GlowGems
For Profit
By
Dr. Bruce Davis
Once
again disclosure, I happen to be a friend of Dr. Davis' eldest son
and I'm on pretty good terms with the good doctor. In fact he gave
me a discount on this book at Phoenix Comic Con provided I do a
review (here we are Doc!) on it. In fact he autographed it for me!
I bought 2 other books by him that I will review before to long I
think. Everything I write in this review is my honest opinion but as
always be aware.
A
recurring theme in science fiction, especially when writers wish to
step away from great epic events or show casing super clean utopias,
is that of a small ship operating on the edges and in the cracks of
civilized space lead by rough charismatic men and their strangely
loyal crews. Although these men are often caught up in epic events,
they are often envisioned as people who don't walk the halls of power
or play in the elite levels of society. These are men like Han Solo
or Malcolm Reynolds, men with pasts, with skills, friends and most
importantly men with ships. The law weighs fairly lightly on these
men and their ships and they get what you want to where you want for
a price. Morality may weigh a bit more on our Captains, but often
not by much. These stories have carved out their own niche in science
fiction (and with books like the Black Lung Captain in steam punk
fantasy as well).
Here
Dr. Davis throws his hat into the ring with Glowgems for Profit which
introduces us to Zack Mbele, former revolutionary, military officer,
prisoner and human lab experiment. As is the usual, Captain Mbele's
side lost the war, interestingly enough it's a good thing for Captain
Mbele that his side lost. He had ended up on the wrong side of a
political purge during a Glorious People's Revolution on Mars, which
as Glorious People's Revolutions tend to do, had fallen to eating
it's own young (although doing it before the war is won is usually a
bad idea. Even Mao and Pol Pot waited to win the war before starting
their lunatic murder sprees). It was during that name that Mbele was
subjected to all manner of cruel and unusual experiments mostly
having to do with nanotechnology. He survived and got a gift out of
it. Most people just died. The origin is on par for the course
honestly, what's really interesting is that while Mbele is given
science fiction superpowers (with NANOMACHINES SON!) they play at
best a minor role in the story. This story is not about Captain
Mbele's nano powers and these nano powers don't play much of a role
in solving his problems. Which is to the stories credit here. That
said they do give him an edge in a gun fight but a lot of his
problems in the story can't be solved by gun fights. Not to mention
some of those gun fights are only won because Captain Mbele follows
the rules of gunfights (shot first, bring friends, tell your friends
to bring guns, if possible have them bring friends with guns). Mbele
is our viewpoint character and our Captain Reynolds for the book if I
may be so bold. He's scummier then Captain Reynolds, which most of
the novel captains are (novel writers not having studio execs pushing
them to make the characters cleaner for one thing), he's also more
broken by his experience. He's turned to drug use and booze and that
leads him to be somewhat erratic. I may be understating the case by
a wide margin there, as Mbele will repeatedly make decisions in the
story that lead you to question how the hell does he manage to
survive taking a shower let alone being a ship Captain. On the flip
side when someone is shooting him he makes rather inspired and
rational decisions that keep everyone alive. So while I'll ask why
the hell Mbele is still alive from time to time I am reminded fairly
often why he's the Captain. It's just his decision making is addled
by his unhealthy habits which are spurred on by his frankly ruined
mental state.
Freed
after the war by the Federal government of Earth, who stormed the
prison after the glorious revolution failed, Mbele finds himself with
a ship and a crew made up of an A.I named Sylvia and Deuce (said
friend with gun), a Sgt in Mbele's old unit who decided to stick with
his Lt after the war was over. There's not much to say about Deuce,
he's a very quiet character content to follow Mbele's decisions no
matter how questionable they get. His main role is to show up with a
large rifle and shot things or threaten to shot things. I'm hoping
for more character development later in the series.
The
story is set within the boundaries of our own solar system, only one
that has been fully populated by what I assume was one hell of a
colonization effort. As we can guess Captain Mbele prefers to hang
out in the outer edges of the solar system where the law is weakest
and the questions are fewest. In the beginning of the book he is
lured to the inner system, to Earth's very orbit by an old friend, a
fellow veteran of the revolution and cellmate who goes by the name
Rabbit. Rabbit went through the same experiments but was left a
cripple trapped in a wheel chair and with a double handful of social
and mental problems. Dr. Davis does display this real well, in that
these mental and social handicaps aren't just things that rabbit can
get over when he wants to or just bad habits, they are real
compulsions (frankly this isn't the right word either) born of trauma
and drastic injury that imprison Rabbit as surely as his wheel chair
does. These are also pretty well written, Rabbit is paranoid and
given to odd flights of fancy. He rambles uncontrollably when asked
questions. He can't help these behaviors and while the story as told
from Captain Mbele's viewpoint doesn't rub our faces in that
behavior, it lets us know it's there. In short Rabbit feels like a
real person who has been damaged instead of a Hollywood damaged in
incredibly convenient ways characters. For those wondering, no I'm
not going to stop taking pot shots in these reviews.
Of
course Rabbit is also a computer hacker beyond the understanding of
us lowly mortals, having been a member of the Glorious Revolutions
cyberwarfare Divisions and like Captain Mbele ended up purge. Rabbit
has a lot more of a character then Deuce does and serves a vitally
more important role in this story. Rabbit isn't just Captain Mbele's
friend or the guy who clued him into a job, he's Captain Mbele's
moral compass. When Captain Mbele has a moral qualm, it centers on
his relationship with Rabbit. The promises he made to him, his
behavior towards him, etc. The fact that Captain Mbele works so hard
to shield Rabbit from harm and tolerates behavior from Rabbit that
most of us wouldn't helps humanize Captain Mbele and for me at least
makes him bearable because without this relationship Captain Mbele
would seem like a giant self aggrandizing drugged up dick. Part of
that is the next person we're going to discuss.
Cleopatra
Jones is a hot, sneaky, killer of a woman with a shadowed past and
questionable goals. That's putting it nicely, when we meet her she's
shooting at the man trying to hire Captain Mbele. Despite this...
Rocky start, Mbele decides to bring on to his ship and to be blunt
trusts her more then the guy paying him money. While this does pan
out in the story, barely I can't for the life of me see why Mbele
would do this beyond well thinking with his pants. I do like Cleo
Jones, she's fairly interesting although I think she could use more
development. I mean where did she get her training? Why is she out
in the outer rim doing low grade hits and body guarding? What's
going on here? What I didn't care for was Captain Mbele's reaction
to her. I've seen it before, where a guy basically leads with his
crotch and it never ends well. Frankly I kinda lost a bit of respect
for the character. On the flip side I do think that was what Doc.
Davis was aiming for. I also kinda found Cleo and Mbele's
relationship to veer from possibly helpful to dangerously toxic. On
the one hand, she's pushing him to get off drugs and stay sober. On
the other hand she encourages his reckless streak and some of his
self destructive behavior. This is not a fairy tale relationship
that magically redeems both parties. It's two very damaged, very bad
people getting into bed with each (literally) and that relationship
while having some positive effects is feeding their bad behaviors.
Which is realistic, I got to give the Doc that. I'm not sure how I
feel about Cleopatra Jones outside of her relationship to Captain
Mbele, as we're presented with her pretty much entirely in that
context. This is mainly because we only get Captain Mbele's as our
viewpoint character which means everything is filtered through his
perspective.
The
bad guys are fairly interesting, in that you have the remains of the
glorious people's revolution, stripped of all political pretension
just preying on people with their skills and remaining hardware. You
have a large nasty drug gang trying to diversify it's holding, which
is actually kinda ripped from the headlines stuff. I mean I've been
reading about Mexican cartels branching out into stealing coal mines
and farms for Heaven's sake. Captain Mbele is fairly fearless and
brazen when dealing with them as well, which is fun to read honestly.
I actually enjoy the parts where he deals with people he considers
his enemies more then I do the parts where he deals with his allies.
Plus I respect a man who's willing to talk shit to the leader of the
biggest meanest cartel in the outer solar system. That said the
villains aren't given a lot of development and a couple of them are
left rather flat by that. I felt some more work could have been done
here.
The
plot itself is really well done. It's twisty and turns fairly
quickly and has the good grace not to get to impressed with itself
and move on fairly quickly. It turns on the lies and evasions of
Cleopatra Jones and the man who hired Captain Mbele in the first
place and of course there is a lot of money at stake. The world
(system?) isn't in danger though so Captain Mbele is in no danger of
being turned into a hero... Although he does manage to act almost
heroically by the end of the book. There are several shoot outs that
are well done as well. I should note that this book is noticeable
more violent then Queen Mab Courtesy, which Doc Davis wrote later on.
The violence is well written which I like and avoids being overly
analysis. We also get a good variety with gun fights, some melee
fights and some violence on a star ship scale. The characters are
realistic, deeply flawed and damaged people who often display poor
decision making skills... Which if we're going to be honest is what
you expect from people who decided breaking the law was a good career
path. Which to be honest is part of the issue. I'm one of the
people who didn't like Breaking Bad because constantly watching
flawed damaged people screwing up doesn't appeal to me. I will say
at Captain Mbele tries to rise above himself in this story and I'm
left with enough good feelings to come back for the sequel.
Glow
Gems for Profit gets a B. It's a good book, especially if you enjoy
the genre. If you don't have my hang ups regarding character traits
you'll enjoy a lot more then I did. That said I enjoyed it quite a
bit. Now hopefully Dr. Davis explains just what the hell Cleopatra
Jones deal is in the next book.
That
said next review we return to Warp World!
