Book Review: Embers of War
The first novel in the eponymous coming-soon-to-TV space opera trilogy by writing community legend, Gareth L. Powell.
I’ll be honest: before joining the Twitter writing community, I had not heard of Gareth L. Powell (unsurprising, since I was properly out of the loop). But as soon as I announced myself as a writer on the platform and started using the hashtags, Gareth was there, following me because he’s awesome and follows all writers. Though my attention was drawn by his humourously titled Ack-Ack Macaque series (which I plan on reading at some point), I knew it would be remiss of me not to prioritise his award-winning science fiction work. After all, I didn’t just want to read the older “classic” sci-fi from the mid-20th century, but it’s important to also know where the genre is at today - and what better place to start than with one of the most highly regarded series of the last decade?
Summary
The warship Trouble Dog was built and bred for calculating violence, yet following a brutal war, she finds herself disgusted by conflict and her role in a possible war crime. Seeking to atone, she joins the House of Reclamation, an organisation dedicated to rescuing ships in distress. But, stripped of her weaponry and emptied of her officers, she struggles in the new role she’s chosen for herself. When a ship goes missing in a disputed system, Trouble Dog and her new crew of misfits and loners, captained by Sal Konstanz, an ex-captain of a medical frigate who once fought against Trouble Dog, are assigned to investigate and save whoever they can.
Meanwhile, light years away, intelligence officer Ashton Childe is tasked with locating and saving the poet, Ona Sudak, who was aboard the missing ship, whatever the cost. In order to do this, he must reach out to the only person he considers a friend, even if he’s not sure she can be trusted. What Childe doesn’t know is that Sudak is not the person she appears to be. Quickly, what appears to be a straightforward rescue mission turns into something far more dangerous, as Trouble Dog, Konstanz and Childe, find themselves at the centre of a potential new conflict that could engulf not just mankind but the entire galaxy. If she is to survive and save her crew, Trouble Dog is going to have to remember how to fight.
Review
Right off the bat, Embers of War plays around with style in terms of its point of view. The book’s prologue is written in the usual third-person POV but that all changes when we get into the rest of the novel. The main story is written in first-person, with very short chapters comprising a single character’s viewpoint. Each chapter is named simply for the person whose POV we occupy, whether that be Sal Konstanz, Nod the druff (an intriguing alien with six limbs which each function as hands, feet and face all at once), any of the other crew members, or even the Trouble Dog herself. While unusual, I personally had no problems adjusting to this style, and the clear separation between viewpoints helped keep me oriented throughout - especially once I had gotten used to who all the characters were. I also found the short chapters made the book incredibly easy to read - I’m not someone who can really sit for hours reading, so getting through a bunch of chapters in one sitting made me feel like I was flying through it, and I liked that.
The writing itself was great. I have no complaints. It was evocative and functional, and delved deeply into the minds of each of the characters. The viewpoint characters were nicely nuanced, and Trouble Dog is the absolute star of the show. Nod’s chapters are a bit… weird, but I could dig it because his thought processes came across as so alien, which is precisely what you want for an alien, really. The other characters, however, were a little bit one-note. You had the gruff and tough warrior type, the perpetual coward type, and a woman who seemed to just be tagging along for the vibes and who serves as a foil for one of the POV characters (seriously, aside from being there to support this one character, I’m not sure I really recall what her stake in the story is). That’s not to say they were bad characters. They certainly pulled their narrative weight, but they lacked the depth of the others. I guess that could be expected, since we were never in their heads.
Worldbuilding in the book was enjoyable, though I could have done with a more overt primer on what exactly the differences are between the Conglomeration, the Outward and the Multiplicity. I think I get it - the Conglomeration and Outward are two human factions, and humans are just one space-faring species in the galactic federation/alliance of the Multiplicity. There is a section which explains how humans came to join the Multiplicity, but it was also tied up in the history of the House of Reclamation, and I got a bit muddled. It’s also a shame we don’t get a real glimpse in this book of the other species involved, aside from the druff. That being said, the worldbuilding is certainly on the epic scale, and I imagine more of that will come into play in the next two books.
My one and only, absolutely petty-beyond-belief niggle with the book is that… the ship on the front cover is not in the book at all. I went in thinking that was the Trouble Dog, and I had that image in my mind, but the ship itself is actually described completely differently. It bothered me way more than it should, and I have since learned that it’s a pretty prevalent practice for space operas. The way the Trouble Dog is described in the book itself makes a lot more sense than the design on the cover, however, and it’s a shame we couldn’t see an artist impression of how it actually is (I guess we’ll have to wait for the TV show for that). Though the issue does seem to be rectified for Fleet of Knives, if the ships on the front of that book are what I think they are.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed reading Embers of War, and I’ve already got the second book in the trilogy, Fleet of Knives, sitting on my shelf queued up to read. I would highly recommend it if you’re looking for a fun, action-packed space opera.
