Tag: Pirates

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Without Mercy (Siobhan Dunmore V) – Eric Thomson

Captain Dunmoore and the crew of the Q-Ship Iolanthe intercept a distress signal. An abandoned cargo ship, which turns out to house a single survivor. What follows is a chase to find the perpetrators and disentangle their complex scheme.

While Dunmoore and her merry band of naval personnel are still good fun to hang out with, the quality of the narrative is lower than in previous installments. There seems to be no real risk that any of the characters will be killed or even seriously injured. Much of the text consists of the main characters spouting literary and military history quotes in extended banters sessions, showing off how clever they are while their enemies are continually confounded.

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Revenger – Alastair Reynolds

Fura Ness and her sister are adolescents on a little planetoid, growing up under an overprotective widowed father whose business fortunes are poor at best. They escape from home to make money crewing on a ship plying the spaceways for treasure left over from fallen civilizations. But on their first journey, things go horribly wrong. Fura vows revenge on the pirate captain who destroyed her life.

The style of this novel verges on Young  Adult, and the story itself, while enjoyable, is nothing that stands out. The setting, however, is fascinating and inventive. The star system is full of wordlets and space habitats, having been “occupied” at least thirteen times over millions of years by various empires and polities. The current civilization sustains itself partly on picking up loot from asteroids protected by periodically inactive force fields. The loot can be anything from decorative items to ancient and powerful weapons. I was somewhat disappointed that more aspects of this setting were not explored, especially the mysterious origin of the “cuoins” used as currency.