In a clear, light tone, she said, “I know who you are, Haimey Dz. You used to be a revolutionary.” – Ancestral Night, by Elizabeth Bear
March 2019 was a banner month for Bid Idea Space Opera, and it kicked off with Elizabeth Bear’s return to her White Space universe with a new series. Haimey Dz is chief engineer on a salvage tug that search “scars” in space/time for places where ships didn’t quite make the transition from normal to ftl “Whitespace.” The tug, with an indentured AI named Singer and a devil may care pilot to round out the crew, has been coming up short on the resource obligation credits that pass for cash in this universe for too many runs when the story opens with them hoping the next find will be their big hit.
That’s when they find a derelict alien spacecraft with advanced technology still in working condition with the doors wide open (literally) and nobody home. It’s also where she manages to get infected with a virus that paints glowing tattoos on her skin and lets her directly sense the fabric of whitespace, giving her and the good tug Singer the ability to maneuver during FTL, something previously deemed impossible.
The derelict may be abandoned, but our crew isn’t the only one that knows about it, and soon they’re on the run from pirates and not completely sure if they’re on the run from the law (in the form of a giant praying mantis) either.
“I might have to bring you in, it said, reluctantly admitting something we’d both known all along. It stridulated out loud again…”
“No hard feelings if you do,” I answered. “A bug’s gotta eat, after all…I might have to run away, you understand.”
“That is the sensible thing to do when a larger predator is pursuing you. No hard feelings at all.”
— Ancestral Night (White Space Book 1) by Elizabeth Bear
It’s a run that will take them to the black hole at the center of the galaxy and out into the reaches between this galaxy and the next and for Haimey, one that will force her to face truths she’d thought she’d made herself forget.
One thing that Elizabeth Bear gets right about space travel is that no matter how fast you go, it’s going to take a while to get there, so friend Hainey gets to spend a lot of time in her head, and the reader gets to join her there too. For my taste, maybe a little too much time, and I often wanted to skip ahead for more plot.
The plot makes it well worth the trip, and the novel leaves room for more adventures with Haimey and crew, though in an interview with the author she quashes (for now, anyway) that idea, saying she’d rather write standalone novels within the White Space universe.
And the White Space universe if vast and full of interesting things. Which is what good space opera is made of. The Synarche is a big Ian Banks Culturelike society, but there are those outside it, Freeporters, like the one that’s hot on the trail of our hero…
“My name is Zanya Farweather, and I’m a representative of the Autonomous Collective Republic of Freeports.” “You’re a pirate.” “If you’re a fascist, sure.” – Bear, Elizabeth. Ancestral Night (White Space Book 1)
…as well as giant space beasts that can be rendered down for narcotics, black holes with hidden treasures just outside their event horizons, ancient intelligences hoping to hitch a ride, and the sins of the Synarche back to visit them.
There are lots of classic space opera elements here, and loads of tributes to other authors. Synarche ships have Ian Bank style names like ‘Let Me Explain It to You Slowly’ while Earth registry ships have names like ‘Enterprise’. There are also bits that that may or may not be intentional. Haimey has a lot in common with the Expanse’s Naomi Ngata, also a former rebel turned brilliant engineer. She’s also got something in common with a character you probably haven’t met because I suspect the Ven diagram showing the intersection between Elizabeth Bear readers and Mil AF author Evan Currie readers is fairly small, more’s the pity, because he happens to have given the main character of his “On Silver Wings’ series the same hack as Hainey, gravity-wise, and Sgt. Sorilla Aida is a terrific character besides. One thing I’m sure of is that fans of Bear’s debut novel, Hammered, would definitely enjoy both series.
Ancestral Night is classic space opera with plenty of new ideas, solid plot, great characters, and a tendency to get sidetracked that will either delight you with new ideas or bog you down trying to get back to the action.
In Ancestral Night you get A derelict alien spacecraft. Pirates. Giant space beasts that can be rendered down for narcotics. A spunky chief engineer who used to be a rebel but now has an alien symbiote that lets her sense gravitational anomalies and who likes bad girls, even though she’s had all that stuff turned off. A bad girl. A giant praying mantis that’s actually a pretty good cop, more derelict spacecraft, lots of fighting over the merits of egoism v altruism. Government brainwashing because it’s the right thing to do. And much much more exposition than you could ever hope for.
Haimey Dz is the spunky chief engineer with a checkered past. Connor’s the devil may care pilot with genetically sculpted abs, and Singer is the AI working off the cost of his creation by flying a salvage tug with the two of them. They specialize in ships that didn’t quite complete the jump back from Whitespace (FTL space) to Newtonian (normal) space, and at the beginning of the book they’re on their way to a derelict they hope will get them out of hock to the Synarche (the galactic government) resource allocation assessors. They’re following a hot tip from an information broker and flying under the (so to speak) radar so no one can jump their claim. Then Pirates show up and start taking shots at them, so they wind up on the run with nothing to show for their efforts except damage to the ship and a weird alien symbiote that Haimey managed to let get under her skin on the alien derelict.
It’s a run that will take them to the black hole at the center of the galaxy and out into the reaches between this galaxy and the next and for Haimey, one that will force her to face truths she’d thought she’d made herself forget.
One thing that Elizabeth Bear gets right about space travel is that no matter how fast you go, it’s going to take a while to get there, so friend Hainey gets to spend a lot of time in her head, and the reader gets to join her there too.
Do not get me wrong. They’re great characters and I enjoyed spending time with them. It’s just that there’s a four-star novel in here, but it’s buried between the lengthy introspections, sidebars, expositions, and just plain woolgathering that the main character goes through. There are numerous places where one character will say something, then we sit through two pages of rumination on the nature of space, government, relationships, ship-design, and the inability of other species to stand the smell of coffee before our main character responds.
In the end, the story gets somewhere, and it turns out that Elizabeth Bear is a deft plotter. The novel resolves well and leaves us looking forward to the next chapter in the Whitespace series, so that’s good. It’s just that I bet we could get the next installment in half the time if the author did more show, don’t tell. The issue here, I’m pretty sure, is that the author has a lot she really wants to talk about, and this is her bully pulpit.
As it happens, I like exposition, to a fair degree. I came as much to listen to big ideas as to meet the characters. Ancestral Night has something of an idea overload.
There are lots of classic space opera elements here, and loads of tributes to other authors. Synarche ships have Ian Bank style names like ‘Let Me Explain It to You Slowly’ while Earth registry ships have names like ‘Enterprise’. There are also bits that that may or may not be intentional. Haimey has a lot in common with the Expanse’s Naomi Ngata, also a former rebel turned brilliant engineer. She’s also got something in common with a character you probably haven’t met because I suspect the Ven diagram showing the intersection between Elizabeth Bear readers and Mil AF author Evan Currie readers is fairly small, more’s the pity, because he happens to have given the main character of his “On Silver Wings’ series the same hack as Hainey, gravity-wise, and Sgt. Sorilla Aida is a terrific character besides. One thing I’m sure of is that fans of Bear’s debut novel, Hammered, would definitely enjoy both series.
Ancestral Night is classic space opera with plenty of new ideas, solid plot, great characters, and a tendency to get sidetracked that will either delight you with new ideas or bog you down trying to get back to the action.