The dark but utterly brilliant second book in the Embers of War trilogy by Gareth L. Powell

Even better than the first, Fleet of Knives is a fantastic sequel that dives right into the action and pulls no punches. Much moreso than in Embers of War, there’s clear inspiration taken from the movie Aliens and, reader, I’m here for it. I honestly wish I had started reading this one straight after the first, but in the interests of variety, I took the time out to read other things. The consequence here was that I ended up starting to read the book and then not having time to read much more than a few pages every few days. But to be clear, that’s a failing on the part of my own time management, not an indictment of the book. So it’s taken me quite a lot longer to read through than I had anticipated. Thankfully around the halfway mark I found more time and ended up blasting through the it because it’s just so great. Given how long it took me to read the first half, should I use the word “unputdownable”? Probably not. But I will anyway, because it certainly would have been if I hadn’t, um, put it down so much? … That doesn’t make any sense. Look, the book’s really, really good, damn it.

#TeamTroubleDog

Summary

The former warship Trouble Dog and her crew of misfits is called upon by the House of Reclamation to investigate a distress call from the human starship the Lucy's Ghost. Her crew abandon their crippled ship and seek refuge abroad an abandoned, slower-than-light generation ship launched ten thousand years before by an alien race. However, the enormous ship contains deadly secrets of its own.

Recovered war criminal, Ona Sudak, faces a firing squad for her actions in the Archipelago War. But, at the last moment, she is smuggled out of her high security prison. The Marble Armada has called for her to accompany its ships as observer and liaison, as it spreads itself across the human Generality, enforcing the peace at all costs. The alien ships will not tolerate resistance, and all dissenters are met with overwhelming and implacable force. Then her vessel intercepts messages from the House of Reclamation and decides the Trouble Dog has a capacity for violence which cannot be allowed to endure.

As the Trouble Dog and her crew fight to save the crew of the Lucy's Ghost, the ship finds herself caught between chaotic alien monsters on one side, and on the other, destruction at the hands of the Marble Armada.

Review

Given that I’ve just gushed about it above, let’s delve a bit deeper into why Fleet of Knives is so good. First of all, the style of alternating first-person POV chapters continues here, as you would expect, but we are introduced to new characters from the point of view of Johnny Schultz, the captain of the stricken starship, Lucy’s Ghost. And character is where I want to start. In my review for Embers of War I pointed out that while the characters were interesting, they did seem to fall into particular archetypes, but here in Fleet of Knives our main cast is much more well fleshed out and compelling. Trouble Dog herself remains as awesome as ever, and we also have an introduction to Lucy who is thoroughly charming - I do love me a sentient AI - but the human characters feel like they have a lot more weight to them as well. Last time I said Nod was a bit weird, but the Druff engineer has a much expanded role in this book and it is very endearing. Just everything about the character work here is taken up several notches, and that’s helped by the tight and snappy pacing that makes a return from the previous book.

When it comes to the world-building, there’s an extra bit of depth here that I appreciated. I’m starting to understand why we’re not seeing a lot of the other species of the Multiplicity: the human Generality is pretty much left to its own devices, and the Multiplicity now comes across as less of a galactic federation, and more of a loose alliance based on a respect of interstellar boundaries between species. I think it’s handled very well to be honest. And I’m looking forward to reading more.

I said this book is dark, and it certainly does take on a more sinister tone. So much goes wrong for the characters and Gareth pulls no punches. There’s no contrivances to lessen the impact of what’s happening around the Generality or aboard the avian generation ship. There’s no easy outs. Out of the frying pan and into the fire is an apt metaphor here. Horrors lurk in the dark and humanity is caught between that and the cold malice of an advanced race. It’s chilling stuff.

And I want to take a moment to mention the absolute audacity of chapter 49. Wow, just… Bravo, sir. Bravo. That was a chef’s kiss moment in the book.

I think that about sums it up, really. I loved this book. There’s intense action, great pacing that keeps you turning those pages, fantastic character moments, the plot flows well and the world-building is excellent. What more could you want? I definitely won’t leave it as long before I start the last book in the trilogy, Light of Impossible Stars - in fact, it’s already sitting on my shelf. I can’t wait to see what this series looks like in adaptation as well.

What a fantastic read. Highly recommended.