

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“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ~Oscar Wilde

Anyone who’s browsed through this blog may have noticed over time that most of the reviews I put up are generally laudatory.  There’s a reason for that.  What with a finite amount of time for both reading and writing, owing to, well…life, I generally finish books I like and stop reading those I don’t.  There are times however when I will finish a book that I’m not well disposed toward.  Usually, in that case it’s a book that a publisher has been kind enough to send me for review purposes, although there are times when I’ve bought a book and said to myself, “dammit, I paid for this…I’m damn well reading it!”  Having said that, I reserve the right to give an honest opinion of any book sent to me for review.  It may not be a recommendation that you read it, but anyone willing to send a review copy deserves the satisfaction of a review for their efforts, whether it be good or bad.

 As an example, awhile back Titan Books sent me a copy of Kim Newman’s Jago.  My only other experience with Mr. Newman’s work was the delightfully wicked Anno Dracula, and on the basis of that experience, I was quite excited to read something else by someone I consider a superior genre (that genre being Horror) author.  Alas, while the premise was intriguing, it proved to be an overly long behemoth of a novel that suffered from a lack of brevity.  The same novel could have been told better in about half the space and by the time I was done reading it I was more relieved that it was over than excited about writing a review.  That review is still forthcoming, but it will be written.  Quid pro quo, remember?

Of the books this past year that I’ve finished and chosen not to review, John Scalzi’s Redshirts stands out as a novel that I a. bought, b. read to the end, and c. hated.  Yes, yes, I know he won a Hugo, but to me, it was little more than fluff, a derivative bit of fan fiction with several codas tacked on the end in a failed effort to appear “literary.”  As for the Hugo, well, it reinforced my opinion that some awards are more about good marketing or an author’s popularity.  Granted, there are many rave reviews of Redshirts on-line, so I’ll direct you to them, or maybe suggest that you read a much superior novel by the same author, Agent to the Stars.  As for Redshirts, the best I can say about it is that it didn’t take up a lot of my time.

So, what’s the point of this diatribe?  Well, basically this: I want to institute a slight format change to the site.  I want to let you, the reader, know where I, the reviewer, got my source material, whether it be a review copy from a publisher, off an advance review site such as NetGalley, or something I bought at the local bookstore. I’ll include this information before the body of the review. That way you’re forewarned of any biases in my reviewing.  I hope you don’t find any.