#jack mcdevitt

I bought more paperbacks.

Firefly, the short-lived but beloved space western, debuted fifteen years ago--and takes place five hundred years from now. We’re marking the occasion with a book list full of rag tag crews, interplanetary shenanigans, space ships, rebels, rogues, found families and dangerous secrets. Shiny! 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers

Rosemary doesn’t expect much from her new job clerking on a long haul spaceshop--she just wants to put as much distance between herself and her past as possible. But the Wayfarer’s crew is raucous, mostly welcoming, and about to get in way over their collective multi-species heads. 

Leviathan Wakes, by James S.A. Corey

A ragtag crew of survivors, a hardboiled space station detective, and any number of politicians, pirates, soldiers and revolutionaries chase a conspiracy with existential implications. 

Ascension, by Jacqueline Koyanagi 

Engineer Alana Quick stows away on the Tangled Axon hoping to get a job, get off her dead-end planet, and find her missing sister. But the eccentric crew and the infuriating (and far too good looking) captain aren’t what she expected, and her quest is more than she bargained for. 

Coming Home, by Jack McDevitt 

A pare of space-faring antiquarians get sucked into an adventure much bigger than the average scavenging trip.  

The Warrior’s Apprentice, by Lois McMaster Bujold 

After flunking his military academy entrance, ambitious and fast-talking Miles Vorkosigan travels to a distant planet, dreams up a get-rich-quick scheme, and wanders into a war. No space opera collection would be complete without Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, and the cracking wit and engaging cast of young Miles’ adventures make them perfect for Firefly fans. 

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson 

The Empire of Masks uses trade and education in their conquest. Baru uses accounting and paperwork in her revenge. None of that is as neat as it sounds in this complex, dark, and sharply funny tale of intrigue and double-crosses.

The Daedalus Incident, by Michael J. Martinez

The mysteries of Mars unfold slowly in the interweaving stories of scientists from a dangerous future and explorers from an alternate past.  

Fortune’s Pawn, by Rachel Bach

As far as Devi is concerned, working security for the trade ship Glorious Fool is a way to see some action and pack her resume, a step towards becoming one of the system’s elite space marines. But everyone and everything on this ship has secrets, and no one gets out unscathed. 

Ethan of Athos, by Lois McMaster Bujold 

Culture clash, space mercenaries, spies, reproductive technology, mutants, dietary quirks of the space station dweller, murder, mayhem, bureaucracy, and an obstetrician on a quest. 

Serenity: Those Left Behind, by Joss Whedon, Brett Mathews and Will Conrad

This comic book continuation picks up just days after the movie Serenity. 

Arabella of Mars, by David D. Levine 

Arabella loves the frontier world of her family’s Martian plantation, but her mother wants her to learn to be a proper lady back on Earth. Then a nefarious plot sends Arabella on a thoroughly unladylike adventure. 

A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers

Unlicensed android A.I.s are illegal, so Lovelace---who used to be a ship, and isn’t too excited about this new human body---must navigate a new shape, new people and a new planet while hiding her nature and hacking her own code. 

Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

// note: this has a lot of spoilers. if you like surprises, skip this post and just go and read a solidly written book that has aged extremely well.

so! last we'd left off, our narrator, alex benedict, and his trusty sidekick chase kolpath had followed his uncle's clues and research and found the last resting place of the great war hero christopher sim, and found the rather shocking knowledge that he didn't die.

he had lost heart for fighting and his brother had stranded him there, so his despair wouldn't drag down morale.

and that weird poem about leisha tanner, the professor, pacifist, diplomat, and then crew-member, was a reference to her spending years of her life after the war trying to refind the place where he'd been stashed to do... something. was it care or love that set her to do that? or guilt? sources unclear.

and then we come to the final climax, where the weird engines that the corsarius had turn out to be a lot more than just 'weird', and a passing reference an ashiyurr diplomat had to the corsarius appearing at several battles in far too short a timeframe there-must-have-been-a-decoy-corsarius-possibly-more also turns out to be relevant. having read benedict's mind when he went to the ashiyurr for some background information, an ashiyurr warship tracked his voyage and would very much like to take the corsarius and its lost faster-than-light technology -- a technological secret that had not been shared around by sim's faction and lost when they were killed off in the war.

aaaaand then things get interesting.

the warship disables the little craft benedict came in, and as he and kolpath are very rapidly trying to warm up the corsarius (still in good order) for use, disable that ship's manoeuverability while they're at it. then say, with kind benevolence, that this technology should be shared among everybody and it would be best if benedict just leaves the ship and lets them take it, he and kolpath won't be harmed etc. etc.

benedict and kolpath surmise that the ashiyurr are still scared about what they could do with the corsarius -- the ashiyurr would have to drop their shields for a brief moment to send their own landing party and that leaves them vulnerable to attack.

so instead of simply surrendering, benedict and kolpath put some empty spacesuits into a little shuttle craft to fake leaving, wait for the ashiyurr to drop shields to send their own vessel. and shoot them.

there is return fire, but ineffective (the corsarius's shield is now up) and benedict thinks heavily about sending one of the ship's nuclear missiles to finish the ashiyurr off. "they tried to kill us!" but is talked down by kolpath. "i liked the leisha who took an ashiyurr's arm better than the one who was a soldier." and that is moving and meaningful and a lot of good stuff.

but also, i have to point out. benedict was the first person to make an attempted lethal shot. the ashiyurr did not try to kill him until he used a ruse de guerre and tried to kill them first. which knowledge he Does Not Seem To Be Aware Of in that particular scene, though since he is narrating this book he (the narrator-character) might have thought things through and included for careful readers to make their own conclusions about.

there's a bit of a wrap-up. the return of this lost technology will be just dandy for human-operated space and the overpowering feeling is that peace will remain if one side has a great advantage. (interesting inversion of the cold war ethos of peace through mutually assured destruction.) i am not personally convinced that the ashiyurr would have done ill if benedict had surrendered and let them have the corsarius. they seem, in general, more inclined to deal fairly. but that's something impossible to get a definitive answer on.

on balance i like it when there is enough ambiguity or contradictory information that i have to think about the ending.

And! And! the epilogue brings us back to hugh scott, this researcher who first found the place christopher sim had been imprisoned and this knowledge sent him into his own despair spiral and maddened search and we keep finding traces of what he's doing.

all that time, he was a step ahead of benedict. he wasn't looking for the corsarius -- he'd already found it. he was looking for the possibility that leisha tanner really did find christopher sim and rescue him. that last chapter is a return to the monastery of the prologue, where he does find the guy's grave in the monastery graveyard... 40 years after his disappearance. buried among the men who'd loved him.

and then. we find out he hadn't just been hiding out there for decades. no, he'd been travelling quietly on and off, and reading and studying and writing, and all of his collected works are just waiting there for the first person to find his grave and ask.

My God, Hugh Scott, I Am So Proud Of You. This Character We Never Meet In Person. Driven And Half Mad. You Fucking Geek. You Found What You Were Looking For, The Knowledge Of A Kinder End, And Also You Found Hidden Glory.

You Legend.

on a more technical note, i really enjoyed mcdevitt's worldbuilding. lots of things mentioned in passing, and brief excerpts from 'historical document' in the chapter openings, build up our knowledge of how the setting works without bogging us down in exposition or making anyone break out a map. beautifully done!

i'm also pleasantly surprised by how many female characters there were. there's a... there's a trend in a lot of vintage sci-fi to relegate women to perhaps walk-on walk-off love interests while all the interesting plot happens with the menfolk. A Talent for War cheerfully throws chase kolpath who laughs like a viking at us early on and she remains competent and sensible and vivid throughout. in the historical research sections, leisha tanner is at least as important as christopher sim. various women are shown to move throughout the world with confidence. after getting so frustrated with the glass ceiling in panshin's Rite of Passage, this one was really nice to come back to.

benedict and his helper kolpath have continued tracking down clues on christopher sims and the big mystery of ilyanda and a whole bunch of this is an actually quite sedate business of tracking down who received some writer's old letters and notes and did they do anything with them and who did that stuff get passed to next and which name was it donated to the university and going through phonebooks looking for potential family members and so forth and so on et cetera.

and there are also some explosive relevations. turns out the special thing about ilyanda was the concentrated population which meant it could be evacuated relatively easily which meant it could be used as bait to lure in the enemy and possibly kill them with an experimental weapon of mass destruction... and some shit happened, and the guy who was planning on pulling that trigger got distracted by someone who hadn't been evacuated.

i can see why that kind of trap would have been tempting, especially to someone fighting an asymmetric, largely guerilla war. but the potential to create novas on command is like atomic bombs or that water-destroyer from the first Godzilla movie. too much of a game-changer to let loose. i understand why they didn't try to use it again.

and we've finally got an answer to all the scares and near-death experiences benedict has been having -- someone who was also aware of his uncle's research wanted to scare alex benedict off without really hurting him. except the last plan turned out more lethal than expected, in a complicated way, and she died in the process of pulling out a bystander from the mess.

and, in the general theme of 'how we construct history', when benedict attends this woman's funeral, he doesn't talk about the complicated 'nearly killed me and put multiple people in harm's way' part, but sticks with "she did not hesitate to give her life for someone whose name she did not know". because history is complicated and so is memory.

been getting more opinions on the old war and conflict in general:

an ashiyurrean military strategist chiding leisha tanner for her tight grip on pacifism: (paraphrased) "she shouldn't have sat on the fence as long she did. once conflict is inevitable your personal feelings don't matter."

an ashiyurrean diplomat during the war: "this is not a fight between ashiyurr and humans. it's a fight between those who want conflict and those who want peace."

matt olander (the guy who was planning on destroying a solar system): "a 'neutral' is someone who lets others do the fighting for him." (olander, whose mission failed -- because he couldn't pull the trigger on a single woman trying to stop him.)

benedict finally tracks down the last stop on his uncle's research and pragmatically just bribes the place for a copy of the likely coordinates for where he was going.

after several months of travel finds an oddly intact 'destroyed in the war' warship of Christopher Sim, Great Hero, circling a planet.

and benedict goes exploring on land, and gently laughs off his assistant's stricture to never get out of the landing pod. "there aren't any large mammals; nothing can harm me. the climate is lovely!"

not too long after, he nearly gets dissolved by some kind of massive jellyfish hidden in the water.

I Love A Good 'And Then There Were Consequences' Moment.