The Sky People By SM Stirling

 The Sky People

By SM Stirling

I talked about Mr. Stirling's background in my review of the Peshawar Lancers so I won't rechew that soup. The Sky People was published in 2007, by Tor books. The Sky People is a combination of several genres and it's one of the reasons I really enjoy it. In this case, it's a combination of alternate history and planetary romance. I believe I've discussed both these genres before but let us do a quick overview. Alternate History is an examination of changed history, Man in the High Castle being a recent popular example. Now in most works, the rule is to change one thing and see what the effects would be but this can be difficult. For example, if the change I made was thousands of years ago, who can say what those effects would be in full? 

 Planetary Romance is an older genre and is basically a person who goes to an alien world and has adventures there. The how and why of getting that person to an alien world is generally regarded as unimportant, they can fly there on a spaceship, be teleported via experiment, or even summoned like magic. Traditionally the world in question is not a high-tech world but an exotic place with a mixture of technologies in play or is even a high fantasy setting in space. This is, unfortunately, a much-ignored genre these days but maybe someday we can see a comeback. The important part is our main character is from someplace else having adventures in a world strange to both the character and the reader. 

Our main character, in this case, is Marc Vitrac, a Bayou-born Cajun swamp rat who has done good. How good? He's beat out millions of candidates to qualify as a member of the colonial/research team for Venus. As one of the operatives of Jamestown - the US-Commonwealth joint station - in the year of our lord 1980 AD, his job is to gather information on the indigenous life forms of Venus, both past and present, and try to map out the evolution of life on a whole new planet. He also has to manage relationships with the natives, who range from stone age nomads to bronze age city dwellers. He's good at his job too, which is a good thing since life on Venus is driving the paleontologist and biologist of the Jamestown team slowly mad. Let me explain that a bit. 

Since the 1960s when the first Soviet probes landed on Venus (RIP USSR), life on Venus has been shockingly Earth-like (What?). Various literal dinosaur species are ranging across the hot, wet world (Well it is hot…).  On top of that, there are various mammalian species that show a close relationship with earth species, like the Tharg who aren't bovinoid but flat out bovine, or the natives who are homo sapiens as far as anyone can tell (No!  No!  This is not okay! {Merry Christmas buddy!}). The only real difference is that the natives have a slightly better sense of smell but that might be due to the difference in atmospheric pressure increasing their reliance on their nose because they can't depend on their eyes and ears as much. The fossil record doesn't just mirror Earth, it's full of fossils that might as well as be from Earth (Okay, what the fuck is going on here?  Did someone terraform Venus? {Read the book!}). 

These revelations, as well as the 1960 probes showing Venus and Mars, were life-bearing planets have radically changed a lot of things on Earth. Both the USSR and the USA worked together to tamp down any sparks of the Cold War. Because why fight over patches of dirt on one planet when there might be an entire galaxy out there? (Except that the Cold War was never actually about patches of dirt, but rather ideological hegemony. {Which can be expressed in a variety of different ways, in this case by competing to prove which system was superior at reaching out to the solar system and using the knowledge gained in that reaching} ) As a result, the middle east is a sleepy backwater with Jerusalem patrolled by an international peacekeeping force. Vietnam never happened and the Soviets aren't sending troops into Afghanistan (This is a much better world. {Of that, we can agree}). In 1980, NATO is a dead letter with Western Europe split off to form the European Union, which struggles to compete with the two superpowers. The Sino-Soviet Split never happened and the Common Wealth of Nations, the Organization of American States and the US are all slowly merging into a single organization to better share scientific and material resources for the space race. So increasingly the Warsaw Pact+the PRC and the US+OAS+Commonwealth nations competing, peacefully, for influence and turf in a solar system with three life-bearing worlds. 

However, even with vast sums and manpower being funneled into the space race, the actual shipping of people and materials is incredibly expensive (This also undercuts the notion of the Cold War being suspended {I didn’t say it was suspended, it was shifted to space, there’s a difference}). So every person who ends up on Mars and Venus is in the top 1% when it comes to intelligence and physical ability or as close as you come balancing the two. Everyone there is the result of a brutal selection and training process designed to send our best to other worlds. In this regard Marc, while not a scientist, is clearly an educated man who understands more than the regular swamp rat and has been trained to at least be able to serve as a competent lab assistant in research, while also being able to survive for days at a time out in the bush with minimal equipment and his wits. He doesn't even have to worry about the Soviets since their base, called Cosmosgrad is hundreds of miles away, although it would be nice if they would share their information on native life (If we are still in a paradigm of great power competition, why would they? {Because hoarding scientific knowledge has never worked out well?  It certain never works out well when we try to.} Are they not sharing unilaterally? {the scientific knowledge the American-Commonwealth missions find are made public, the implication is that USSR does not do so}). 

When an East Block space ship goes down in a crash in an unexplored part of Venus, it's a catastrophic loss for everyone. Marc, Chris, and Cynthia are selected as part of the crew of the lighter-than-air ship sent out to search for survivors, with Cosmosgrad sending over one of their own, with the wife of one of the ship's crew members, to aid in the search. However, they'll have to deal with the storms of Venus, the wildlife, and native politics to achieve their goal, and worse... What if the surviving crew of the ship no longer wish to be rescued? Or what if they've been suborned by something else? Something old, cold and advanced beyond the wildest dreams of humanity? (You mean like what very clearly terraformed Venus?) Something that may not be happy to see Terrains mucking about on Venusian clay and be willing to do all sorts of things to correct this deviation from the plan? 

So right off the bat, I think Marc is a great character. The only way to make him better would be to make him an outright anthropologist or have him be a Marine instead of an Army Ranger (I feel like this is wish fulfillment on your part.{nonsense I am clearly objective in everyway}). He even tames a Great Wolf, a sort of ramped-up Dire Wolf to serve as his loyal henchdog, and frankly does a better job than any of the Starks. Taming the native wildlife is another staple of Planetary Romance and I was honestly pleased with how well done it was. His Cajun background gives him a different viewpoint than a character from say New York City would have. Honestly, science fiction could stand to have more characters from groups like the Cajuns or the Creole ethnic groups. Now some folks may find the inclusion of Cajun-style French distracting but Stirling keeps it limited to easily figured out phrases and words. Not entire conversations like some writers I know (Oh hi Mark!  Yes, dear readers, in my own writing I will do sections in German, Yiddish, and sometimes even Russian, with contextual translation.  But then again, I am insane.). I will say that if you hate Marc, however, this book is not going to be for you because Marc is the viewpoint character for at least 85% of the book, with most of the rest of the book given over to a character I'm not going to discuss to avoid spoilers. I will say those of you who have read the books should feel free to discuss them. 

I also liked how, despite there being a love triangle (Because of course there is.), everyone manages to be a professional and an adult. I can put up with a certain amount of romantic mucking about but when it turns into self-destructive melodrama it makes my teeth hurt. Stirling clearly feels that people who have gone through a training regime designed to instill self-discipline and control should be able to deal with such things better than your average high schooler and I am incredibly thankful for that. There are of course other romantic entanglements in the story, this is in the tradition of Burroughs after all, but I'm not going to discuss them to avoid spoilers. 

I really like the supporting characters as well.  Stirling can give us an array of interesting characters from other viewpoints and backgrounds. The plot is fairly straightforward, but that's not a bad thing and sets up a fun and engaging adventure of survival in the wilderness against forces unknown and hazardous. Stirling does take his time to set up the main plot but the 100 pages he spends before that aren't wasted, giving us a look at the bronze age city-state that is the most advanced civilization on Venus and that the US-Commonwealth mission has shared things such as medical advancements, farming knowledge and is starting with much debate to share iron working with. He also gives us a full view of the Venusian wildlife which is pretty awesome. My view is that it's a shame there are only two books in this series but according to what Stirling has said on the Spacebattles.com website, that's entirely due to popular demand. The only real issue I have is that at the end of the book there are hints at this massive adventure that Marc had that we'll never get to see due to the book being under 300 pages. I could have lived with another 100 or 120 pages of the book devoted to that. Still, I encourage you to check out this book as the Sky People by SM Stirling gets an A-. 

    I hope you enjoyed this week's review, if you'd like a voice on upcoming reviews or to discuss current one consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where the polls for January and February's reviews are already up!  Next week we return to Daniel Gibs Echoes of War Universe with the second book in his series Strong and Courageous.  Until then, stay safe and keep reading! 

red text are remarks by your editor Dr. Ben Allen

black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders