Challenges of the Deeps By Ryk E Spoor

Challenges of the Deeps

By Ryk E Spoor

It's been three years since we talked about the first book in this series, so I'll give you the CliffsNotes™ on Mr. Spoor because explaining the setting alone is gonna take a moment. Mr. Spoor is an American writer born in Nebraska in 1962. He's a rare example of getting into the writing business by getting into an argument (not a recommended path folks [I disagree.{Gonna say that picking a fight with an established writer and publisher is usually not gonna end with you being a published writer.}[Of course it won’t, but that wasn’t the point! I was being contrarian for its own sake!] {you see what I have to deal with folks?}), in this case with Eric Flint most famously known for his 1632 universe. The end result of that was Mr. Flint recommended Mr. Spoor to the owner of Baen books and here we are today. For more details I'd suggest looking at my review of Grand Central Arena, speaking of which this is the 3rd book in the series, and since it's been so long I'll cover the setting before diving into the book itself, believe me, you need the background. Quick note, there are spoilers ahead, I strongly encourage you to read this series before proceeding any further, just trust me you want to engage in this wild ride spoiler-free.

In the last decades of the 2300s, Humanity has a lot to celebrate. Not only have we spread across the solar system but our mastery of artificial intelligence, nanotech manufacturing, and fusion power combined with incredibly high-density power storage tech means that hunger and want have for all practical purposes been defeated (So Capitalism has collapsed. Huzzah!). Human governments have all but faded away from sheer disuse and the fact that everyone can build whatever they need and most of what they want in their backyards have done the same thing to corporations (Huzzah!). Now large projects still require groups to work together but this can often be done by people using artificial intelligence and combining resources to achieve their goals, or worse come to worse turning to mass crowdfunding, so the future is kickstarter. Now it's not perfect, in fact, one of the biggest justifications for what law enforcement and the government remains is a massive crime against humanity done by a bunch of nerds and fans of old entertainment. These people got together and built Hyperion station, were using a combination of genetic engineering, virtual reality, and more, they created people in the image of their heroes, heroes from old fiction. People who live in fake universes and had no idea they were doing so. Basically, these people created real flesh and blood people to unknowingly act out their fan fiction! I really hope I don't have to explain why that's bad to you readers (I should not need to explain this either. But yes, they did create slash-fanfic Matrix. That is fucked up. Don’t do that, fellow nerds, because that means Captain Morality and Dr. Red Anthrax are going to team up and you do NOT want that.). Of course, some of them figured it out, it went all to hell and thousands of people died. So I suppose even in the future where you have everything you could want, someone has to remind you not to be an overly entitled ass. Ariane Austin, our protagonist, was a racer; piloting spaceships through obstacle courses for the support of the masses and the thrill of victory. That is, until Dr. Simon Sandrisson approached her with proof he had invented FTL and wanted her to pilot the first manned ship. The lure of the unknown and the chance to go down in history couldn't be resisted. They found themselves jumping into something bigger than they could have imagined. Because FTL doesn't take you to another point in our space-time. It takes you to the Arena.

The Arena is a scale model of the entire universe, between 16 to 32 light-years in diameter, floating in a sky filled with storms and life of all kinds of description. Every solar system is represented by a sphere the top of which is life-bearing and there are gates that link every sphere to a massive construction called Grand Central where you can meet creatures from every end of the universe. The Arena is so old that there are species that evolved to full sapience as natives, so old that it predates every known species and culture that has access to it. Divided into factions great and small, this dizzying array of alien creatures have created a complex culture to govern their interactions and allow for coexistence enforced by the Arena itself. Whether it's a massive AI, some vast alien creature, or something else, the Arena enforces its own laws, both on the interaction of its sapient citizens and on the very laws of physics. For example, nuclear power doesn't work in Arena space, nor do artificial intelligences or most nanotechnology. The crew of the ship had to learn the rules quickly while navigating the politics of the arena and Ariane finds herself the new leader of the Faction of Humanity. The first book deals with the discovery of the Arena, learning its rules and facing off against greater factions eager to exploit humanity. In the process, Ariane finds herself in possession of powers that might as well be magic. Powers she can't control. The second book covers the reactions of everyone back home and humanity's expanding role within the Arena, as well as Ariane learning for herself just what it means to be the Leader of Humanity in the Arena and having to force the rest of human space to accept that. Because there just isn't time to hand things over to someone who doesn't understand what the Arena actually is and what the rules are because humanity has enemies. Both in the Blessed to Serve - a faction of aliens who are ruled by Artificial Intelligence who seized control of their creators and rule as gods - and the Molothos. The Molothos are a powerful race and faction, one that has been active in the arena longer than humanity has existed. They are also an incredibly hostile, xenophobic race, believing all other alien sapient creatures to be a lower order of creatures fit only for subjugation and exploitation (Such lovely neighbors… You know, you’d think that at some point everyone else would have had enough of the Molothos’ shit and kicked their teeth in.{The Molothos are a vast and powerful empire that can match just about anyone two on one, plus they’re an old species so they were here first, meaning they’ve had time to build up}). For the most part, they're held in check by the fact that the other factions are bound together in a web of alliances, favors, and treaties that mean war with one means war with dozens of others and the Molothos can't trump those numbers... Yet. However, Humanity isn't part of that web yet and we've personally pissed them off.

It's been a race against time to build the alliances and favors needed to make fighting Humanity too dangerous for the Molothos to attack and in the third book time might have run out. Because what's holding them back is the fact that they had no idea where our home sphere was but they're getting closer to figuring it out. Meanwhile, Ariane is running out of time as well, because if she doesn't get some instruction or figure out how to control her powers, she could kill herself and everyone for hundreds of miles around her (Yikes, that isn’t good at all…). When an enigmatic ally of humanity named Orphan suggests that she might get such a chance by paying back a debt to him and joining him on a trip to an unexplored part of the Arena, she decides to take that bet and brings with her two of the most dangerous people in the Arena. Marc DeQuesne and Sun Wu Kung, DeQuesne is based on a character from a very, very old science fiction series called SkyLark. Unlike the canon character, he's not a villain but was written to be the protagonist's best friend. Sun Wu Kung, as the vast majority of you clever readers have likely figured out was based on the Monkey King from the Journey West. As you can imagine both these men are incredibly strong, fast, and mentally capable. They and the other Hyperions may be humanity's best edge in the conflicts to come. First, they'll have to survive a journey into the dangerous unknown region of the Arena and confront an unknown power, one that terrifies Orphan, a being willing to engage the Blessed to Serve in a war alone for centuries. If they pull that off, they still have to get home in good enough shape to fight.

Because while humanity is marshaling all the forces it can bring to bear, the issue remains that most of humanity's deep space craft won't work in the arena (Because remember kids, Nuclear Power doesn’t work. No fission. No fusion. So what the hell are you powering your ships with? Chemical rockets?{There are various power sources}). So new ships have to be designed and built from the ground up or bought, begged or borrowed from friendly aliens. Additionally, crews have to be found and trained to pilot and fight these ships because the restrictions on artificial intelligence mean that there's a hard limit on how much automation you can throw on a ship. So Dr. Simon Sandrisson steps into the diplomatic and scientific ring to try and wring every advantage he can for humanity. He has some advantages here, as one of the few people who can say they invented FTL on their own from first principles, he has a lot of fans. Especially among the multi-species Great Faction of the Analytic, a faction made of people who value knowledge, science, and pushing the boundaries of knowledge in an ethical fashion above everything else, the kind of faction your editor would likely fight people to join honestly (They sound like my kind of people, yeah.). He's also finding out that he's not without abilities of his own when it comes to the Arena, which may just be everyone's salvation.

This is a book that features political and diplomatic maneuvering, voyages into the unknown, and battles great and small on the ground and in the air. It's a space opera featuring characters that are well-written but larger than life operating in a setting that is wild and crazy beyond belief, and incredibly enthralling. What's interesting is the lengths that Mr. Spoor has gone to avoid making this a black and white setting. Even the Molothos, who would be easy to just make into a vile pile of monsters, are given some nuance. They treat each other with empathy and compassion showing that they aren't inherently monsters. Instead in some ways, they are victims of a culture that trains them to believe that everyone who isn't a Molothos is a monstrous barely rational thing that cannot be trusted and must be collared and yoked for the safety of the only truly civilized species in the universe (Sound like Nazis…All the Untermenschen are simultaneously subsapient pathetic, but also terrifying.). Unlike some books that make their villainous aliens evil on an almost genetic level, I find myself believing that the Molothos could coexist with the rest of us as equals and friends if they could only shake off their toxic and vile beliefs. This is done by making the Molothos' viewpoint characters for a good part of the book, so we are forced to see things from their point of view. So we see them act with compassion and friendship towards each other. That makes it harder for the reader to simply dismiss them as a race of monsters and you're left asking if our history or hell our current day makes a wrong turn, could we turn out that way? (The answer is yes. It’s happened before and arguably it is in the process of happening again.) I mean let's be honest, what the Molothos do to other species we've already done to each other, whatever humans do to each other, they can certainly do to alien beings. There's also the example of the Hyperions in the book themselves as an example of how callous humanity can be for the pettiest reasons (Nerds, the Comic Shop Guy in the Simpsons is not a role model!). Say what you will about the Molothos, they didn't imprison thousands of people in a lie for the entertainment of a few dozen people. It's that kind of writing that elevates the Arenaverse from just being pulp space opera to a series that should really get more attention and time I think. Challenges of the Deep by Ryk E Spoor gets an A. I hope he returns to this universe soon.

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