e encounter Yuri Terisov first in the year 2198, when he's a prisoner in the one of the military jails of EarthHub, the interstellar entity that rules many scattered worlds, and which is waging war against the alien strits. Yuri has been a pirate all his life, one of those who prey on interstellar shipping and conduct trade in many illicit goods and services. Ever since he signed on board the Genghis Khan as a youth, that famous pirate ship run by the most infamous freebooter of all, Captain Falcone, Yuri has led a harsh, self-centered life. He's had his love affairs, but sentiment hasn't stopped him from being ruthless.
Now, in prison, however, he's getting a little soft. He has a homosexual relationship with Finch, a fellow convict, whom he both despises and covets. Thus, when Yuri is approached by BlackOps agent Andreas Lukacs with an offer to be released and become a double agent among the pirates once more, Yuri insists that Finch come along.
The two men are duly sprung with a good cover story. They make their way to a waystation where they can contact Yuri's old ship, the Kublai Khan, and arrange a pickup. Yuri imagines he can pick up the reins as Falcone's protégé with ease. But he has not reckoned with a woman named Taja, who has assumed command of his ship in his absence. A suspicious and power-hungry Taja brings Yuri and Finch onboard, but as prisoners once again.
Now commences some underhanded scheming from confinement, whereby Yuri will usurp Taja's role. He manages to enlist another pirate, named Caligtiera, on his side, and thus eventually regains his command. But now Caligtiera has deadly plans against EarthHub that conflict with Lukac's orders for Yuri. It begins to seem that the only way out of the dilemma will be a suicidal course.
Much history, but little action
I must confess to being disappointed with this third volume in the series that began with Warchild (2002) and continued in Burndive (2003). It treads the same ground as the first book, does not really illuminate the universe of its future history that much further, and is structured in an ungainly way.
In the first book, Lowachee gave us the full biography of a youngster named Jos, who was adopted by Captain Falcone and raised in a harsh, lawless environment. In her second book, Lowachee deftly switched social strata to depict her future history from the point of view of a privileged young man named Ryan. We saw old events differently, through different eyes, in a kind of Rashomon manner. Plus, many new things happened, including a partial truce with the strit.
But what does Lowachee choose to do in the new book? She gives us the biography of another youth raised by Captain Falcone, whose experiences and reactions and emotions are nearly parallel to Jos'. The point of the whole redundant exercise is lost on me. Moreover, little real-time action takes place to advance the trilogy as a whole.
Here's how the novel's 448 pages are structured.
It takes roughly the first 50 pages just to get Yuri out of prison and back on his ship, pages filled with lots of Richard-Morgan-style tough-guy talk and not a lot else.
Then come 100 pages of flashback, Yuri's earliest childhood on the pirate ship.
We now break for about 40 pages of real-time action, with Yuri maneuvering to get his command back.
Incredibly, another 100 pages of flashback now intervene.
Another 40 or so pages of interstellar Machiavellian shenanigans carry the "current" story a little further.
Mind-blowingly, another 100 pages of backstory thud down now, just when things are starting to get as exciting in real time as they ever will.
That leaves the weak-kneed climax to fill the remaining 20 or so pages.
If you extract the backstory and toss it, you're left with a so-so novella. And the backstory deserves to be tossed: It's just not that compelling, and even a bit silly. I've never seen pirates so worried about the feelings of their crewmates. There's so much angsting about who cares for whom—Yuri is trained to be a male "geisha," of all things—that it's more like reading a sorority novel about lesbian-until-graduation crushes than reading one of swashbuckling, rapine and rum-swilling among the stars.
