urndive takes up where Karin Lowachee's Warchild (a Warner Aspect first-novel contest winner) ends, and shifts the narrative away from Jos Musey to 19-year-old Ryan Azarcon. Ryan is the closest thing this future has to a prince: He's the son of Cairo Azarcon, the famous captain of the starship Macedon. His mother is also a celebrity, being the public affairs officer of the space station where they live, and his grandfather is a well-known admiral and diplomat. So Ryan lives under constant scrutiny and is the subject of endless media attention. He's been proclaimed the station's "Hot #1 Bachelor!"
Ryan has sunk to an all-time low. After witnessing a terrorist attack on Earth, he dropped out of college and now spends his time getting high on a drug called Silver and partying with other shallow kids, whom he despises. Life at home is no comfort. His mother's obsessed with the family's public image, and he's seen his father only three times in his entire life. Ryan's only real friend is Sid, the bodyguard who practically raised him, but Sid's also sleeping with Ryan's mother. It makes their relationship a little ... awkward.
So Ryan's not rising to the occasion. But his drifting, dissipated life gets shattered when assassins try to kill him at a nightclub ("flash house" in Lowachee-speak), possibly in retaliation for his father's recent initiatives for peace in the war against the alien strits. Before Ryan can say "Poor, poor pitiful me," he's whisked off to his father's starship for his own safety. But the Macedon is a warship, currently in negotiations with the aliens and their human sympathizers. Is it really safer? Cairo Azarcon, it would appear, has ulterior motives to just protecting his son. In his gruff way, he's reaching out to his estranged child. Ryan, spoiled sourpuss that he is, won't have any of it.
Stylish and engrossing sophomore novel
Now, this isn't a story about Ryan being thrust into some spaceborne School of Hard Knocks. He doesn't become a soldier and, through hard work and true grit, learn How to Be a Man. In fact, he's not required to do much at all on his father's ship. But merely being in contact with people carrying just as much emotional baggage as himself, if not more (and here's where Jos and Evan show up, Warchild fans will be happy to know), Ryan gets some perspective on his life and eventually does some growing up.
Less of an action novel than its predecessor, Burndive is a space opera of character growth and change. The battles, for the most part, are fought offstage. Instead of depicting combat, the novel explores how war affects the relationship between Ryan and his father. It's the emotional fallout that drives the story. Despite being a brat, Ryan's a likable guy, and watching him deal with his problems keeps us in suspense as we wait for him to alienate and insult yet another person who cares about him.
Some nice touches set this book apart. The war itself avoids simple good-versus-evil stereotypes, with a variety of players including the human military, the alien strits, human sympathizers ("symps") who have adopted the alien way of life, and marauding pirates who swoop in after battles to prey on the weakened survivors.
Lowachee's style also stands out. She writes with flair, although she occasionally draws too heavily on post-Gibsonian cyberspeak. I enjoyed how she strips quotation marks out of flashback dialogue, giving those scenes a muffled effect that evokes a sensation of distant memory.
Lowachee has deftly avoided any sophomore slump with her second novel, and it will be interesting to see where she takes us in the promised third book of the series.
