(courtesy Hachette Australia)
Any good book worth its narrative, world-building salt should be able to hold immersively entranced through every page and exciting twist-and-turn.
But some books are created more equal than others in this regard, and Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear, the first book in her White Space series, definitely sits well near the rop of the pile.
A space opera that well and turly deserves the genre tag, Ancestral Night rests on a thrilling premise, that of the discovery of a deserted factory-sized ship that, quite apart from bearing evidence of terrible genocidal crime, points to the existence of an ancient technology that could reshape life as future humanity knows it.
The discoverer of this remarkable is a salvage crew made of Haimey, a queer space born salvager with no love of gravity, her charming, handsome, planet-raised partner, Connla and their ship’s AI who is all but a person, save for the absence of a body (although you could well argue the ship performs that function for him).
She is a woman of integrity and honesty, raised by a clade of ardent true believers who preach consensus and unanimity of belief and action, and from whom Haimey is well and truly estranged after her community’s version of the Amish rumspringa, led to her embracing a free-thinking life away from them.
She is appalled by what she discovers on the drifting hulk of a ship but she is also intrigued by the technology it points to; while most other salvagers might skirt merrily on the very edges of the law, if they acknowlege it at all, Haimey is committed to doing the right thing by the governing body of the galaxy, the socialistic though frar from perfect Synarche.
I couldn’t tell if it hurt, because I still had pain turned off in my palms and fingertips. But it scared me enough that I felt my heart spike through the calm for a second before my adrenals comped.
Something on this cursed, haunted f*cking ship had punctured my suit, and my skin.
This discovery out on the fringes of known space sets in train a series of events that propel Haimey, Connla and Singer on a thrilling adventure where they encounter lifeforms whose very existence was the subject of guesswork and conjecture, space stations where the good and the bad make their living on the margins of society and the aforementioned alien technology which is even more jaw-droppingly impressive and portentous than anyone previously supposed.
One thing that eally sets Ancestral Night apart from the space operatic pack is the commitment of Bear to incredibly dense world-building, the kind that adds so much substance to the storyline that everything comes marvellously and wondrously alive.
In less assured hands, this kind of intensely dense world-building would add so much weight to the narrative that it would grind to a halt and leave you as unmoored as the some of the ships caught in the heady events of Ancestral Night.
But Bear manages with engaging aplomb to insert huge amounts of thoughtful exposition and imaginative idea sharing and still leave Ancestral Night feeling like the sort of sci-fi epic that will have you turning pages at light speed, eager to see where it lands next.
(courtesy Macmillan Publishers / Photo (c) Kyle Cassidy)
Ancestral Night is the kind of space opera that has a ton of information sandwiched into its lithe and lean narrative but which never feels weighed or slowed down or cumbersome.
The back cover blurb that promises the novel will “delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton” is spot on, no victim of hyperbole but rather an accuracy that delivers exactly what it alludes to, and which makes its storyline all the more enjoyable because there is so much meditative information on which to ponder should you so choose.
Part of the alacrity of Ancestral Night as a storytelling vehicle is that the central characters, and indeed those on the periphery too, all feels vivaciously fully formed and alive.
They fill the storyline with believably grounded humanity, and yes, that applies to the imaginatively rendered aliens too, and their banter and wit is both humourously invigorating and emotionall weighty, a mix that has you laughing and crying often in the same chapter.
So well brought to life are the characters that when a major plot twist places a number of them in real jeopardy, by which time you have well and truly embraced them in your heart as your own, you are desperately begging and pleading with the literary gods to spare them.
If you are a rapacious reader, you will be well used to the idea of “killing your darlings” which often refers to axing words on the page but can also hint at the demise of beloved characters, but even so, you will love these characters so much that you will wishing, hoping and praying that there’s a happy outcome further down the narrative road.
It was as if two different versions of reality coexisted in my head at the same time. There was the story of Niyara and me, of her betrayal, the one that I’d polished and kept in my pocket all these ans to wrd off unwise personal attachments.
And then there was the contradictory one, starting to assert itself, like a history from a parallel universe.
And it was so much more terrible than the first.
To say whether this manifests itself would be a reviewing bridge too far, but suffice to say that this screming need to not have these people need speaks to how brilliantly well Bear brings them to life on the road but well profoundly well she knits them into every last moment of the plot.
They are far from cardboard cutouts simply there to propel the storyline, and their presence gives an already thrilling plot even more momentum, drawing you even further into a novel that is all all-or-nothing proposition every step of the way.
This is one novel you can’t simply wander in without lasting effect.
You will open Ancestral Night and before you know it, you’ll find yourself enthralled with the premise, delighted by the characters (and yes, that applies to some of the more unsavoury types; or at least one in particular) and made heady by the gloriously involving mix of ideas and action.
Ancestral Night is a space opera that well and truly deserves the name, offering up the far-ranging expanse of larger-than-life characters set in a galaxy-spanning storyline, but also going intimate and deeply human too, bringing emotions and ideas into play that propel the narrative while delivering all the feelings in a novel that compels you to keep reading and which knows that there is no way you are going to abandon ship before you reach the energising, thoroughly satisfying finish line.