Publisher: Titan Books February 20, 2018
Publisher’s Blurb: From BSFA Award winning author Gareth L. Powell comes the first in a new epic sci-fi trilogy exploring the legacies of war. The sentient warship Trouble Dog was built for violence, yet following a brutal war, she is disgusted by her role in a genocide. Stripped of her weaponry and seeking to atone, she joins the House of Reclamation, an organization dedicated to rescuing ships in distress. When a civilian ship goes missing in a disputed system, Trouble Dog and her new crew of loners, captained by Sal Konstanz, are sent on a rescue mission. Meanwhile, light years away, intelligence officer Ashton Childe is tasked with locating the poet, Ona Sudak, who was aboard the missing spaceship. What Childe doesn’t know is that Sudak is not the person she appears to be. A straightforward rescue turns into something far more dangerous, as Trouble Dog, Konstanz and Childe find themselves at the center of a conflict that could engulf the entire galaxy. If she is to save her crew, Trouble Dog is going to have to remember how to fight… (Source: Titan Books)
SFRevu Review (SFRevu: http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=17832):
Teaser:
Gareth L. Powell may not he as well known to US readers as he is to those in the UK, but this British Science Fiction Award Winner (Ack-Ack Macaque BSFA 2013) has a devoted following and for good reason; he’s been turning out engaging space opera and alternate history for some time now, both in novels and short stories. Embers of War starts a new series, starring the now weapons stripped sentient warship Trouble Dog and its crew as they engage in what should be a balm to the war weary vessel, a humanitarian rescue mission. If only things were as simple as they seem.
Review:
During the war between the Outwarders, the human faction eager to embrace galactic diversity, and the humanity-first Conglomerates, the warship Trouble Dog roved with her 300-person crew and a pack of Carnivore- class heavy cruisers. Her genetically- designed brain was made from a combination of human and canine stem cells to give her fierceness, cunning, and pack loyalty, but after being ordered to participate in the genocidal destruction of a sentient forest, leaving the planet a scorched and radioactive hulk, she found that she also had a conscience. The destruction of the planet ended the war in the favor of the Conglomerate, but Trouble Dog resigned her commission and joined the galactic rescue service of the Reclamation House, in the hope that saving lives would offset the ones she’d taken.
Now, with a mixed crew of four (a captain, an ex-marine, and a medic, as well as an alien chief engineer from a race that was fixing starships when man was still wondering what stars were) the Trouble Dog and her crew go where they’re needed, and save who they can. On the way home from a botched scout ship rescue, they turn out to be the nearest ship to a luxury liner with a thousand people on board which has been attacked by unknown forces. On board the liner was a famous poet whose grief-laden poems about the war threaten to reveal secrets from her past, and now intelligence agencies from both sides are desperate to find her, dead or alive.
It’s a pity that Trouble Dog had to give up her armament when she left the service, because she might just need it before this rescue is over. Fortunately for her mission and her crew, it’s not just guns that made her a dog of war.
During the war, Sal Konstanz had been captain of an Outwarder medical frigate and witness to the holocaust that ended it. She personally led rescue missions to save troops from either side caught on the planet surface. One of the marines she saved signed on with her when she took command of Trouble Dog, which is a good thing, because commanding a medical frigate isn’t the same as running rescue operations on hostile planets. Nod, the ship’s alien engineer, is a delightfully different character, quietly fixing the ship as best he can, dreaming of returning to the World Tree that his people see as the ultimate destination of all. He’d fix the broken lives on the ship as well if he could, but that’s harder than mending metal and carbon fiber. A major theme for the characters is one of coming to terms with who you are and what you have (or haven’t) done. Whether it’s a secret identity or a denial of what your real nature is, everyone’s got something to face. Powell’s characters are well developed, and the blend of humans, aliens, and sentient starships is deftly handled.
One thing that struck me, and I was pleased to have the ship comment on it during an inquiry about the botched mission, was that for a ship and crew that are all ex-military, they don’t seem to have much of a grasp of things like rules of engagement or standard operating procedures. On reflection, though, both of those are the death of character in fiction, and injecting it into SF erodes the literary aspect of a work and relegates you to the realm of mil-sf, which you either love or hate…but is rarely considered literary. Embers of War leans a bit towards mil-sf, but no more than Ann Leckie’s works, which are really rooted in culture and character.
There’s a bit of Ian Banks in the sentient ships, but unlike Banks’ Culture novels, these ships are subservient to their human commanders, at least for now. Following the conclusion of Embers of War, there are bound to be some changes in galactic society, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens next.
Gareth L. Powell may not be as well known in the US as he is in the UK, which is a pity, because he’s a first-rate author of space opera and alternate history. His alternate history Ack-Ack Macaque won a BSFA in 2013, and he’s got a considerable body of novels and short stories you can dig into. Embers of War is the first book in a new series, so it’s a great place to jump in. Don’t worry about being stuck hanging off a cliff, as he completes the story arc quite satisfactorily, while leaving plenty of room to explore this universe in future books.
Goodreads Short Review (Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2289550271?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1):
Embers of War is the first book in a new series by UK author Gareth L. Powell, and it gets things off to a terrific start. Part character-driven fiction, part Mil-SF, there is enough action to keep things moving along in the twists and turns that the crew of the sentient starship, Trouble Dog, have to take to survive and accomplish their rescue mission when a thousand-passenger liner is attracted in a system full of planet-sized alien artifacts.
Trouble Dog started out as a heavy cruiser in a war between a human faction that wanted to embrace galactic civilization and a faction who chose to reject it She’s a sentient starship bred for war. After participating in a genocidal attack on a sentient forest, she finds a conscience doesn’t fit with the blind obedience required of warships, so she resigns her commission to join the rescue service to see if she can save enough lives to make up for the ones she’s taken.
Trouble Dog’s crew is a mix of factions from the war. Her human captain, Sal Konstanz, had command of medical frigate from one side, while the medic was part of a crew from the other side. Alva Clay, a marine, was one of the troops slated to die, regardless of which side they were on, along with the sentient forest and its planet. Nod, the alien engineer, comes from a race that’s been fixing ships since before mankind had civilization. Add in a spy or two and a poet with dark secrets to keep, and you’ve got a recipe for a character-driven adventure where nothing, and no one, is as simple as they seem.