DESCENDANT MACHINE by Gareth L. Powell – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Descendant Machine by Gareth L. Powell
Series: Continuance #2
Published by Titan Books on April 11 2023
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Pages: 336
Format: Finished paperback
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Gareth L. Powell raises the stakes—and then raises them again—in this stellar stand-alone sequel to Stars and Bones.

Descendant Machine is the most fun I’ve had all year! Gareth L. Powell has not only written a sequel that’s better than the first book, but he completely changed the vibe as well. Stars & Bones was very dark, but Descendant Machine is funny, upbeat and even heartwarming at times. For a story about a dangerous, high stakes space mission, that’s quite the feat. If you haven’t read Stars & Bones, don’t worry. This stand-alone sequel is the perfect place to start reading.

The story is framed as an incident report, written and narrated by a scout ship called Frontier Chic. Yes, you read that right. A ship is telling the story (we’re already having fun, right?) Nicola Mafalda is a navigator, a human with the ability to traverse the substrate. Nicola and her bonded ship the Frontier Chic have been given an important assignment. They are being sent to the planet of Jzat in order to find someone called the Abelisk, a holy man of sorts who guards the secrets of the Grand Mechanism, a vast, ring-shaped artifact that surrounds a mysterious black sphere.

But Nicola and her crew aren’t the only ones looking for the Abelisk. There’s a faction of Jzat calling themselves the Openers, who want to harness the power of the Grand Mechanism for their own purposes. In alternating chapters, we meet Orlando Walden, a young physicist who has come to the site of the Grand Mechanism to study it, but soon finds out he’s been brought there for another reason. As these groups converge, it becomes a race to stop the mechanism from opening, because if it does, it could mean the destruction of everything.

Before the story even gets started, Powell includes a prologue where a main character is decapitated, so right away you know you’re in for a wild ride. Descendant Machine is intricately plotted, and my quick story recap barely scratches the surface, but just know that there is political intrigue, betrayal, sex with an alien species, megaships, sentient ships, revenge, prolific use of the word “fuck,” and a trip to the future.

Powell seamlessly brings new readers up to speed with the world building, and even though I was familiar with this world, I didn’t mind the refresher course at all. To recap (because it’s such a cool idea and I’m trying to entice you to read this!), in the future, humanity was about to destroy each other with nuclear bombs, when an ancient alien species stepped in and saved them. These Angels of Benevolence, as they are called, relocated every person on Earth to a thousand floating arks, and because humans clearly can’t be relied upon to care for their planet, these arks were programmed to circle forever and never touch down on another planet. But here’s the cool part: imagine all the different countries and cultures and terrains of Earth, each given their own ark. Then imagine each ark has the freedom to become whatever it wanted. Then imagine there is a way to jump from ark to ark in an instant through something called a flick portal. It’s like having the world at your fingertips. Admittedly, most of this story takes place on the Frontier Chic and Jzat, not the arks, but it doesn’t hurt to know about them while you’re reading.

The characters and their relationships with each other are fantastic. Nicola is a tough woman who’s been through a lot, swears up a storm, but has a soft spot for a Jzat named Kona. (Jzat are humanoid creatures with four arms and golden fur all over their bodies.) But as much as I loved Nicola, my favorite character turned out to be the Frontier Chic’s envoy. Envoys are blue-skinned avatars that represent their ships in human form. They can walk around independent of the ship and communicate with their navigators. The envoy and Nicola have a very strong bond, since they rely on each other to move through the substrate. There is a moment in the story where they get separated, and it was so stressful! There are lots of other characters I don’t have time to talk about, but trust me, they are all wonderfully drawn, and many are hysterically funny without even trying. And I have to mention another favorite side character, an alien named Allergic-to-Seafood (!!) Best name ever, right? 

I even liked Orlando’s chapters, which didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the story at first. Orlando is writing home to his girlfriend Ramona, giving her a play-by-play of his adventures on Jzat, and in this way the reader comes to understand the science and physics behind the Grand Mechanism. Powell writes the kind of hard SF I enjoy: he’s clearly done his homework, but he presents it in an accessible and interesting way.

Powell’s universe is huge. Descendant Machine is the very definition of “space opera.” Not only are the Thousand Arks of the Continuance mind boggling, but the author also throws in megaships, huge sentient ships that have been around for thousands of years but are rarely seen by humans. I mention this because despite his immense world, Powell still manages to make his story feel intimate.

The action scenes are off the charts, with our beloved characters in constant danger. Powell adds lots of thrilling chase scenes and close calls, and just when you think the author couldn’t possibly come up with anything else, he throws in more surprises at the end. I’m not sure how he achieved a feel good ending after putting his characters through the wringer, but he did. Descendant Machine is one of my favorite SF releases of the year so far, and I recommend it whole heartedly. Don’t miss it!

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.