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The Stars Now Unclaimed

by Drew Williams, 2018

Published: 2022.04.20

Home > Book Reviews > Drew Williams > The Stars Now Unclaimed

 

Photo by Wil C. Fry.

★★★ (of 5)

 

Set in the far distant future, thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of years after humanity began to spread throughout the galaxy and mingle with other sentient species, this story follows operative Jane Kamali on a series of hair-raising and nearly impossible adventures, first trying to save one girl and later her entire civilization.

It’s not “hard” science fiction in the sense that it takes liberties with reality, most noticeably regarding the primary plot device: The Pulse. The Pulse was a chain reaction triggered more than a hundred years before this story begins, and was intended to be sort of an EMP, knocking out localized tech for a specific purpose. Instead, to the surprise of its developers, the Pulse spread throughout the galaxy, disrupting technology everywhere, but unevenly. It is described as a sort of wave that expanded and kept on expanding, but also as radiation, which somehow soaks into planetary bodies and remains active. This allows the author to invent some planets with no technology whatsoever, others with only rudimentary electronic tech, and still others (just a few) that continue to use the highly advanced futuristic tech they’d always had. Due to the planet-hugging nature of the Pulse’s “radiation”, people with advanced tech (like Jane and her ship) can get close, but can’t stay long (or their tech becomes unusable).

First the good. This was fun to read. The author seems to have borrowed a bit of John Scalzi’s snarky style (but just a bit, so it doesn’t get tiresome as in some Scalzi books), mostly for the first-person narration and sometimes for dialog from Jane’s spaceship, which is named Scheherazade (after the character from One Thousand and One Nights). The story moves at a reasonable pace, and the pacing seems consistent throughout, with action, dialog, and exposition each taking turns. Characters are described briefly (usually just a sentence or phrase, except for the nonhumans, which typically get a few sentences the first time each species is introduced). Spacecraft and other constructs (buildings, gun emplacements, etc.) are also only described very briefly, leaving enough space for the reader to imagine instead of filling the text with tedious descriptions.

The world-building was expansive, covering hundreds of years of recent history and many “sects” — the various groups, movements, and/or governments that have warred across the galaxy in the past. Most of the relevant history involves the Pax (a fascistic, militaristic cult of domination) and the Justified (a more democratic, moralistic, and scientific group), the latter of which includes Jane and some of her friends. The battle scenarios seemed well thought-through and the fight scenes realistic enough.

Also, the characters were differentiated enough and complex enough to seem not only like real people, but distinct people, which often seems difficult for many authors. On this front, the author did very well.

The not so good... As hinted at above, the introduction of the Pulse provides an interesting universe in which to set the story, but it’s not treated consistently. For example, on the first planet the reader experiences, Sheherazade is only able to get within 300 feet of the surface (or her tech will fry), but Jane is able to descend a tower with high-grade implants like comm devices built into her skull and a HUD (built into her eyes) that never see any degradation of usefulness. Later, she uses some fancy tech-infused weapons, but they are only good for a few shots before the Pulse radiation makes them useless (yet her built-in tech still functions fine after many days). Later, on another Stone Age planet where the ship can’t land, the characters are able to restore an old fusion reactor and use it to power a massive anti-orbital cannon, surrounded by electronic turrets controlled by an AI (none of which degrade from the Pulse radiation), but again Jane’s weapons can only be used a few times before they “corrode”. In other words, I don’t think the rules of the Pulse were ever fully ironed out by the author and that lack made it easy to take liberties with the idea. The inconsistencies were sometimes distracting or confusing.

I also couldn’t help but notice that Jane carries a six-shooter (revolver). It makes sense that she would have at least one weapon that requires no computer chips or AI because she’s often in places where the tech won’t work, but... I find it difficult to believe she would choose a revolver if given a choice. Six rounds that have to be loaded individually, by hand (the process is accurately described during one gun battle), is far inferior to modern firearms that still don’t require any electronic technology. Given everything we’re told about Jane and the violence she’s accustomed to, I am certain she would instead carry a semi-automatic pistol, probably at least .45-caliber. Even today, in the early 21st Century, there are many models with capacities of 10 or more rounds, and all of them are reloadable via a magazine that takes all of a second to replace.

The author also suffers from unusual repeating word syndrome. In this case, there are two: “void” and “chaos”. In every situation where the author refers to space, vacuum, orbit, off-planet, etc., the word “void” is always used, usually more than once. And in every fight scene or battle, the word “chaos” is used. “Chaos” is also used in several other contexts. Both words are common enough that we know what they mean, but they’re not like “and” or “the” where you expect to see them on most pages. There are simply too many synonyms for both words that this could have been easily avoided.

There was one mistake, likely introduced during editing, when Jane tells her friends (page 132) about fellow agent Manus, who’s in trouble. But she hadn’t yet told them who he was or that he was in trouble, yet the context makes it clear that they already know. (Some pages later, I found the part that was moved, when Jane explains who Manus is and what kind of trouble he’s in.) This should have been caught on a read-through by an editor.

One distraction was when the author used “carpark”, which I’m fairly certain is British (and brief internet searches confirmed my guess), though the rest of the novel is written in American — and the author is American. (I know, I’m the only one who’s bothered by this.)

One last thing, and this one bothered me with nearly every scene in space... I think the author had trouble imagining just how large space is. He got the interstellar distances correct — they’re simply too massive to traverse without inventing a futuristic warp drive — but even within a solar system or in orbit around a planet, there is A LOT OF SPACE. Just for example, if you had a spaceship the size of Manhattan and it was coming around the edge of the Moon, you couldn’t see it from Earth. You just couldn’t (unless maybe it was very shiny and momentarily reflected the light of the sun or something). The Moon is much larger than that, so large that a ship the size of Manhattan would barely be a pixel. But in so many battle scenes, characters can see with their naked eyes when a dreadnaught ship is at the edge of a solar system. You can’t even see freaking Pluto at the dge of a solar system, and it’s a whole (dwarf) planet. Also, more than once a few hundred fighter craft and half a dozen dreadnaughts are described as “filling the sky” around Sanctum (the home of the Justified), but they simply wouldn’t. From the surface of the nearby planet, there might be a few flashes of light, but the sky would look about as empty as it normally does. Space is BIG, man.

 

Conclusion

After reading, I learned that this is the first book of a series called “The Universe After” and I plan to look for the next two books. The complaints I mention above distracted and disappointed me, yes, but the book was still fun and the universe and characters impressive and enjoyable.

 





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