Artifact Space

Product Information

Imperious attempted to bite off the knight’s hand. When that failed, he snatched the leather cylinder away from him.

Artifact Space | Gollancz

Take an extremely likeable hero, throw in a clever and engaging re-mapping of real-world naval aviation procedures onto a detailed futuristic canvas, then wrap the whole thing up in a satisfyingly mysterious universe with some intriguing aliens, and you have a winner! Ultimately, Artifact Space does a lot things well that aren’t especially to my taste, and it only teases on the elements that most excited me. The prose and characters are solid, but they aren’t quite enough to capture my interest when the plot spends so much time on what I consider to be less interesting details. So this is an example of a story that won’t get an especially high score from me, but where I recognize that taste mismatch is playing a larger-than-average role, and that I may still recommend to other readers who are a better fit for the subgenre. We are thrown into a futuristic society, following the character Marca Nbaro, who joins one of the great ships destined for a trade point to collect xenoglas, a precious material that almost dominates society. But, she is a character with a traumatic past and suffers as a result, with no trust for those around her and a constant foreboding of being discovered and thrown out of her newfound home. I’ve often said that a good story can take traditional tropes and give them a new angle, a new spin. This is what Miles does here, and does admirably. Artifact Space is everything I want in a Space Opera. There’s mile long spaceships, strange aliens, hand to hand combat, space stations, unknown planets, duelling swords, likeable characters, AI and a genuine sense of peril all wrapped up in a setting that reminded me of an updated Heinlein novel. (Those who know me will know what a compliment that is.)Both have traveled far their original destinations. The spacecraft were built to last five years and conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn. With the spacecraft holding up despite the rigors, additional flybys of the two outermost giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, proved possible, and then the Voyagers were directed to interstellar space. and somehow they'd passed through terror and adversity to the other extremity of routine and boredom without passing through a happy medium. In preparation for the potentially deep space travels for the Voyager spacecrafts, both were fitted with a greeting for any intelligent life that might be encountered. The message is carried by a phonograph record – -a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to show the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by space scientist and popularizer Carl Sagan. He and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds to give a sense of what Earth and Earthlings are like.

Artifact Space by Miles Cameron – The Unseen Library Artifact Space by Miles Cameron – The Unseen Library

Most people can live without booze,’ Marca said. ‘But no one can go an hour without a rationalisation." Have a Happy Christmas and wishing everyone a healthy, happy, and stable New Year. And good reading! The world building is really, really good. The way that space travel works and the restrictions on it, and how the human part of the galaxy has evolved based on that, is really well thought out and makes total sense. Anyway, the story line skips and jitters about but is easy to follow. Just be prepared for abrupt changes in dialogue or sudden scene shifting. It starts well and promising! But... A lot of filler in boring trainings (a lot of sword practice - in a Space Opera not named "Star Wars. Then we have the protagonist: usually you would like her: the teenager, who suffered at an orphanage and gets the oportunity of a lifetime! But the author REALLY want you to like her: a math genius, a brilliant pilot from her first flight, a mastermind in espionage and saves the ship a lot of times - with ideas that veterans, a powerfull IA and the Augmented Humans on the ship never tought!are automatically used as fodder regardless of stats (unless it’s a situational godroll, in which case I keep it).

Artifact Space: A Tale from the Arcana Imperii Universe

Longtime SETI scientist and advocate Jill Tarter, for instance, wondered if the signatures of intelligent civilizations could be imprinted on neutrinos. She said that a leak of the radioactive isotope tritium, which has a short 12-year half-life, could also signal the presence of advanced life because (unless it’s near a supernova) it would have to come quite recently from a nuclear reactor.I thoroughly enjoyed The Traitor Son Cycle series, which prompted me to try another read from Miles Cameron. I have to say he can write a space odyssey just as well as swords and sorcery. Astronomers have long predicted that objects from other solar systems get shot out into space and arrive in our system. At last, a tall figure emerged from the mists. First came the glint of steel, the position and angle suggesting a longsword held in a high guard. Next came the shimmer of a chainmail surcoat partly covered by a hooded cloak of pure white trimmed in silver and emblazoned with three azure eyes across the front. That was after the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter determined that the “face” was created by unusual reflections in an otherwise ordinary Martian mountain. This is a mil-SF from the author better known for his fantasy series. This is also the first book this year I didn’t finish, stopped at 19%.

Artifact Space by Miles Cameron - Tar Vol on Sci-fi Book Review: Artifact Space by Miles Cameron - Tar Vol on

The greatest concerns about keeping the probes operating, she said, involve power and temperature. The nuclear-powered Voyager 2 loses about 4 watts of power a year, and mission scientists have to shut off systems to keep instruments operating. There are so many cool elements to this book, and one of them is the amazing Greatships that can carry up to 10,000 crew members. Oh and did I mention they are shaped like swords? You didn't think that Miles Cameron was going to leave his epic fantasy influences behind completely did you? Envisioning these transport ships and their unique construction really captured my imagination and Cameron does an outstanding job of giving such a vivid description of these enormous space vessels. So right away I was blown away by the technology aspect of this story. But this isn't just a hollow tale with cool tech as window-dressing, on the contrary, this story is about a person trying to overcome a dubious past that seems to follow her wherever she goes. And along the way we find that Cameron takes us in so many directions we never even imagined with thrilling side-stories aplenty.Reading this book, I’ve learned that Miles Cameron is a great storyteller with some fantastic worldbuilding chops, and I can’t wait to read the follow-up and get into his fantasy books.