Review: Space Pirates of Andromeda by John C. Wright
Epic and awesome. Buy it now.
Spoiler-free Executive Summary: friggin' AMAZING. Buy it now! (amazon link)
Let's get it out of the way: I am a huge fan of John C. Wright. My favorite prior books of his are these:
Null-A Continuum -- a continuation of A.E. van Vogt's Null-A series, with nods and tie-ins to his other epic works. Wright closely imitates Van Vogt's fast paced, cliffhanger-laden, pulp-fiction serial style, while taking his characters and worlds to a universe-scale, satisfying, epic conclusion.
Somewhither -- The Golden Compass done right, by Wright (har!) who actually thinks things through, and makes a far more intense, action-laden book to boot. Think about it, if GOLDEN-COMPASS-SPOILERS-FOOTNOTE1 the hero would be morally virtuous, fight demons and their servants, kick major butt, and eschew this golden compass stuff.
Superluminary -- pulp action meets hard science fiction meets Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber meets space vampires meet galaxy-level conflict.
Wright employs a range of styles which hearken to various great authors of the previous century. Unsurprisingly, I'm more drawn to his works that imitate the great pulp writers than his Stapledon-esque more speculative works, but he can do it all. And in Space Pirates of Andromeda, he's very much on the pulp side, writing in a style resembling Empire Strikes Back screenwriter and science fiction great Leigh Brackett, with callouts to classics like Leiji Matsumoto's Space Pirate Captain Harlock.
And boy, does he deliver. From the basic premise of a Star Wars sequel done right, Wright spins manly heroic Jedi equivalents, heroically womanly female versions of the trope, truly evil skulldugging space pirates, truly noble virtuous space pirates in the style of Captain Harlock and Queen Emeraldas, truly epically evil Imperial goons, and more. Wright's galaxy-sized imagination and analytical mind is on display, as he thinks through the physical and moral implications of the Star Wars universe: intelligent robots, enormous numbers of stars, jedi-type magic, and planet and star destroying weapons, all the while delivering cliffhanger-laden pulp serial action.
Five stars.
GOLDEN COMPASS SPOILERS: if dudes communicated with demons using golden compasses in order to predict the future, these dudes would obviously be the bad guys, not the hero. And the hero would not be a liar who obeys demons, as in Pullman's version, but as in Wright's story the hero would be morally virtuous, fight demons and their servants, kick major butt, and eschew this golden compass stuff.