Publisher: Gollancz
Publication Date – 8 January 2019
Tens of millions of the years in Earth’s future, during the period known as the Thirteenth Occupation, humanity travels across space in sailed spaceships, with many crews searching for relics and treasures from previous eras of human and alien occupation. For years, the greatest threat to these ships was the legendary pirate Bosa Sennen, whose deadly black ship, the Nightjammer, ruthlessly hunted down and ambushed hundreds of ships, killing all onboard, before vanishing back into the darkness. Continuously moving her consciousness from one body to the next, Bosa was able to keep her reign of terror going for years, becoming a near-horrifying myth throughout space. However, Bosa unexpectedly lost everything when she came up against the Ness sisters, Adrana and Fura, whose courage and daring resulted in them taking Bosa’s ship and her life.
Now the Ness sisters command Bosa’s infamous ship, rechristened as Revenger, and seek to make their own fortunes. Veering away from the ship’s previous profession of piracy, the Ness sisters and their crew scavenge through old abandoned bases, attempting to find lost treasures or supplies as they slowly establish a new life for themselves. But the legacy of Bosa Sennen is constantly around them, and not even her death is enough to end her legend.
While Adrana seeks to come to turns with the horrors she witnessed as Bosa’s captive, Fura becomes obsessed with finding Bosa’s hidden cache of treasure from her extended lifetime of piracy. En route to the planet of Wheel Strizzardy to find a source who may be able to lead them to the pirate trove, Revenger is attacked, forcing the crew to brutally defend themselves. Arriving at their destination, they find that ships they encountered were hired by a consortium of hundreds of planets who have placed a massive bounty on Bosa Sennen’s head. What’s more, they do not particularly care if she is already dead, as long as her ship and all aboard are captured and destroyed. Now, with an armada behind them and the crew of Revenger stuck on the gangster-controlled world of Wheel Strizzardy, the Ness sisters must find a way to escape with the information they need. But are they prepared for the devastating secrets their search will uncover?
Reynolds is a highly regarded science fiction writer who has been writing since the 1990s. Throughout his career he has written a slew of short stories, novels and other works of fiction. His main body of work include the Revelation Space series, The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies, the Poseidon’s Children series and several standalone novels. Shadow Captain is the second book in his Revenger series, and follows on from the first book in the series, 2016’s Revenger.
Shadow Captain is an intriguing and enjoyable piece of science fiction that follows a mismatched group of semi-pirates as they navigate their way through space. Reynolds has created an ambitious new universe for this series, and set an interesting and compelling story in the heart of it. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to read the first book in the series, Revenger, beforehand, and this somewhat negatively impacted my enjoyment of this book, as I failed to understand several key aspects of the series universe. Despite this, I ended up really liking this fantastic read and I am looking forward to the next book in the series.
This main reason why my lack of experience with this series impacted how much I enjoyed Shadow Captain is the detailed new science fiction universe that Reynold’s has created. This universe is pretty impressive, with a number of unique flourishes and a fascinating-sounding history made up of multiple, distinctive eras of widespread human occupation across space. While this is a really fun feature, I found that Reynolds did a poor job of re-explaining a number of key features of his universe that were introduced in his first book. Without these explanations I was somewhat lost during a number of important discussions that took place during the early parts of the story. This was not a massively widespread issue and quite a few important elements were explained to the reader at various points of the book, although Reynolds did delay some explanations longer than necessary. However, it was a bit frustrating not having an understanding of what some key elements of universe were, or what some slang or terms being discussed by the protagonists in the early parts of the book were, and there are still one or two elements that were mentioned in Shadow Captain that I am not 100 percent certain about.
I also did find the first third of the book was a little slow going, and it took me a while to really get into the story. This was due to an early combination of not completely knowing what the characters were talking about at certain points, and some slower pacing as the author sets the scene. While there were some good points to the start of the book, including an great summary of events in Revenger, and some intriguing scenes inside a ‘bauble’, an ancient and abandoned human construction in space, I did find it a little hard to stay interested. However, I stuck with it and was very glad that I did, as the rest of Shadow Captain was a very entertaining and exciting read. The last two thirds of the book are an excellent, fast-paced adventure, which features some great battles in space, an intrigue-laced period on the planet of Wheel Strizzardy and a hunt for a hidden trove of treasure. I really enjoyed the part of the book set on Wheel Strizzardy, as it featured the crew going up against a bunch of ruthless gangsters on a backwater planet. While there, they have to face off against a cannibalistic crime lord, deal with the secrets of aliens and attempt to outsmart several of the planet’s colourful inhabitants, all the while the bounty hunters chasing after them quickly get closer towards them. This awesome last two-thirds of the book more than makes up for the slower start to the narrative, and makes Shadow Captain into a very good book overall.
One of the things I liked the most about Shadow Captain was the lingering impacts of events that occurred in the first book, which results in some fantastic character work from Reynolds. In the first book, Revenger, the primary antagonist, Bosa Sennen, was a fairly impressive villain who perpetrated a number of terrible acts against many of the book’s characters. Both of the book’s protagonists, the Ness sisters, were impacted in different ways by her actions. Adrana was kidnapped in Revenger in order to be conditioned to become Bosa’s next host, a process that required her to endure significant torture and physiological abuse. As a result, throughout Shadow Captain, Adrana must constantly deal with lingering issues impacting her psyche. She is continuously angry throughout the book, and finds herself constantly holding back new and terrible thoughts that she is convinced are the last lingering aspects of Bosa’s mind and personality that might have been partially imprinted on her. Fura is also severely impacted by the events of the first book, and has become angry and secretive, with goals she is hiding from her crew and even her own sister. I liked the reasons behind Fura’s change in personality, as the character was forced to become more ruthless and paranoid in order to get into the mind of her foe, Bosa. The focus on these characters’ changes in personality is an outstanding addition to the book that results in some significant and intriguing drama throughout the book. I personally enjoyed seeing a villain’s impact continue so significantly after their death, and it was absolutely fascinating to see the various ways she lived, especially in these different but devasting impacts on the Ness sisters.
In the end, I am going to award Shadow Captain four stars out of five. While I really enjoyed the book as a whole, the initial problems I experience with the early story and the somewhat ordinary job that Reynolds did re-explaining all of the significant elements of his universe lowered my overall rating. As a result, I would highly recommend that readers interested in checking out Shadow Captain should probably read Revenger beforehand, as it may increase their overall experience. There is still an amazing amount to enjoy about Shadow Captain, including an inventive science fiction setting, an entertaining story that ramps up as the book continues and some excellent character work surrounding the actions of the first book’s primary antagonist. Overall, this is a great piece of science fiction that is well worth checking out, and any future books in the Revenger series will definitely be on my radar.
My Rating:
The Unseen Library 