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mburnamfink 's review for:
Shards of Earth
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Shards of Earth puts some twists on the standard space opera plot of "small ship and crew against the universe", and executes its story extremely well.
First, that universe. It's a supremely hostile one, defined by the destruction of Earth and many human worlds by the Architects, moon-sized entities that use gravity weapons to turn ships and planets into abstract sculpture. Two of the characters, Solace and Idris, were key to humanity's survival in the Architect War. Idris is an Intermediary, a space wizard who can directly tap into unspace and who reached the mind of an Architect and convinced them to withdraw, and Solace is a genetically enhanced super-soldier of the Parthenon, an all-female guardian angel.
50 or so years after that victory, humanity has taken its survival and as per usual turned to squabbling. The Parethenon and baseline colonists are on the brink of war. Human worlds are defecting to the Hegemony, an alien empire ruled by possibly divine clams that claims to offer protection against the Architects. Solace has spent much of the time in cold sleep between missions, and Idris is the navigator on the Vulture God, a deep space salvage craft.
Independent Intermediaries are extremely rare, most are slaves owned by the colonial government, and are one unique advantage the colonies have over the Parthenon. Solace is given a mission to get Idris to join the Parthenon by any means necessary, and then Idris and the crew of the Vulture God stumble into interstellar intrigues way above their paygrade, and have to do whatever it takes to maintain their precious independence.
There's world-building, action, some great characters, and a real cosmological mystery. One thing I appreciated was how lethal the setting is. Humans spent 80+ years running from unkillable planet destroyers, and both ships and unspace FTL travel are deeply inimicable to human existence. Life is cheap, death is always nearby, and characters standing up in a gunfight go down fast.
Shards of Earth doesn't transcend the genre, but it does it extremely well, and I'm excited to see how the rest of the series goes.
First, that universe. It's a supremely hostile one, defined by the destruction of Earth and many human worlds by the Architects, moon-sized entities that use gravity weapons to turn ships and planets into abstract sculpture. Two of the characters, Solace and Idris, were key to humanity's survival in the Architect War. Idris is an Intermediary, a space wizard who can directly tap into unspace and who reached the mind of an Architect and convinced them to withdraw, and Solace is a genetically enhanced super-soldier of the Parthenon, an all-female guardian angel.
50 or so years after that victory, humanity has taken its survival and as per usual turned to squabbling. The Parethenon and baseline colonists are on the brink of war. Human worlds are defecting to the Hegemony, an alien empire ruled by possibly divine clams that claims to offer protection against the Architects. Solace has spent much of the time in cold sleep between missions, and Idris is the navigator on the Vulture God, a deep space salvage craft.
Independent Intermediaries are extremely rare, most are slaves owned by the colonial government, and are one unique advantage the colonies have over the Parthenon. Solace is given a mission to get Idris to join the Parthenon by any means necessary, and then Idris and the crew of the Vulture God stumble into interstellar intrigues way above their paygrade, and have to do whatever it takes to maintain their precious independence.
There's world-building, action, some great characters, and a real cosmological mystery. One thing I appreciated was how lethal the setting is. Humans spent 80+ years running from unkillable planet destroyers, and both ships and unspace FTL travel are deeply inimicable to human existence. Life is cheap, death is always nearby, and characters standing up in a gunfight go down fast.
Shards of Earth doesn't transcend the genre, but it does it extremely well, and I'm excited to see how the rest of the series goes.