Stars and Bones by Gareth L Powell
I would like to thank Lydia from Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Titan Books
Published – 1/3
Price - £11.99 paperback £4.31 Kindle eBook
Seventy-five years from today, the human race has been cast from a dying Earth to wander the stars in a vast fleet of arks―each shaped by its inhabitants into a diverse and fascinating new environment, with its own rules and eccentricities.
When her sister disappears while responding to a mysterious alien distress call, Eryn insists on being part of the crew sent to look for her. What she discovers on Candidate-623 is both terrifying and deadly. When the threat follows her back to the fleet and people start dying, she is tasked with seeking out a legendary recluse who may just hold the key to humanity’s survival.
Some say you have to understand the past to make sense of the current genre, but for me you really need to understand the present state of a genre to see what is actually going on right now and speculate where we may be going next. Space Opera in science fiction has for a long time been a tale of empires and big galactic wars that it can sometimes feel more high fantasy in space but in the 21st century as we increasingly speculate as to the end of capitalism and explore other ways that communities can form; is this the only template as to how space opera can be told? In Gareth L Powell’s ambitious and really interesting Stars and Bones we get an unusual start to a new series that is very much taking some familiar themes and doing something a little unusual that makes it a highly enjoyable and surprising read.
Nuclear Armageddon on earth is minutes away and one lucky scientist creates the first ever warp field door at about the same time. Usually this would have been overlooked but Earth was being watched by one of a remote alien ancient and powerful intelligence (who later get called Angels). The Angel in question judges that human beings to be both a danger to Earth thanks to our environmental impact and also worthy of a second chance. War is averted but humanity is forcibly taken off the planet and exiled to immense self-aware ark ships each containing millions of inhabitants who need to now travel space and work out where humanity goes next. The Confluence is born. One of the inhabitants 75 years later is Eryn the pilot/navigator of the scout ship Furious Ocelot now on a desperate mission to an unknown world where her sister and own ship has vanished. The Ocelot and her passengers are though going to find a new powerful force that will stop nothing for itself to cross the stars and spread its own influence forever.
What I really liked about this story was Powell trying to play with what space opera can be seen to be. Humans finding powerful alien in space that causes trouble is a classic scenario. What happens to the crew on the planet is viscerally horrible, strange, and compelling. We soon find out in advance of Eryn how bad things are going to get and it indeed does quickly go from very bad to even worse as the power discovered makes itself known to the ark ships and starts to convert them initially with shock and awe and then more craftily. Now so far all of this sounds fairly standard for science fiction plots. What I found interesting was the ‘world’ that this all happens to. Powell gives us backstory in various single points of view - some who were there to see it all and some who saw what came next – which pleasingly feels a more organic way of info-dumping how this universe works. We are so used to either a future human race familiar with space or humans on earth getting first contact. Here we have humans artificially boosted centuries into technology; exiled from home and not at all clear on what exactly is out there with them. The Confluence is humanity without its petty wars, states, need for economies or resources and yet also humanity without purpose, order, or any idea what it is for doing next. If that group was to meet its firstly truly alien power what would happen next?
Powell posits humans that create their own joined communities; tailored spaceships from skyscraper-based ships to ones where you can be augmented to swim in water all day. There are even a small group who wish to promote the return of capitalism, money, and gossip sites. Each ark has its own ship intelligence, and each gets tailored to their communities’ personalities. Even scout ships like Furious Ocelot get their own blue skinned and very powerful guardian to interface with the clue. The angels also saw humans would need cats and dogs and in an inspired move Powell give them the ability to tell us their thoughts which for cats mean we are both a nuisance and a food dispenser who should get a move on. We so often get to see humanity as either faction ridden or one monolithic bloc so here it is unusual to show us in a very intermediate stage of opur future development. Many people are working out what they can do next; swapping communities and ways of life to see how things fit. We get a liberal, disorganised and fascinating group of found families I can’t wait to see more of and that really feels 21st century SF to me.
The main plot of what the Ocelot’s crew uncovers is where Powell gets to play with scale. We have huge ships, millions of lives under attack, black holes, and Dyson sphere to name just a few devices all serving key points. With the entity the Confluence faces we get body horror, subterfuge, and deceptions plus lot of violence. The power faced is remorseless, smart, and hard to predict. This keeps the story really flowing well and opens up further future realms or ideas to discover. What was a standout here was we avoid the standard battle finale of such tales and instead go for a more thoughtful, stranger and unusually more peaceful way of resolving things even after a very high body count. This was satisfying because rather than just going for giant battles in space (although I can confirm you get several in the book) which would have been disappointing. Again, I felt this is a tale where Powell is playing against the standard structure we know so well. It actually would have made Star Trek proud in its final decision making!
Character wise was a more mixed bag. Eryn I really liked being someone trying to hold it together in difficult circumstances, not giving up and trying to do the hard right thing and not the easy thing. This is really complemented by the Furious Ocelot’s own blue skinned, funny, kind and when needed kick ass avatar. It’s a really enjoyable friendship of human and AI that works and the duo really support each other in difficult times. I loved how this demonstrated these ship minds are not Banksian supreme rulers but also working their way with their new passengers still and each influences the other. There is some lovely emotional character writing here about carrying on when things are hard and that really worked for me. The wider cast come and go (and sometimes go horribly) I don’t know if this was all for setting up future adventures or just a desire to show how dangerous yet varied this world is, but I didn’t feel as close a connection with other characters as I did the central duo. I hope future tales will give us more visibility of other Confluence inhabitants and of course the strange powerful Angels we find traversing the galaxy.
Stars and Bones is a really ambitious and enjoyable story that feels like it is fashioning something that is its own thing. Yes, you can recognise hallmarks of science fiction, but it very much feels like Powell is taking lessons from our more emotion focused current phase of science fiction more interested in exploring our concepts of community and trying to do the right things rather than the overly familiar aims of exploring the rules of hard SF or the love of having a whizz bang war in space. You can guess I consider that a great idea by the way. After a complete adventure the tale moves into a very different direction, and I have no idea where the series will go next. But after reading it I do find myself speculating a lot on what we may find. I think this could be the start of an impressive new science fiction series and I very much look forward to the journey to that unknown destination just as much as our future humans do. Highly recommended!
