Buckell, Tobias: Ragamuffin
Ragamuffin
Writer: Tobias Buckell
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 316
One of my complaints about Buckell's debut, Crystal Rain, was its lack of strong women characters. Oh, there's a female POV in the book, but as many others have mentioned (though I'm not sure *I* did at the time of reviewing it), she felt more of a token than anything, and her presence fell flat. So when I heard that Buckell's sequel, Ragamuffin, would feature a female lead, I was really excited to see what he would do with her, and the larger story.
A really good thing, and a rather hard one to pull off, I think, is that one can read Ragamuffin without reading Crystal Rain. Yes, it's the second book in the series, and yes, characters from the first show up in the second, and events from the first are mentioned in the second. And while there's always a little more depth to be gleaned from reading a book when you're already familiar with part of the cast and the events the cast went through, you certainly don't lose anything if you read this one first.
Spoilers ahead.
Nashara, the previously mentioned female lead, was my favorite character in the whole book, and no, it's not because my name is in hers. ;) She's one of those ass-kicking heroines who starts out as an anti-hero and gradually becomes a character to sympathize with during the course of the story, though not without a little tampering from external forces. While I wish we saw more of her (she wasn't in part two at all, but for good reason), I really liked who and what she was, though I did find myself a little confused as to how she was able to keep from losing herself within the ship when her sisters--what, all NINE of them?--couldn't in ONE. But I think that was touched on the text, though not thoroughly explained, in the text itself, but I was too busy trying to get to the end to really let the info sink in.
Ragamuffin reads much faster than Crystal Rain. That's both a good and bad thing. Good because you find yourself turning pages and not getting bogged down with text. Bad because one of the reasons Crystal Rain took time was due to the detail of its setting. In Ragamuffin, Buckell starts out fabulously with setting detail (Pit's Cross was exceptionally well done), and then it kind of peters out as the action progresses and we're introduced to more POV characters and more angles to the overall conflict. This surprised me, because while I'm far from a setting reader, I do find myself getting antsy when I can't picture what's happening (this goes for setting detail and character action), and I got antsy in this book on several occasions. Not enough to bother me, just enough to notice.
And maybe it's because it WAS a fast read, and maybe also because I'd just finished reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander, which was so lush and detailed in its prose, that I felt as though important stuff was missing. Kind of like setting and character detail, but more often what was going on and why, especially toward the end with the space battle, which I found a little difficult to follow (and while I'm "new" to read SF as a genre, I'm not new to reading space battles: I've got years of Star Wars Expanded Universe novels under my belt, yo). Motivations were a little fuzzy sometimes, and it felt like I missed transitions. Again, maybe I was reading too fast, or maybe those were just blanks that were too subtle for me to pick up, or maybe not. Whatever the case, I read on and hoped I'd figure it out by the end, which I did, so that's okay.
It was great to see Pepper again, though I wish I could've seen some more ass-kicking on his part. And it was beyond awesome that it turned out Nashara was his "granddaughter." Too bad we didn't get to see them kicking ass side-by-side, but maybe a later novel, eh? It was good to see John back too, even though I never really connected with his character the first round, I liked seeing what he was up to and what he was willing to do to help his people. I felt bad that he lost his son, but I didn't feel bad that the son died. I never liked Jerome, he always felt like an extraneous character to me, so his death meant nothing for me personally. That's not Buckell's fault: I just never connected with or cared about the character.
But there was a variety of cooler, more complex characters in this novel. Estudo, Kara, Danielle...Buckell's got a good cast for later novels, and the copies of Nashara, however digital they are (and however that works, as I'm still scratching my head, but that's me), are beyond cool.
What really stood out to me in this novel was the core conflict. It reminded me a bit of the premise behind James Tiptree Jr.'s And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill Side in that humanity is NOT the master of the universe. While in Tiptree's story, it's because of an inherent weakness in who we are, but Buckell explores a different angle. Humans are low on the totem pole, contained and controlled, and in some cases, pets. This really won me over, because it proves his characters have a long way to go before finding peace, which means there's plenty of story material to mine.
I was also reminded of John Scalzi's work in the Old Man's War universe, with planets being in short supply and both people and aliens have to fight for their places on it. Granted, Scalzi's and Buckell's work is totally different, but it's cool to see a shared root.
And this is going to sound REALLY stupid, but my favorite thing in the whole book? The wormhole map. I loved that! Then again, I'm a reader who really ENJOYS maps in SF and fantasy novels, because I can ground myself better in the world. And once I figured out how the wormholes worked, it was really cool to read what was happening and then to flip back to the map just to admire the whole thing. Yes, I'm weird. Thanks for noticing.
One thing that Buckell does do with his novels is, while tying up the main conflict, things aren't happily ever after. There's still the threat of a larger conflict looming ahead, which as I already mentioned, means Buckell has plenty of material to mine for later books and stories, but I also think it's a better mirror to the real world. Things don't neatly resolve, and Buckell has a knack for resolving the main story without pissing you off over lack of answers for the larger questions on hand. That's a handy trick. And trust me when I say this book leaves you with plenty of questions and considerations and concerns for humanity's future. The one thing that did make me ponder was why weren't the Teotl's "masters" waiting at the OTHER wormhole on the other side of New Anegada? That would've made for a hopeless situation, though I suspect that's going to come into play in later books (but the question is raised: if the Teotl's "masters" were the Satrapy, how did they feel about being cut off from the rest of their people?).
Oh, and the League? I do not trust them. Not one bit. Something tells me we're going to see an uglier side of humanity in later books.
So it's a good read, faster than the first, and more space opera-y too. Lots of action, a developed female protagonist, and I'm still wishing Buckell's work would cross over to a visual medium (I know there's comic books supposedly in development, but I've not heard anything new about that lately), because both of these books would translate really, really well. Buckell's definitely for the visual reader, and for those who just enjoy a good space opera yarn to relax with.
If you're interested in a sample, you can read the first third of Ragamuffin for free! Just click here.
Next up: Visual Journeys: A Tribute to Space Artists edited by Eric T. Reynolds