The first in a very good sci-fi series: space pirates, intrigue, action, very good characters, and an engaging and entertaining plot. What more could one ask for? Recommended for all fans of SF who want a fast-paced, gripping tale.

Published by Orbit/ Victor Gollancz Ltd on January 1, 2016

Revenger is a space opera with some unexplained elements that border on fantasy. It’s a good story for young adults. I didn’t know it was YA fiction when I started it but the story held my interest so I stayed with it. The third novel in the series came out this year, which is why I decided to read the first one. I doubt that I’ll read the next two because, like most YA fiction, the novel explores themes that appeal to young adults. I'm not young. Revenger lacks the complexity that appeals to more mature readers.I was also bothered by story’s failure to explain so much of the universe in which it exists. That’s common in fantasy and in YA fiction but adult science fiction fans demand to know why things are the way they are.

The story takes place in a future characterized by at least a dozen epochs that historians characterized as Occupations. There was a major war between the Second and Third Occupation, perhaps a war between aliens. A good bit of knowledge and technology from the past has been lost. Many worlds were settled during the Occupations. Some of them are artificial habitats. They are collectively known as the Congregation. Various editions of the Book of Worlds have cataloged them but books are in short supply when Revenger begins.

Laced among the habitats are worlds called Baubles. The Baubles are only accessible at certain times; they “open” for certain periods. Scavengers can find all kinds of treasure from past Occupations behind locked doors inside Baubles, but they need to get in and out before the Bauble closes or they’ll be stuck there, fated to die when their oxygen is depleted.

To find and exploit Baubles, scavengers need a specialized crew. One member needs to read the signs to predict when a Bauble will open. Another needs to open the doors they find in the Bauble. An assessor decides what’s valuable. Then there’s a captain and pilot and someone who deploys the sunsails. The most difficult position to fill is that of Sympathetic, also known as a bone reader. The bone reader plugs headphones into a skull and is able to communicate with other ships. Most people can’t read the skulls and those who can lose the ability as they enter their twenties. The skulls are ancient technology and are getting difficult to find.

Against that background, two teenage sisters are given the opportunity to become bone readers. Adrana and Arafura Ness are looking for adventure. They seem to find it on Captain Rackamore’s ship. When they encounter a future version of a pirate, a legendary and seemingly long-lived woman named Bosa Sennen, the girls become separated. Fura spends the rest of the novel trying to get back onto a ship and to find Adrana. But both girls change over the course of the novel; by the end, neither is what the other expects her to be.

The background is interesting and, to the extent that it isn’t always well explained, perhaps there’s no reason it should be. Fura narrates the story and she has no way to explain things she doesn’t understand, like why Baubles exist or how they operate, or why communications devices are made from skulls, or what “ghosty” technology is all about. On the other hand, I suspect that Alastair Reynolds didn’t bother to invent explanations because he knew that a young audience wouldn’t demand them.

The simple themes of good versus evil, sisters separated but still devoted to each other, and young people who are eager to leave home and make their own lives will appear to a YA audience. I think Alastair Reynolds is a much better writer when he markets his fiction to adults, but I’m recommending Revenger to the YA audience for which it is intended.

RECOMMENDED

So this seemed like a good place to start reading Reynolds's work. Revenger is an action-packed, swashbuckling adventure with dashes, perhaps, of steam or even cyber-punk which at the same time, tells a solid space opera story.

Set in some unspecified far distant future, the action is located in our solar system where humanity occupies many different artificial worlds and satellites. The year is 1799 of the ?19th? Occupation. Crews of scavengers hunt for advanced artifacts on abandoned worlds. The implication is that humanity has fallen back somewhat from the technological heights it once scaled. The terrifying Bosa Senn turns out to be a real rather than mythical pirate when she attacks Captain Rackmore's ship separating the teenaged Ness sisters.

There were great moments in this story—from gritty and gorey close-combat scenes to tense moments between characters, from the cold, constricted yet fascinating baubles to the ominous presence of the Nightjammer when it was looming close—and hints of a world building that goes much deeper, thanks to the various bits the author gives here and there about the various Occupations. I wish the author had had room to develop this some more, especially when it came to the baubles and why they were left here: weaponry warehouses? Traps? Something else? Part of a much more complicated system?

I enjoyed this swashbuckling tale, but it is not Reynolds' best book. The characters are more simply drawn, and the canvas is smaller. It also lacks the head-spinning scientific speculation that we are usually treated to.

So I’ve been sitting on my hands for the last five months, fairly disgruntled, that I didn’t have this story in my hands yet, because it was published in the UK last September and as part of that cycle, released in ebook/Kindle format. I’m pretty much a hard-copy only kind of guy. I don’t buy eBooks. I’ll read them. I just don’t buy them, because I so love seeing all of those bound blocks of paper sitting on my bookshelves at home. As Tracy Hickman refers to them (per my sometimes sketchy memory), the “physical reminders of the experience we found within them”. I guess I always have the option of importing hard copies, but that can get expensive fast, and for the most part I end up just shaking my head and dealing with it. Regardless, it’s always nice to get a new Alastair Reynolds book.

REVENGER (Amazon) is a veritable space-pirate novel set in a unique universe tens of millions of years in its future from the imagination of Alastair Reynolds, one of my favorite Science Fiction authors writing today. Empires have risen and fallen and passed into history, leaving their remains behind for the future to pillage and plunder. Their treasures are contained within a plethora of shielded mini-worlds scattered across the galaxy that occasionally open their exterior shells for short periods of time. And living within the space dictated by these “baubles” live a society of traveling space pirates looking to find a lingering trove.
The story revolves around the character of Fura Ness, a young girl living on a small but peaceable planet in the vast spread of the Congregation, the millions of worlds populated by the current occupation. She is quiet, and demure, and willing to live the life her father wants for her, but her elder sister Adrana is wild and ferocious and wants more than their life of mediocrity can provide. Adrana talks Fura into following her into a part of the city that is forbidden, and they soon discover that they have the in-born talent to “speak to the bones”, one of the major modes of long-range ship communication across the black. A ship is ready to take them on as bone readers in-training, and with news of their father’s recent financial loss, they sign on for a six-month tour with the small crew of the Monetta’s Mourn. Their job, on Captain Rackamore’s sunjammer, is to learn to manipulate the power of the ancient skull kept aboard the ship, while they travel to the numerous distant baubles, and try to harvest enough items of historical significance to make a living.
This is probably one of the most accessible novels of his that I’ve ever read. In fact, except for the high level of violence, this might have been marketed as a YA novel. The prose is simple but descriptive. The scientific ideas varied but limited. That was probably one of the things I most noticed about the novel. I’m used to reading his novels and finding amazing sf ideas just thrown into the fray all over the place, with only several-few being integral to the plot; whereas in this story, most if not all of the scientific ideas presented were needed. It was just… simpler. That doesn’t make it bad or any less awesome. Just different. Something I noticed.
I quite enjoyed the character of Fura and seeing the changes in her as she moved from introverted teenage daughter to something so much more. There is strength and fortitude in her that is borne out through her trials. In some respects, these changes seemed to happen fairly quickly, but there are some physical changes that happen to Fura along the way, and having such events transpire in ones life can certainly fast-forward character development that might otherwise take considerably longer.
There was also a good number of secondary characters that play a part. Of those, I thought that some of them were handled quite well, and others not given much more than a cursory development or single unique attribute. These were pretty much split up into two groups. One we meet early on (well-developed), and those we meet later (less so). I feel like this second group could have been used to much greater effect in the story had they been better developed, but it is what it is.
The largest difficulty I had with the novel was probably the large lack of surrounding detail. Conversations between characters had little to no contextual detail within them. I’ve heard this referred to as “talking heads”, because it’s easy to lose the picture of everyone in the scene. The story itself though was really good though, and even with this lack of detail, I found myself reading much longer than I was supposed to–not wanting to put it down– and burned through it pretty quickly.
I also really liked where the story ended up and the developmental position of Fura. Was doubly excited to see that Reynold’s is planning a sequel to this one. Will be looking forward to it. A great Reynold’s novel. Likely not one of my favorites of his, but a great book nonetheless.