Review: Deep Black by Miles Cameron (Arcana Imperil #2)
Marca Nbaro had always dreamed of serving aboard the Greatships, with their vast cargo holds and a crew that could fill a city.
They are the lifeblood of human-occupied space, transporting an unimaginable volume – and value – of goods from City, the greatest human orbital, all the way to Tradepoint at the other, to trade for xenoglas with an unknowable alien species.
And now, out in the darkness of space, something is targeting them.
Nbaro and her friends are close to locating their enemy, in this gripping sequel to the award-nominated Artifact Space, but they are running out of time – and their allies are running out of patience . . .
Written by one of the most exciting new voices in SF, this space thriller will keep readers on the edge of their seats
Review:
Dear Miles Cameron,
I reviewed and mostly enjoyed “Artifact Space” (the first book in this duology (?)) here at DA, but this story was so much better for me and so much fun. Considering that I gave an Artifact Space a B+, there was really no other grade I could give Deep Black.
I recently complained that the blurb of a different story revealed too many details and here the blurb reveals basically nothing. I like it better – please do not get me wrong, but it is a problem for me as a reviewer, because I have to speak in a very generalized terms.
Of course I consider what happened in “Artifact Space” fair game to discuss, but honestly while the foundation was laid for the events happening in this book, not much was actually revealed there. Events here are unfolding on a much bigger scale, politics wise, and of course our main character and the other members of the crew of Athens are very involved in it.
Come to think of it, as much as I enjoyed the comfort of trading operations described in “Artifact Space,” I am not sure if I liked that the fast moving action was only happening closer to the end. I thought the pacing here was a much more even and comforting routine of Marca and her teammates working at the ship and the training was very well mixed with the description of the space battles. I really enjoyed those parts
“The Sorbonne began evasive action as the Dubai fired her railgun tubes at the DHC destroyer Namur, a hundred kilometres away, also labelled ‘hostile’ on the datalink. Nbaro had spotted Storkel in 6–0–5 as he dived into the ablative shield, with a long line of ineffectual slugs reaching for him from both of the DHC destroyers. She also saw what he was doing: tickling the dragon’s tail, luring automated systems to the easier target of the big, fat XC-3Cs so that they might miss the almost-invisible stealth missiles. Storkel had seen her launch. ‘Ready with chaff,’ she said, and lit the fires.
The engines came on with a vengeance, and they exploded forward up and out of the plane defined by the Athens and her antagonists, climbing in the volume of the enemy ships as Tench fired their own chaff launchers. The Sorbonne locked on to them immediately. Her radar warning screamed, and then, suddenly she was aware of the third human ship, the Willful Elephant, that had been hidden by the bulk of the Athens behind her. Missed that, idiot.”
And because over all there was more exciting fighting throughout the story, I thought that I appreciated the descriptions of their routine work (even not so routine when they had to rebuilt the parts of the ship hit by the hostile weapons) even more than in a first book. It felt as if the author was giving a reader the chance to take a breath as well.
I also still loved all the characters in the story. I appreciate that along with plenty of different action, we had very interesting human beings and aliens to learn about and observe their interactions.
The point of view in the book is still third person limited and we are in Marca’s head only. My worries about her quickly becoming a Mary Sue character almost dissipated at the end. I mean yes she is heroic and while still being young she finds herself in the midst of events where maybe only older officers should have been BUT let us just say that there was a plenty of manipulation (no, not saying by whom) to make it happen and in many ways she was just one of the pieces on the chessboard played by someone else. No, I am not saying by whom and I was not a fan of it. It was well done and perfectly fit the story in my opinion, but I am just not a fan of characters who play other people even for the best purposes.
Also Marca does make mistakes and while she continue to grow and mature, I found her self doubts charming for the most part. I also loved her relationship with the man from the first book :). I also thought the author kept perfect balance between the action and them finding time to be together occasionally. They do not sacrifice their duty, see? Even if they think they have a short time to be together and they are called to do something else, they are going to do the work first and that made so much sense to me. And I just found them so fun and dorky and charming together.
Grade : A. Very happy sigh.
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I also enjoyed the first book in this series, Sirius, so am now off to see if the library has this one. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Still haven’t read the first, but your “very happy sigh” reminds me that I should. Thanks.
Kareni I enjoyed this one even more so hope it works for you. Darlynne yes I don’t get to have a happy sigh too often these days unfortunately, but this story gave me such a happy after taste :)