Artifact Space

Ill say it outright: theres a very real chance this will be the best book ill read this year. Wow.

I’m a massive fan of everything Miles/Christian Cameron writes. But im not such a big fan of sci-fi. So I had a little trepidation going into this one. But I really should have worried. From the very first page until the last, this book is a tour de force.

As ever with a Cameron book, the prose is beautiful. He weaves a majestic story page after page after page. The action when it comes is rapid and enthralling. In between these scenes he creates an incredible futuristic world, full of amazingly diverse characters.

The cast is brilliant, as good as any he’s every created before. They become so real, and each and every loss hits hard.

I could sit here and wax lyrical about this book all day, but I believe the best thing to say is just go buy this book! Its so much more than an epic sci-fi story. It’s a phenomenal piece of writing.

Book 2 is already sitting atop my virtual TBR pile.

I have been a fan of space operas for many years and this is one of the best that I have ever read. It's on a par with some of my favourite authors; Iain M Banks, Alistair Reynolds, John Scalzi.

Enter the world of Marca Nbara as she flees the Orphanage to become a junior officer aboard the massive, hundreds of years old, Greatship, Athens.

A roller-coaster journey across the Galaxy on a routine trading mission, that suddenly becomes fraught with danger and enemies.

Miles Cameron has created a unique, believable, universe. Great characters and their relationships are core to making this story enthralling.

I can't say more without giving too much away. Bring on the next volume of the story.
Just buy it!

I LOVED this book! Every single page was highly interesting, and just about a role model for what I enjoy in a book. The protagonist Marca is a scared, traumatized, socially awkward new officer on a huge merchant ship. We see her struggle to overcome her instinctive bias against people with power and money, and try to trust some of the good people she finds herself surrounded with. There is an optimistic Star Trek feel to this, in the focus on morality, humanity, and everyone presenting their best self all the time. The ship master even says "make it so". Maybe that's a typical Navy phrase. There are other military terms sprinkled throughout, and the book in general is highly militaristic, being that it takes place almost entirely on a ship with a very military-like command structure and they are under attack. The science is strong, but not overwhelmingly into abstract physics. I agree with Marca, who reminisces on losing interest when the physics get religious. There is faster than light travel, one or two mentions of Cherenkov radiation, a bit of relativistic time bubbles, and the complexity of space navigation, but all in an extremely plausible and interesting way. There is great technology, and a nice glimpse without getting too heavy-handed into a possible socioeconomic culture of the future. The supporting characters are terrific, developed just enough to feel real. It's a bit unrealistic how Marca is deputized as a secret service agent, but it makes for a great story so go with it! This is a terrific book that is tied together very well in the end and could be considered whole on it's own, but boy do I ever want the sequel!

(review)

Anyone who reads my reviews will im sure have heard me mention more than once…. i do NOT read SCI-FI !!

But this is Miles / Christian Cameron…. so i had to give it a chance. Going into the book i was fully prepared for a bit of a slog to get me through this mighty 576 page book, But in true Cameron style he proved me wrong. I went from thinking i had a couple of weeks to wade through and smile and say it was ok to 3 days of being embedded in the story, tv off, no going out, taking my time and enjoying every single word and page of this amazing book.

The story introduces Marca Nbaro sneaking onto the Great ship Athens, having escaped from the man she tried to expose as an evil influence at the orphanage, to leave behind her past mistakes and to start her dream to serve on a greatship. A natural outcast due to the way she grew up, he lack of trust etc is very real as is the slowly making friends, slipping into a new family on board ship, allowing her natural skills to flourish both as a pilot but also as a survivor and a thinker, its these skills and her past that puts her on the radar of the Ships AI and the Master of ship…. because ahead of them is a 4 year journey and new perils for the whole ship and the society she comes from.

The story has a fantastic flow to it, Christians / Miles natural story telling style coming across right from the start, he has a wonderful way of blending the info drops into the plot so that you don’t feel them, they are a natural education to the reader of the people , the places and the action. Into this you can feel the influence of his time as a Navy Intelligence officer, one who flew backseat to the pilot. He blends the real world experience and skills of a newbie on a ship, learning the craft and the flow of life on board, i think its that experience that makes the story feel like its being naturally told rather than forced, lifting that experience of life into fiction, the future imagined, the mind-bending locations and the technology show the true skills of imagination added to that experience. Blended into a story where the technology and the time always feels real, well researched and thought out and not there to dazzle you, it just is, a matter of fact in how it works and functions, and yet even with that far future technology his characters explore ideas for technology even beyond that, i found myself going back over parts to try and see holes in ideas but its just perfectly imagined.

I’m sure i could wax lyrical about this book all year, but i really do not want to spoil a single moment for anyone else with a stray spoiler. suffice to say, for someone who doesn’t like Sci-fi, this book has made me feel i need to try more, and most definitely the follow up to this book. A book that for me that is head and shoulders above all other books ive read in the last few years… i loved it that much.

my highest every recommendation

(Parm)