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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Seems set in a familiar universe of space opera and military wonder, but very quickly the twist is revealed: if you're going to be involved in planetary and galaxy conflicts, you're going to be involved in more than your share of atrocities. So what happens to the massive trauma of the people (and sentient ships!) involved?
It's not quite as heavy as that may imply, but the novel doesn't shy away from it either. Eager to continue the series.
It's not quite as heavy as that may imply, but the novel doesn't shy away from it either. Eager to continue the series.
adventurous
funny
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Easy and fun read absolutely loved Nod as a character, will pick up the rest of the books.
Through my own, personal, shattering grief until now, I could not read any other fiction aside from this remarkable book. May 2020 to August 2021, I read in fits and starts, my mind and soul trying to make sense of heartbreak. Sometimes I could only read a page or two. Then, long droughts. It turns out this was the perfect book to bring me out of that darkness.
In Gareth L. Powell’s EMBERS OF WAR, we experience life through the lens of multiple characters. The sentient former warship, the inimitable Trouble Dog, was a bit of a wild card for some time. Her jaded Captain Konstanz maintained a mutual respect for the ship. But echoes of the past, the very embers left from catastrophic battles, all simmer just below the surface.
Every character feels it: a muffled drumbeat threatening to burst into the cacophony of suffering they’d all somehow escaped from alive, but not unmarked.
These are tired, disillusioned people, and a restless ship looking for a new purpose. I felt a kinship with many characters because of what I’d been through. That unsettling feeling that another shoe was about to drop.
Powell threads the needle with his beautiful prose, his nuanced characterization, and his staggering world-building. I’ve not read anything more suited to our moment of history right now.
Even if you’ve never read science fiction before, read this.
Forget the next Asimov. Turns out he was the proto-Powell.
In Gareth L. Powell’s EMBERS OF WAR, we experience life through the lens of multiple characters. The sentient former warship, the inimitable Trouble Dog, was a bit of a wild card for some time. Her jaded Captain Konstanz maintained a mutual respect for the ship. But echoes of the past, the very embers left from catastrophic battles, all simmer just below the surface.
Every character feels it: a muffled drumbeat threatening to burst into the cacophony of suffering they’d all somehow escaped from alive, but not unmarked.
These are tired, disillusioned people, and a restless ship looking for a new purpose. I felt a kinship with many characters because of what I’d been through. That unsettling feeling that another shoe was about to drop.
Powell threads the needle with his beautiful prose, his nuanced characterization, and his staggering world-building. I’ve not read anything more suited to our moment of history right now.
Even if you’ve never read science fiction before, read this.
Forget the next Asimov. Turns out he was the proto-Powell.
Excellent
Slightly slow start, in part because it’s hard to track and care about five separate protagonists all of whom are written in the first person. By about half way through the shifting POV seemed normal and the story took off. Well worth the initial effort.
Slightly slow start, in part because it’s hard to track and care about five separate protagonists all of whom are written in the first person. By about half way through the shifting POV seemed normal and the story took off. Well worth the initial effort.
I read this after seeing it recommended by several of my friends. This space opera revolves around the crew of the Trouble Dog, a decommissioned heavy cruiser which quit the military after it started to develop a conscience about the war crimes that it had been involved in. The ship signed up with the House of Reclamation, an organisation which provides search and rescue across the whole of the Generality (human space). The crew are misfits; military veterans looking for redemption and others with secrets to learn. The plot doesn't go quite the way I expected, and the focus of the story is very much about how each of the characters (including the ship) find their own way to redemption after the horrors of the end of the last human war, when a world was burned to end the conflict. The story beings as a search and rescue operation and escalates with military conflict and ancient threats.
It's not as complicated as Iain M Banks, not as sharply written as Neal Asher, but it does deliver a satisfying story. Throughout I could see how you could play this out as a roleplaying game. I was drawn through by the energy of the story. Enjoyable.
It's not as complicated as Iain M Banks, not as sharply written as Neal Asher, but it does deliver a satisfying story. Throughout I could see how you could play this out as a roleplaying game. I was drawn through by the energy of the story. Enjoyable.
adventurous
medium-paced
