Having discovered and bonded with the sentient planet Silvanus in the first book in David C Jeffrey’s Unbound Space series (Through a Forest of Stars), Aidan Macallan is now the commanding officer of the advanced Science and Survey Division ship the Sun Wolf. Even as he’s finalizing his crew and trying to convince his best friend, scientist Roseph Hand, to be his executive officer, Macallan is charged with a new mission: Investigate the apparently sabotage of the voidoids, the mysterious portals that allow humanity to travel quickly and easily within “bound” space, a radius of 36 light years from the Sun. If the voidoids are allowed to collapse, the release of dark energy—known as the Big Rip—would likely destroy the universe itself. The voidoids have been showing signs of instability for some time, but when a mysterious ship is observed apparently attacking one, terrorism is suspected.
And for good reason: Things are less stable everywhere. On Earth, still slowly recovering from the Die Back—a nearly terminal collapse of the environment and civilization—radical forces are trying to shut down all space exploration, and tensions between The United Earth Domain (UED), the immensely powerful Terra Corporation, and the Allied Republics of Mars (ARM) remain high after the near-war over Silvanus. But as Macallan and his crew of smart, quirky people set out to find out what’s going on, they’re hampered by a pompous government agent who seems to hate Macallan and a saboteur lurking in the shadows that seems to be perpetually one step ahead. Worse still, the brilliant scientist Elgin Woo, perhaps the man with the best chance of understanding the voidoids and their disastrous fluctuations, has gone missing after an attempt to travel beyond Bound Space.
Jeffrey writes in clear prose that often exhibits a beautiful efficiency, bringing SUN WOLF’s futuristic universe to life with a combination of hard science facts (explained with a refreshing clarity) and delicately-handled character beats. The relationships between characters is as important to the story as the outward events of the plot, and Jeffrey does a very good job of bringing these relationships to life. The universe itself feels very real, grounded not just in scientific detail but also a plausible view of human nature on both an individual and societal scale; similarly to The Expanse novels, Jeffrey extrapolates a possible future for humanity based not just on our current environmental, political, and technological velocities, but also by imagining reasonable responses to science fictional inventions like the voidoids. Unlike some hard sci-fi writers, Jeffrey also handles his actions sequences very well, incorporating a space opera-esque sense of action (including what are essentially space pirates). But while his clarity and patience in explaining scientific concepts to the reader to bolster their suspension of disbelief is effective, it’s a little overdone, as Jeffrey repeats some information so often it becomes irritating, and sometimes spends a bit too much time explaining aspects of his technology instead of getting on with the story. There’s also a tendency to get a little spacey and philosophical, especially as the true nature of the voidoids begins to become clearer, which sometimes temporarily drags down the momentum.
Smart, entertaining and populated by well-drawn characters–SUN WOLF, the second in David C Jeffrey’s Space Unbound series–is a solid example of hard sci-fi storytelling. Fans of Arthur C. Clarke or Robert Charles Wilson will be delighted.
~Jeff Somers for IndieReader