Artifact Space

Artifact Space by Miles Cameron

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I listened to this as an audible book. It was a first-rate science fiction space opera. Author Miles Cameron has done a phenomenal job of thinking through his fictional universe and fleshing it out in a way that makes it interesting and entertaining. As I was listening to this book, I was constantly put in mind to its similarities to David Feintuch's “Seafort Saga” in telling the story of a midshipman in a future navy who seems destined for great things. That is not to say that this book was derivative in any way, but, rather, that it stayed true to the traditions of this kind of story.

In this case, the navy belongs to the Directorate of Human Corporations (the “DHC.”) The DHC seems to be one of several human political entities in human space. The backbone of the DHC navy are the “great ships” that can carry cargo and make long jumps through “artifact space” to other star systems. These great ships are huge and as the story opens, someone is killing them off.

The focal character is Marca Nbarro, who is an expelled student from an orphanage operated by the DHC in the underside of a space-based city. The decks are stacked against Marca in many ways, not the least of which is that the head of the orphanage wants to prevent her from joining the DHC navy, which Marca is determined to do no matter what gets in her way. Marca does join the navy and is able to follow the path of success and luck blazed by Horatio Hornblower and Nicholas Seafort and others.

Marca is, of course, phenomenally lucky, but that does not make her a “Mary Sue” character any more than Hornblower is a Mary Sue. The book puts Marca into desperate situations and then follows her as she makes realistic decisions to extricate herself. This is just good, fun, and engaging writing.

The first chapter is a fairly difficult introduction since the author throws a lot of jargon and concepts at us before we know what is going on. After the first chapter, things settle down and we learn the backstory of Cameron's setting. It turns out that the economy of the DHC is based on the traffic of “Xenoglass,” which is manufactured by aliens at the tail end of the DHC navy's commercial caravan route. As we move through the jumps, and the crew of Marca's ship, the Athens, find themselves beset by external and internal enemies, we come to understand that there may be other aliens in the game, who are pulling the strings on the foreign enemies and DHC traitors.

This chapter is the first installment of what may be a trilogy (or series.) However, it ended on a logical point, albeit a cliffhanger. I don't begrudge this book for not being complete in itself because Cameron's universe is so well crafted that I want to see more of it.