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Embers of War Gareth L Powell Books

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Embers of War Gareth L Powell Books

I have been away from science fiction for a while but I picked this book based on the author's Twitter presence (I know weird). But the author, Gareth Powell, is a great person to follow on Twitter, he is interesting, witty and generous with fellow writers (or those who want to be).
Anyway, back to the book, the story is character driven and you will progress through this story via their perspectives which made it fast paced and compelling. I honestly could not put it down. The evolution of the sentient warship was fascinating. The characters are strong and won't disappoint. After I was hooked I worried about finishing it because I know it is a trilogy and that I have to wait until the next one comes out but don't give it another thought. The finish felt complete, I want more but I felt like I got a really satisfying bite from this first book, so I will wait..........I just hope his timelines are accurate!
Anyway, worthwhile read, even if you don't regularly read Science Fiction..... now off to find what else, Gareth has written!


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Embers of War Gareth L Powell Books Reviews

Nearly a perfect take on the Space Opera, with the added twist of intelligence ships with personalities. Perhaps the only complaint is that some of the "real" characters seemed flat versus the Trouble Dog. Perhaps the intent was to easily make the ship the favorite character; I think that would have happened anyway, even with more development for the rest of the characters.

Lastly - I seriously hope that someone options this for a movie or TV series - it's ready made, and it should really happen.
Embers of War is a character-driven wonder filled with big ideas and plenty of action, with sentient starships, hidden dimensions and planet-sized sculptures created by an enigmatic alien race. I loved this book from start to finish. With this book, Powell takes his place firmly alongside such titans of British SF as Ian M. Banks and Ken MacCleod.

At its heart, this riveting tale is about the human consequences of war and redemption. It makes a refreshing counterpoint to all the flashy weapons and war porn that so much American space opera has become. I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended.
Over the past few years it's been the norm for most trilogies to start with a novel that leaves you hanging, feeling as unsatisfied as eating only one bone of a full rack of ribs.

Gareth Powell gives you the whole rack and then some.

Embers of War is a story of redemption, mystery and choice to honor the truth of ones self. It's also an imaginative, well paced, adventure that I look forward to continuing.
This book was great. The story is told in first person by various characters, a few years after a devastating war which was ended by the murder of a globe spanning sentient forest, and thousands of combatants. Sal is the captain of a ship which was one of the Carnivore class ships which bombed the planet. Trouble Dog is the ship; it developed a conscious and resigned from the Conglomeration navy. Both now work for the House of Reclamation, with the mission of rescuing ships when needed.

The story starts with a failed rescue, and continues through another attempted rescue which goes badly wrong. Throughout, the characters are developed and grow, as we learn more about the war, the atrocity, and the aftermath. There is a lot of action to go with the introspection. The ending was surprising and satisfying. Nice work!

Now looking for more by this author.
Quite a good mystery to mull over here.
Who left planetary sized artwork in a system
A planet carved to resemble a brain? Who could even do such a thing?
Where should an AI draw the line between following orders and morality?
When is mass slaughter acceptable to stop a war?
Powell tackles these subjects with gusto.
There's not much about this novel that is either inherently bad or good. The actual writing is decent and intelligent, the concepts are interesting, but the story itself is very by the numbers and not all that imaginative. I also never found myself ever really caring about any of the characters, in part because the narrative bounces around between a half-dozen or so perspectives, changing with each new chapter. One of those perspectives is an alien that sounds like a caveman, and whose commentary (in the chapters themselves) is just taking up space on a page. We never really find out where this guy came from, anything appreciable about his culture, why he cares about the human crew, or maybe doesn't, or why the human crew cares about him, or maybe doesn't, who knows. But even the humans themselves are enigmas, and other than dossier-level information, no one is really ever properly fleshed out.

Perhaps the biggest frustration in this novel was one, really REALLY big glaring problem ... human space ships have quasi-AI minds that are basically cultured, modified, and cybernetic human brains (and also canine genes too or something ... never mind, don't worry about it). That part is super interesting. But then the author begins laying out little comments that imply that these ships have full willpower until he busts out 2 big "say what?!" bits the ship that the protagonists are using is a warship that abandoned its post, and then later in the novel, a warship goes rogue to attack another ship out of spite. Okay ... that creates A HUGE FREAKING conceptual problem. If these ships, incidentally because of their design, routinely reach a point at which they are fully conscious and capable of disobeying orders ... why in the crap would the military be using them? Civilian ships I could get ... but we're talking about the difference between winning a conflict and having all of your guns suddenly say "Nah, I'm not doing that. I'm out." Not to mention the loss of a super-expensive piece of hardware just because it decided not to be useful any longer. And of course, consider the sudden and unanticipated danger to the ship's crew that poses.

Beyond those obvious issues, though, why would self-aware, fully-in-control ships even need human crews? In fact, this story takes place aboard a ship that literally has a captain, a single foot-soldier, a single medic, a single engineer, and that's it ... even though the ship is said to be capable of carrying 300 marines, plus a full crew (so dozens more). And in fact, has the story progresses and things get heated, we routinely see the captain doing little more than speak some commands while the ship itself takes care of everything. Intentionally or not, this creates a story in which the reader begins to wonder why human characters are involved at all.

The plot twist is decent and fairly original in its details, if not in spirit, and the ending sets up for a good segue into a sequel without having a cliff-hanger. But that said, the ending is also pretty much a deus ex machina, and the leaping off point for the next book relies upon a super-vague but also super-cliché threat description.

While character interactions are rich and human feeling (despite no one really being all that personable), technical details in this novel are fuzzy if not outright head scratching. Like the "hyper-void" and how exactly it works or what it is. Or a plot point involving a twist / spoiler element in which the reveal of the thing in question results in something that is just silly by design (it has one huge glaring hang-up; whether the author intended to indicate this or not is unclear).

All in all, this was a book that I read, and it was mildly interesting, but just kind of fell all over the place in terms of quality, plot, and uniqueness.
I have been away from science fiction for a while but I picked this book based on the author's Twitter presence (I know weird). But the author, Gareth Powell, is a great person to follow on Twitter, he is interesting, witty and generous with fellow writers (or those who want to be).
Anyway, back to the book, the story is character driven and you will progress through this story via their perspectives which made it fast paced and compelling. I honestly could not put it down. The evolution of the sentient warship was fascinating. The characters are strong and won't disappoint. After I was hooked I worried about finishing it because I know it is a trilogy and that I have to wait until the next one comes out but don't give it another thought. The finish felt complete, I want more but I felt like I got a really satisfying bite from this first book, so I will wait..........I just hope his timelines are accurate!
Anyway, worthwhile read, even if you don't regularly read Science Fiction..... now off to find what else, Gareth has written!