Ancestral Night

It's soooo good. Elizabeth Bear's scifi stories might not be for everyone but for those that it appeals to it is page turning and leaves you wanting more.

I went into this looking for a fun sci-fi romp, and instead got some philosophical navel gazing on the nature of intelligent life, one woman working through her cult upbringing baggage, and a general feeling like this book was written with a purpose in mind and directed at somebody specific, rather than to tell a story to a general audience.

Haimey Dz is a salvage mechanic, part of a crew of two (plus an AI, plus two cats) who plumb the depths of white space looking for derelict ships to recover and sell off. One of their salvage trips goes awry, however, when Haimey inadvertently takes on an alien symbiote that ends up augmenting her sense of space around her. Despite wanting nothing to do with this alien taking up residence under her skin, Haimey finds herself pursued by people intent on taking it from her. Things happen, and she finds allies in entirely unexpected places to get her out of the mess she's fallen into.

The writeup makes it sound interesting, and it was for about the first half of the book. Then we get a large center chunk dedicated to Haimey discovering that her childhood upbringing in a cult was somewhat of a lie, and her coming to terms with what this means. We also get quite a bit of discussion about what it means to be free in a society governed by sci-fi dictators, and a brief romance fling awkwardly shoehorned in to round things out. Haimey's inner monologue does most of the heavy lifting of the story, which gets a little tedious and boring after a while. I also felt like the plot thread didn't go anywhere, nor was anything really resolved at the end to any degree.

It just felt like a disconnected mess to me by the end, which was a huge disappointment to me.

A Perfect Far Future SF Tale
After feeling that Becky Chambers' Space Adventure books felt a little too soft and shallow, this story filled the void I didn't know existed.
The philosophical concepts both personal and political were fantastically fleshed out: free will, identity, what a perfect society would be, how much government control is too much. All these concepts were pushed to the edge, but in a way that never felt preachy.
At the same time, the story was excellent and gripping. I never felt like I knew what would happen next, and the stakes kept growing in unpredictable ways. It really blew me away.
I'm a big SF fan and this is possibly my new favourite book. I've already bought the sequel, and may just have to become an Elizabeth Bear completest.

Came for the space archeology and Big Dumb Object, stayed for the musings on free will vs communal good and governmental systems.

Didn't completely keep me throughout, I'll admit. Usually I love these books where not super much happens and much of it is inner monologue (certainly the case here), but I found myself almost screaming “Get on with it!!” halfway through.

Four stars for the aliens, universe, main plot and characters - reduced to three stars for the (to me) unnecessary philosophical, political, and emotional interaction with the antagonist and corresponding deep dive into the protagonist's past.

2.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Intending to scavenge whatever may be found off the main starways, Haimey, human partner Connla, and AI Singer find much more than they bargained for - a vast ship, a dead leviathan, alien technology, and more. Plus pirates, who threaten to take it all away, and put them all in danger.

Review
I've not read much Elizabeth Bear, but a while back, one of her short stories really struck me, so I was interested in this longer work. And I can say that it does have some strong elements - eventually.

Ancestral Night gets off to a very, very slow start. The world building is unclear, there's too little contexxt, and the book is chock-full of non-intuitive neologisms provided without context. Some I didn't really have a grip on until the final third of the book. It makes for hard going; I almost gave up at the end of chapter 1. Not only that, but the flood of neologisms make other elements harder to spot - afthands, for example. In addition, I never developed very much interest in the narrator's mysterious past, which gradually become more and more important to the plot. Even as it gradually unfolded, I never found I much cared about it. The slow start could have been cured with more attentive editing. The character issues are at the core of the story, and it just never worked for me. The narrator's sudden mood swings didn't help.

It's a shame the book didn't win me over, because it does have a host of clever - if somewhat familiar - tropes: giant, enigmatic creatures; interesting technology; ancient vessels. It's also got a fair share of good science jokes that I really enjoyed - which is odd, because some of the starship design is really poor, logical action is sometimes sacrificed to authorial drama, and there's some very thin McGyvering going on. The logic of the backstories is often vague at best. The prose is good. The characters - aside from backstory - are functional, but other than being updated to today's mores, you've seen most of them before. They also have a tendency to plunge - completely unprompted - into long, often very dull asides about government and philosophy. I'm not against those things per se - I do one of the two professionally - but as presented here, they put me off. Worse, several of the points and observations are repeated as if they were novel - poor editing again.

There's good material here, but it's lost in poor editing and thin characterization. The later books in the series - now that the basis is established - may go more smoothly, but I don't see continuing with them.

Note: Book received gratis in exchange for honest review.

3.0 out of 5 stars

My first foray into Elizabeth Bear's work was her excellent 2017 fantasy novel The Stone in the Skull, which I enjoyed immensely. I knew that Bear is known for writing in a multitude of genres, but I wasn't prepared for the genre whiplash I experienced when I picked up the space opera Ancestral Night. The book follows Haimey Dz, a space salvager who uncovers a piece of ancient alien technology that, in the wrong hands, could be catastrophic for the galaxy at large. ...lo and behold, space pirates are hot on Haimey's trail.

This is really sharp, smart science fiction that goes deep on the details and philosophy of its world and Haimey herself. Bear's vision for the future of space is so intricate and sophisticated that a lot of it flew way over my head. Tonally, it's quite cold and calculated, which made it difficult for me to form lasting emotional connections to the characters. I enjoyed learning about Haimey's backstory and witnessing her connection to her shipmates, but those moments of humanity seemed fleeting. I think the plot description makes this sound like an exciting space adventure, but I found it to be quite slow, contemplative, and unevenly-paced overall.  The prose is dense and difficult to penetrate at times, with many of the scientific elements pushing well beyond my realm of understanding.

I could certainly see this winning some awards because it really feels like next-level science fiction and more advanced than most of what I've read in the genre. Personally, I wasn't able to connect with the story, but I come away from the reading experience even more impressed with Bear's skill as a writer and would not be surprised if others enjoyed this more than I did.

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.