Artifact Space (Arcana Imperii duology book 1) by Miles Cameron (book review).

‘Artifact Space’ by Miles Cameron, the first of the ‘Arcana Imperii’ duology, is a crossover of space opera and thriller.

Cadet Marca Nbaro was about to graduate for the Service on merchant spaceships when she was expelled for bringing a lover into the orphanage. She refuses to give up her dream of joining the Service on a greatship as part of their Flightsections. She pays a hacker to illegally get her appointed as a midshipman on the greatship, Athens.

On board, she finds people are actually nice to her, unlike at the orphanage. This and learning the real ropes on the Athens takes some getting used to. News arrives of the destruction of the greatship, New York, on its circuit to bring back the precious xenoglass, which is so necessary to the planetary civilisations for their infrastructure and tech. Athens will be following the same route.

After she fights off an attack from the orphanage’s hired killers, Narbo is summoned to the greatship’s Special Services office. The officer in charge not only wants to keep her safe from possible future attacks organised by the orphanage’s head, but also use her to help entrap him.

Add in a few aliens, the ship’s AI, Morosini, who is devious and has an interesting AI cat, and the destruction of another greatship, Hong Kong, you know you are in for one super-charged adventure in space. On this score, ‘Artifact Space’ well and truly delivers.

What jarred with me was the technology used. One moment it uses Tanaka drives to jump light years through M-brane space, the next is the ‘new’ idea of extending the line of sensors to improve what they are ‘seeing’, actual tech used in the last century, but not in space. Cameron tries to explain this incongruity by saying humans went through a chaotic upheaval long before this story takes place. This does not sit well alongside the tradition of technology improvement being built up from basics to sophisticated systems. So if you’re well versed in science and technology, it pays to suspend belief about the mixture when reading this novel.

I did find the star map and the outline drawing of the Athens at the start of the novel very helpful. This helps you to keep track of where you the story is both on board ship and in the galaxy, without Cameron having to explain it in detail.

‘Artifact Space’ has a similar swashbuckling feel to it as the fictional Hornblower adventures in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, but in space. It certainly is a welcome addition to this cadre of spare-faring adventure.

Rosie Oliver

January 2022

(pub: Gollancz, 2021. 568 pages paperback. Price: £ 9.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-47323-260-0)

check out website: https://www.gollancz.co.uk/titles/miles-cameron/artifact-space/9781473232624