I loved "Stars and Bones", so I knew I would enjoy "Descendant Machine". I wasn't prepared for just how much though! It's written brilliantly, and the plot was truly enthralling. It was so good to catch up with some characters, meet new ones, and get back to this world. I hope this isn't the end of books set in this world...

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

This was a great science fiction book. I was a bit concerned because it is second in a series but it read like a standalone. I never felt like I was missing something.

People of Earth had to relocate due to the climate. I usually avoid books with this premise as it’s so overdone lately. This wasn’t overly preachy but I docked a star because I’m SO tired of reading about climate change!

I liked the main character a lot. I loved the ship. The writing flowed really well and the story was entertaining and easy to follow. There was some enjoyable humor but also some sciency sci fi so it was just the recipe I like.

I’m so excited to have found a new (to me) sci fi author & can’t wait to check out more of his books.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley.

Thanks to Titan Books and Netgalley for the arc of Descendant Machine by Gareth L. Powell in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Mr Powell has done it again! Delivered a space opera sci Fi novel that delivers Serenity/Star Trek/Blake 7 mashed up with full on Marvel action, as our plucky and fabulously snarky heroine and gang face a threat of the destruction of the entire universe!

The key protagonists in this full on space opera are Nicola Mafalda, a sassy, nearly and truly juman navigator in the Continuance’s vanguard scout fleet, her ship Frontier Chic, plus Kona, an alien who is more than just Nicola’s special friend, and Orlando Walden, a gifted young quantum scientist, who definitely gave me Leonard Hofstadter vibes.

Theres a lot to like about this book, whilst being part of the Continuance series, it equally expands on the world building of Stars and Bones but, can also be read as a stand alone.
The plot can be described as a morality trope but, find me a story that isn’t in one way or another. What Powell does us wrap this up into a plot that climbs and climbs, arcing through more twists and turns than a rollercoaster, balancing the shocks and turns with some fabulous and feisty moments that are truly brilliant and funny!

I could mention so much more but, if you love space operas, great characters and are looking for that wormhole, most definitely pick up Descendant Machine. It’s one hell of a ride!

I don’t know about you, but I keep a running list of books I want to read after I finish whatever it is I’m currently reading. The list isn’t hard and fast and can change on a whim.

I wasn’t planning on reading Descendant Machine anytime soon but then I craved a story with some spaceships in it. And I knew Gareth L. Powell would provide spaceships aplenty, based on his previous novels.

Reader, there are many, many spaceships in this book. And lots of “big dumb objects.” And aliens. And swearing. And sassy AIs. And sudden, extreme violence.

This is a book set in Powell’s “Continuance” universe though it is a stand-alone book (the previous Continuance book, Stars and Bones, is also quite good). In this universe, humanity has been kicked off of Earth and sentenced to wander between the stars in some very high-tech ark ships for our crimes. And then hijinks ensue.

If you’re looking for some good space opera, this is the book for you! Then you can go and read the previous one… or you can read the previous one first since Descendant Machine doesn’t come out until April 11th.

Descendant Machine by Gareth Powell( A Continuance Novel)- A awesome follow-up to the previous Stars and Bones finds Powell in top form bringing in a great space opera adventure. Each character gets their time to shine and tell us what they think. Lots of danger and suspense. I hope he continues this series for a few more entries- something to look forward to. Thanks to NetGalley for this out of this world ARC!

Descendant Machine happens in the same universe as the author’s previous novel Stars And Bones, but is significantly more upbeat and optimistic than that book (even if it does concern an existential threat to the entire universe). There’s also no need to worry abut continuity, as it’s a standalone story. Over his most recent novels, Powell has carved out a distinct area to operate in, a kind of rip-roaring space opera that captures the sense of wonder feel of old school SF, but also maintains a modern sensibility that isn’t afraid of a bit of political satire (the digs at nationalists and separatists here will resonate with anyone who has paid the tiniest bit of attention to recent British political history). Essentially it’s an update on the classic 2000AD formula, which is high praise. This one centres on one of my favourite SF ideas, the Big Dumb Object (the name of which I’m pretty sure is an in-joke on the foreign title of one of his previous novels). There’s intrigue, action, and cosmic awe aplenty, and it’s a fast easy read that has enough propulsion to keep you turning the pages without stopping to think “hang on a minute, what about…”. I suspect Powell had a lot of fun writing it (apart from the horror story described in an afterword), and I certainly had a lot of fun reading it.

I enjoyed immensely the authors previous books and yet again he has left me satisfied with this tale, I will definitely be reading more in this series

The problem with this one for me is that it fell short in continuity, consistency, and credibility (not to mention creativity).

The background is that humans in our not-too-distant future messed up Earth pretty badly and then accidentally started a nuclear war, but fortunately (the first of a number of fortunate coincidences), just as the bombs started launching a physicist discovered how to access subspace, and this caused the extremely powerful being(s) lurking on Saturn to intervene, shut down the nukes, and exile the entire population of Earth to a fleet of enormous space arks, forbidding them to settle any planets because they can't be trusted with a biosphere. (This feels, for me, very like Becky Chambers, and not just because the whole of humanity is now in space arks; it's theoretically optimistic SF, in that the individual characters are well-intentioned, but it's deeply pessimistic about humanity as a whole. That isn't the worst way in which humans screw up in this book, either.)

The problem with consistency comes partly because sometimes the exiles are very familiar with things that Earth people are familiar with, and sometimes they're not. Depending which scene you're in, for example, the protagonist might mention that her gods included the elephant-headed Ganesh (described as such), or she might say, apparently sincerely, "What's an elephant?" (Her gods are referred to exactly once, and then never mentioned again.)

The humans have a new calendar, starting from the date of their exile, but when it's necessary to refer to the 'Oumuamua object, the date is given as 2017, not X years before the New Common Era. A lot is explained (it's all in first person) that only needs to be explained to the 21st-century reader, not the supposed audience of the fictional account.

In terms of continuity, a quantity of antimatter is variously described as "a hundred square kilometers," "a hundred cubic kilometers," and "a hundred tonnes". Those are three very different amounts. In conversation, a person would say something, and then a couple of pages later accuse the person they were talking to of having said it.

To talk about credibility I have to use a spoiler tag for the most egregious example. <spoiler>A vast virtual civilization that has existed for a billion years and has devoted years of effort to the problem is unable to figure out a physics problem that a 21-year-old human physicist solves easily and immediately.</spoiler> But there are also a good few fortunate coincidences, cavalry rescues, dei ex machina, and other such creaking plot devices.

In terms of creativity, it's on the tropey end of space opera. You won't find much that's new here. It also deploys the current Easiest Villain: a right-wing populist. Yes, right-wing populists are bad. Yes, we currently have a big problem with them. But making one your villain can easily become a short cut when you don't want to devote much thought to it, and I felt that this was what had happened here.

As far as storytelling goes, it's OK. The emotional arc, the trajectory of tension, the main character's inner journey, all of that is... fine. It's competent. It's adequate. The copy editing is, apart from a few obvious glitches, decent, in the pre-publication copy I got via Netgalley for review, and the remaining issues may yet be ironed out before publication (or they may not). But I didn't feel that the setting was fully thought through or consistently depicted, and the continuity and credibility problems, of which I've only given the most glaring examples out of many, kept tripping me up throughout. This lost it the fourth star.

If you're looking for popcorn space opera and are prepared to not think about it too deeply, you'll probably enjoy this. But for me, it was underdone.

I enjoyed the book. Powell has writen an interesting novel about time travel and the universe. It's a fast paced book that is well worth the read.

Descendant Machine is a space opera science fiction novel that can best be described as Star Trek combined with the whiplash twists and fate-of-the-universe stakes of a Marvel film.

Our protagonist is Nicola Mafalda, a navigator in the Continuance’s vanguard scout fleet. The story arc is a morality play that is brought to a conclusion after a series of twists that allow Nicola to never give into pragmatism or compromise her personal morals. While the plot is easy enough to follow and the story is filled with humorous moments, the repeated twists were a little much at times.

This novel works as a standalone and can be read without first reading Stars and Bones. If you enjoy Star Trek or Marvel films then I can recommend reading Descendant Machine.

Descendant Machine is the second novel of the Continuance, a future history wherein humanity inhabits space arks after leaving a damaged Earth. I haven’t read the first book and this is a self-contained stand-alone novel that reads on its own. And reads well. Powell writes propulsive, fast paced prose and the book races along. It is also, despite violent passages, upbeat in tone and message.

The heroine, Nicola Mafalda, is a navigator in the Continuance’s scout fleet. Grievously injured on a mission, she reluctantly accepts an assignment with her sapient scout ship Frontier Chic, which becomes a deadly race to save the universe from a big, mysterious object. There is action, humor, and some easy going moralizing.

I found this to be an enjoyable, breezy read. Powell tries to build some characterization, though I felt it was more told than shown. Space opera fans should enjoy and I will try the first book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for an advanced reading copy.