Empire of Bones Book Review
Empire of Bones Saga Volume 1
by Terry Mixon
Yowling Cat Press (April 20, 2019)
ISBN 978-1947376021 [Volume 1-3 omnibus edition]
I was provided a review copy courtesy of the author.
Empire of Bones is a future history space opera with a military scifi feel. I think all of those things are important descriptors, because it sets the stage for what kind of book this is trying to be. If you are interested in that, this book will be a lot of fun.
So what kind of book is this? Primarily, it is an adventure story, the kind of thing J. D. Cowan usefully described as “exploring new lands, peoples, and possibilities”. The primary fun is seeing what is around the next corner. But there are a lot of different ways to approach this kind of story, so let’s look further.
We, and the protagonists, find ourselves in our own far future, which is why I call it a future history. A future history, and its close cousin alternative history, look at how the world might be if you assume a certain pivotal event occurs. The primary difference is whether that event is in the past, or the future. The preeminent example of this in my mind is Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven’s CoDominium, and the greatest book set in that universe is the Mote in God’s Eye, which which this book shares common themes. The Terran Empire, a galaxy-spanning civilization, came to a terrible end nearly five hundred years prior to this novel, except the Imperial heir escaped to a remote world to refound the dynasty. Now, that world is reaching out to the stars again.
In addition to the second foundation of the Empire of Man, another element that Empire of Bones shares with Mote is a naval emphasis. There is a grand old tradition of naval adventure novels, with Master and Commander being an example, which military scifi novels of this type tends to draw upon. The convention has become that space navies follow the tradition of oceanic navies, with different authors picking different national traditions to draw upon in order to flesh out shipboard routine.
An interesting difference here is that Niven and Pournelle based their navy on the age of sail. In the CoDominium, it takes weeks to traverse between Alderson points within a system, making travel times long for a journey of any distance. For Empire of Bones, the drive technology is far more powerful, resulting in travel times over similar distances of mere days. In addition to altering the political dynamic by making it possible for the universe to effectively be smaller, it makes ship combat very different, like battleships that move like fighter aircraft. Well, fighter craft with a hell of a lot of momentum.
It is also a space opera, which means that our hero and heroine are legendary figures in the making. We can expect them to get into trouble and then barely escape, using pluck, wits, and any sweet Old Empire technology they manage to scrounge up. I also think space opera is dominant in the mix, which means that we are not primarily going to be getting a careful look at how history might unfold if you follow Toynbee’s model of history, which is the back story of Mote. You also aren’t going to get detailed logistics or the kind of fussy battle planning which means the Captain never leads the away party.
We do get pitched battles, unknown enemies of unusual viciousness, melodrama, and romance. Space Opera. For example, our female protagonist, Kelsey Bandar, spare heir to the Terran Empire, is ostensibly on board the ship as the understudy to a more experienced diplomat.
As it turns out due to an unfortunate series of events, Kelsey ends up with approximately the same negotiating skills as Korben Dallas.
If you want scifi that is more on the speculative end, or military scifi that strongly focuses on realism [you send middies to die on away missions], then you may not find what you are looking for here. If you like seeing bad guys blown up and exploring and reconquering worlds that humanity lost, then this is probably for you.
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