by Gary Gibson
Meanwhile, a faction known as The Freehold with strict military rule and a warrior culture, discover a derelict ship, buried under the ice on an unoccupied planet. The derelict houses a transluminal drive – FTL technology – and it didn’t originate from The Shoal. If they can raise this ship and harness the technology, not only can they can be free from The Shoal, travelling and colonising where they wish, but they can also become the dominant power amongst the human race.
The story follows pilot Dakota Merrick. She’s human but augmented with multiple computer implants that enable her to ‘speak’ to the computers that control technology in this futuristic world, pilot any craft and maintain contact with other machine heads over vast distances. This all sounds great but, following a massacre on The Freehold’s planet when machine-head technology was subverted by an outside force and hundreds were slaughtered by implanted humans who suddenly had no control over their actions, the technology was outlawed. This leaves Dakota wandering the system in her ship, the Piri Reis, looking for work, legal or otherwise, and trying not to get noticed.
When one of these jobs goes horribly wrong, Dakota needs to get out of the Sol system fast and lie low. Through an old friend she ends up on board the Hyperion, the Freehold ship sent to recover the derelict, with the job of interfacing with the derelict and piloting it back to the Freehold planet. The problem is, can she lay low when the biggest gangster in the galaxy is after her head, her Freehold employers are still smarting from the machine-head atrocities of years before and The Shoal will stop at nothing to prevent FTL technology falling into human hands.
Gary Gibson’s third book has the depth and scale of a writer coming into his own and growing in confidence. The plot is nicely complex without being baffling, the pacing is perfectly balanced and the characters are well drawn, not just as individuals with their own voice but also in how their attitudes and behaviour are products of their background and culture.
The plot is nice and tight once it gets going, confining the bulk of the action to only a few locations and a small cast of characters to keep the story on track, and while there are questions that open up, some big ones about the Shoal and their background for a start, as this is the first in a series I have hopes that these things will be covered in the fullness of time. But don’t be put off by that. While their are undoubtedly others to come, this book sits well as a stand alone novel with all the threads neatly tied up so you’re not left on a cliffhanger that forces you into your next purchase.
If you’re a fan of large scale space opera then Stealing Light is right up there at he front of the pack. The balance between huge space battles, hand-to-hand combat and political intrigue is beautifully wrought and while a bunch of standard sci-fi tropes are present – FTL travel, AIs, bots, human/computer augmentation – they are balanced by some nice new ideas – religion, sex-zombies, planet killers – and written in a style that is easy and accessible.
Fans of Iain Banks, Neal Asher and Peter Hamilton will be more than satisfied with Mr. Gibson’s work, one of the most enjoyable sci-fi reads of the year so far, and as this series progresses we look forward to the next books with great anticipation.
Stealing Light is published by Tor through Pan Macmillan and is available from Amazon
Gary Gibson maintains a blog. You’ll find it here.