Review: Deep Black
Sep. 29th, 2025 09:12 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Review: Deep Black, by Miles Cameron
Series: | Arcana Imperii #2 |
Publisher: | Gollancz |
Copyright: | 2024 |
ISBN: | 1-3996-1506-8 |
Format: | Kindle |
Pages: | 509 |
Deep Black is a far-future science fiction novel and the direct sequel to Artifact Space. You do not want to start here. I regretted not reading the novels closer together and had to refresh my memory of what happened in the first book.
The shorter fiction in Beyond the Fringe takes place between the two series novels and leads into some of the events in this book, although reading it is optional.
Artifact Space left Marca Nbaro at the farthest point of the voyage of the Greatship Athens, an unexpected heroine and now well-integrated into the crew. On a merchant ship, however, there's always more work to be done after a heroic performance. Deep Black opens with that work: repairs from the events of the first book, the never-ending litany of tasks required to keep the ship running smoothly, and of course the trade with aliens that drew them so far out into the Deep Black.
We knew early in the first book that this wouldn't be the simple, if long, trading voyage that most of the crew of the Athens was expecting, but now they have to worry about an unsettling second group of aliens on top of a potential major war between human factions. They don't yet have the cargo they came for, they have to reconstruct their trading post, and they're a very long way from home. Marca also knows, at this point in the story, that this voyage had additional goals from the start. She will slowly gain a more complete picture of those goals during this novel.
Artifact Space was built around one of the most satisfying plots in military science fiction (at least to me): a protagonist who benefits immensely from the leveling effect and institutional inclusiveness of the military slowly discovering that, when working at its best, the military can be a true meritocracy. (The merchant marine of the Athens is not military, precisely, since it's modeled on the trading ships of Venice, but it's close enough for the purposes of this plot.) That's not a plot that lasts into a sequel, though, so Cameron had to find a new spine for the second half of the story. He chose first contact (of a sort) and space battle.
The space battle parts are fine. I read a ton of children's World War II military fiction when I was a boy, and I always preferred the naval battles to the land battles. This part of Deep Black reminded me of those naval battles, particularly a book whose title escapes me about the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. I'm more interested in character than military adventure these days, but every once in a while I enjoy reading about a good space battle. This was not an exemplary specimen of the genre, but it delivered on all the required elements.
The first contact part was more original, in part because Cameron chose an interesting medium ground between total incomprehensibility and universal translators. He stuck with the frustrations of communication for considerably longer than most SF authors are willing to write, and it worked for me. This is the first book I've read in a while where superficial alien fluency with the mere words of a human language masks continuing profound mutual incomprehension. The communication difficulties are neither malicious nor a setup for catastrophic misunderstanding, but an intrinsic part of learning about a truly alien species. I liked this, even though it makes for slower and more frustrating progress. It felt more believable than a lot of first contact, and it forced the characters to take risks and act on hunches and then live with the consequences.
One of the other things that Cameron does well is maintain the steady rhythm of life on a working ship as a background anchor to the story. I've read a lot of science fiction that shows the day-to-day routine only until something more interesting and plot-focused starts happening and then seems to forget about it entirely. Not here. Marca goes through intense and adrenaline-filled moments requiring risk and fast reactions, and then has to handle promotion write-ups, routine watches, and studying for advancement. Cameron knows that real battles involve long periods of stressful waiting and incorporates them into the book without making them too boring, which requires a lot of writing skill.
I prefer the emotional magic of finding a place where one belongs, so I was not as taken with Deep Black as I was with Artifact Space, but that's the inevitable result of plot progression and not really a problem with this book. Marca is absurdly central to the story in ways that have a whiff of "chosen one" dynamics, but if one can suspend one's disbelief about that, the rest of the book is solid. This is, fundamentally, a book about large space battles, so save it when you're in the mood for that sort of story, but it was a satisfying continuation of the series. I will definitely keep reading.
Recommended if you enjoyed Artifact Space. If you didn't, Deep Black isn't going to change your mind.
Followed by Whalesong, which is not yet released (and is currently in some sort of limbo for pre-orders in the US, which I hope will clear up).
Rating: 7 out of 10