If our current day and age has taught us anything, beyond of course cementing the realisation that the world is an inherently selfish place, it is that fascists and those who inhabit the murderously bleak extremes of the human experience never really go away.
Oh, but if they had only disappeared from the face of the Earth when Hitler met his end in that bunker; but alas they did not, with the weaker-minded, soulless members of the human race taking refuge in ideas that they are somehow far superior to those they deem deficient in a host of baseless ways.
It is tempting to think that a spaceborn future, one with shiny ships flying from star to star and technology so advanced it really does feel like Arthur C. Clarke’s sharply-observed truism (“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”) might have dispensed with such dark and terrible beliefs but as we enter the thrilling pell-mell narrative that fills The Shattered Skies by John Birmingham, it is patently obvious there have been plenty of rocks under which they have hid, only to emerge when no one was really expecting.
In book 1 of what is now known as The Cruel Stars trilogy, aptly named The Cruel Stars, the fascistic souls referred to, rather ominously, by those in civilised space as The Sturm have raced out from the far reaches of bigoted hell, in a swirling, fearsomely large armada seeking to redeem a human civilisation they regard as impure and broken.
Lucinda Hardy wanted to pace the bridge of HMAS Defiant. When she found herself overwhelmed by all the people coming at her, and everything she needed to do, Lucinda often paced up and down her cabin, talking to herself, picking free the tangled knots of her life. But pacing was not a good look for a ship’s commander. It implied lack of resolve. It made people nervous. Instead she had to content herself with sitting quietly in the captain’s chair at the center of the bridge … (P. 77)
Believing themselves to be the only real humans, they manifestly reject implants, genomic augmentation, AI and the neural nets which are used by everyone in the democratic Commonwealth, the Javan Empire, the criminalistically-inclined Combine and other associated regimes of dubious governance and morality, the latter being their primary initial path of attack.
Sending a virulent malware known as a nanophage down into these neural nets, they have turned almost all of free humanity’s leaders, rulers and governing class into ravenously zombies, their brains reduced to the most basic of pre-sentient impulses – to feed and conquer other as violently as needed to feed some more.
The only survivors are those who for a host of reasons were offline at the time – those awaiting neural updates, military teams gone dark to complete a mission and those fortunate to have switched their systems to avoid getting them fried by temporarily destructive astronomic phenomena.
They kill billions with this cowardly, bestial approach, and still more when their numerically superior but technologically inferior force storm into technologically-augmented space and they set on concentration camps that turn the unworthy into biomass, a desperately horrendous euphemism for murder on an industrial scale.
Rather cleverly, and it speaks to the emotional intelligence at the heart of The Cruel Stars trilogy as a whole, and The Shattered Skies in particular, Birmingham takes us into The Sturm aka The Human republic by way of one of their officers who believes himself to be a decent, good man, wanting nothing more than to return human to a more pure, morally virtuous age.
He is far from that, of course, and while the Sturm are good to those they deem acceptable, which is the far majority of people left alive, some 1 trillion souls, who are too poor or socially low enough to afford augmentation of any kind, and who almost welcome the liberation from oppressive capitalism their new overlords promise, it only takes the smallest of infractions and you join the list, bloodily and without compassion, of those who will wiped from the face of the galaxy.
Theirs is a cruel and horrific belief system, one dressed in motherhood language and outwardly reasonable words about reclaiming some kind of lost glory, but with a soul rotten to the core with a hatred for the Other which consumes ruthlessly and without rationality.
Granted those they are attacking are not exactly the poster children for morally equitable humanity either for the most part but as the heroes of The Cruel Stars continue the battle into The Shattered Skies, it becomes clear that they are fighting for the right of everyone to self-determination and freedom, emboldened by a newly-realised understanding that the social system as it is cannot stand.
It’s largely in big smouldering pieces anyway, so comprehensively does the initial Sturm attack route the prevailing human civilization of the stars, and that of our home planet, Earth, but even so, as Armadelan Navy Commander Lucinda Hardy, in charge of the last remaining battleship the Defiant (after the captain ended up as one of the many slobbering zombies), 700-year-old Terran Navy Admiral Frazer McLennan, pirate-turned-Baroness Sephina L’trel, battle-rig operator Booker and orphaned Princess Alessia fight the good fight, it becomes evident they can’t simply fight for the way things were.
‘Aye, you should prepare yourself for the likelihood that only a handful of your colleagues survived.’
‘I accept that,’ Hardy said, although she did not look happy or in any way accepting of it. ‘But you look like you have more good news.’
McLennan’s expression was wintry.
‘Indeed. Most people are not wired up, are they. Most cannot afford even basic mesh. You received your first implant at the Academy. None of Baroness L’trel’s crew have neural mesh.’
‘No, they don’t,’ she agreed. McLennan could see realization dawning on her … (PP. 175-76)
They need to fight for what remains of free human civilisation, equipped with little more than tenacity and a ragtag fleet of ships and crew lucky to escape the nanophage, but they also need to work for a better world because the one they have, while laudable, was far from perfect and has given the Sturm an in to the hearts and minds of the poor and dispossessed, at least initially.
Therefore change must be made, even as they fight to save the very thing that needs reformation.
It’s this strong beating moral heart that gives so much meaning and vivacity to The Shattered Skies which has action aplenty, fuelled by a titanic battle between good and evil – true one sits more in the grey than the other but it’s a reasonable good of describing what’s in play, but also a real grasp of what true humanity is, and that while it might not be perfect, it’s a damn sight better than surrendering to hateful autocrats and nightmarish Nazis.
The found family of the core characters continues to be a real delight, falling out with each other and supporting each other but always mindful that they need and love each other and that they must stand together, whether against the Sturm or idiotic opportunists who think the Sturm invasion is a great excuse for self-enriching, materially and politically, or all hope is lost, both for greater humanity and for any semblance of life as they know it.
Rich in action and emotional thoughtfulness, as well the ability to discuss big social issues without the rumination gumming up the full speed ahead narrative, The Shattered Skies, is a brilliant middle-of-the-trilogy entry, a grippingly affecting read that takes us from where we were to where we need to be – book three The Forever Dead arrives in 2023 – and does with rich characterisation, an ability to be emotionally intimate even as it goes big and wide in its storytelling and an appreciation that while freedom of human expression doesn’t always result in perfect outcomes, it’s a damn sight better than surrendering our very soul as a species to an evil that talks a big and worth game but is the very darkest part of us that must be fought at all costs.