Hardcover, 512 pages
Published March 5, 2019 by Gallery / Saga Press.
Haimey Dz thinks she knows what she wants. She thinks she knows who she is. She is wrong.
A routine salvage mission uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of powerful ancient technology. Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way, and find themselves on the run and in possession of universe-changing information.
When authorities prove corrupt, Haimey realizes that she is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilization from the implications of this ancient technology - and the revolutionaries who want to use it for terror and war. Her quest will take her careening from the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge.
To save everything that matters, she will need to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time - and her own …
Haimey Dz thinks she knows what she wants. She thinks she knows who she is. She is wrong.
A routine salvage mission uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of powerful ancient technology. Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way, and find themselves on the run and in possession of universe-changing information.
When authorities prove corrupt, Haimey realizes that she is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilization from the implications of this ancient technology - and the revolutionaries who want to use it for terror and war. Her quest will take her careening from the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge.
To save everything that matters, she will need to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time - and her own lost secrets, which she will wish had remained hidden from her forever.
It would be unfair to call it derivative but it seems clear the author is an Ian M Banks / Culture novels fan. What makes the book interesting for me is the exploration of the question of "what if effective and precise self-regulation of brain chemistry was possible". This has interesting ripple effects on politics and the definition of personal autonomy.
Ancestral Night is a space opera, of the sort that features a crew of a small starship getting into some adventures in a universe of interesting aliens and colorful characters.
The book is written from the perspective of its protagonist, in a generally lighter tone, which works well for that character. The overall arc of the plot also does not get too dark—Ancestral Night belongs to the subgenre of space opera that features universes which, while perhaps not entirely utopian, are generally not unpleasant places to hypothetically exist in. The plot, nevertheless, involves the old favorites such as ancient mysteries of the universe and space pirates, which Elizabeth Bear utilizes to generally good effect in crafting a space adventure.
The novel is not just pulp, however. An underlying plot concerns the questions of individual autonomy versus collectivism, and the use of transhumanism to better societies as a whole. The …
Ancestral Night is a space opera, of the sort that features a crew of a small starship getting into some adventures in a universe of interesting aliens and colorful characters.
The book is written from the perspective of its protagonist, in a generally lighter tone, which works well for that character. The overall arc of the plot also does not get too dark—Ancestral Night belongs to the subgenre of space opera that features universes which, while perhaps not entirely utopian, are generally not unpleasant places to hypothetically exist in. The plot, nevertheless, involves the old favorites such as ancient mysteries of the universe and space pirates, which Elizabeth Bear utilizes to generally good effect in crafting a space adventure.
The novel is not just pulp, however. An underlying plot concerns the questions of individual autonomy versus collectivism, and the use of transhumanism to better societies as a whole. The protagonist, like many people in her world, uses cybernetic modifications to control her emotions and mental state, a practice which on a larger scale is used to keep the whole of Synarche—the society within which the protagonist lives—functioning. At times she comes to question whether such practices are wise, or at least if the extent to which they are employed is not too great. The one shortcoming of the novel is that while it hints at such ideological conflicts exist, the characters which stand opposed to the Synarche seem to be driven more by being antisocial, rather than any cohesive alternative ideology, serving mostly as foils to make the protagonist think about things.
Besides being an exploration of transhumanist emotional editing at a societal scale, the novel is an exploration of the same at an individual scale. We see the protagonist deal with her trauma, and deal with the fact that she has been dealing with her trauma through brain implants. Bear does not go with the usual cliches in exploring this, but rather allows us to see the protagonists experiences from her own perspective. Character-focused science fiction about personal experiences is another thing that the novel does well.
Overall, the book will probably be an entertaining read if space adventure stories featuring elements such space tugs with witty AIs, space pirates, and space cats living in free fall are something that appeals to you.
*I'm no longer planning to read the sequel. I've left my original review intact below.
Ancestral Night is an intimate exploration of identity and personhood which plays out across light-ans, oscillating smoothly between space battles, personal crises, and odes to cats in zero-g. I hope we get more in this universe, or one next door.
I enjoy portrayals of AI and aliens that make them feel like more than just human thoughts in different skins (or no skin, as the case may be). What I was not expecting, but I received, was a portrayal of a human whose mindset was so adjusted and influenced by technology that they sometimes felt alien. Haimey never crosses that line completely, but flits up to it enough that it made the narration feel precarious, like at any moment she could be a wholly different being. Part of what I appreciate is that this book …
