Review: Storm Between the Stars by Karl Gallagher

Karl Gallagher mixes his experience and expertise as an engineer with his abilities as a story teller to give us an engaging and very realistic tale of a clash of civilizations in the far future in Storm Between the Stars.

The story

Hundreds of years in the future, humanity has at last branched out and colonized other worlds. One small system, Fiera has been cut off from the rest of humanity for 900 years, trapped in a hyperspace bubble. While doing a routine survey of the hyperspace “weather” that keeps them inside The Bubble, the crew of Azure Tarn finds an opening and ventures back out into open space, hoping to learn how humanity has fared in the meantime. In short order, they stumble across a mining outpost where they pick up some information on how the language has changed, as well as a load of raw material for trading purposes. The Azure Tarn soon comes into contact with the Censorate, an interstellar empire that has arisen in the 900 years since Fiera was trapped in The Bubble. The crew spends plenty of time on the water world Corwynt, mostly learning local customs, including strange ones such as an artist’s art has to be destroyed when he dies. That and a handful of other minor incidents lead Niko Landry and his crew to realize they haven’t just stumbled into a different culture, they stumbled into a dictatorship that controls information with such an iron fist that no one is allowed to know simple things like how big the Censorate actually is.

The characters

Most of the story is told through the eyes of Marcus Landry, a young cargo master and the son of the captain and first mate of the Azure Tarn. His life is a simple one, directing the loading and unloading of cargo while trying to figure out how he should interpret the flirtations of his shipmate Alys. The solution to that particular problem presents herself in Wynny, the daughter of Vychan, the broker they contact to off load their goods from the mining colony. It’s also through her that we learn much of the culture of Corwynt. Each of the characters is well-developed for their purpose in the story. Niko and Lane Landry are both good parents and professional about running their ship, and knowing when it’s time to fold and leave the game while they still can. In the final pages of the book, Niko is also shown to be a more than competent tactician. Others are less developed but they serve their purpose, Becky is the consummate pessimist while Welly is the resident “fun girl” who realizes settling down might not be so bad. The rest of the crew and the natives of Corwynt are crafted in such a way that they all serve the plot without taking over from the main characters.

The world

Gallagher’s MIT engineering degree comes into play with the world building, helping to give it a depth many sci-fi novels lack. He gives a great deal of thought to how a hypothetical hyperspace might work and the way different ships are configured for different purposes, but he shines the brightest when building the world of Corwynt. Corwynt is where most of the story takes place. It’s an ocean world dominated by massive hurricanes, sometimes many at once. The human presence there is thriving though, having built durable cities on the few islands large enough support them. The author spends time describing how they are built specifically to withstand the rigors of the violent world. It isn’t all engineering though. While Azure Tarn and her crew come from a culture that most readers would easily identify with, the world of Corwynt is clan-based, with family and business relationships so intertwined they are one and the same. The clans aren’t the only culture on Corwynt though. There are also the Jaaphisii, a culture that spends most of its time at sea, hunting the giant monsters that inhabit the depths and bear names like Kraken and Leviathan. They are free of the Censorate’s rules and taxes, but at the expense of an always grueling and usually short life. The details are all delivered in a natural way, never feeling forced or like you’re just sitting through a data dump of information you really don’t need. Indeed, the author’s ability to convey large amounts of information in the way he does is the greatest strength of the book.

The politics

There are some eerie parallels with the modern political scene. The Censorate and its tight control of information and literal erasing of history are the obvious villains while the primary protagonists are free traders from a much smaller, more individualistic society. It isn’t always so simple though as the more family-focused clan structure of Corwynt is also shown in a very positive light, with many comparisons made between it and Fieran culture. In short, the book is pretty clear that if you are the one censoring information, you are definitely not the good guy.

Why read it?

Storm Between the Stars is the first book of Gallagher’s that I’ve read. I quickly bought and read the second book, Between Home and Ruin. While Storm is slow paced with little action until the end, I never felt bored. The characters and their desire to learn more about how humanity had developed in the nine centuries since they were cut off drew me in from the beginning.

At times, the cultural comparisons reminded me (in a good way) of Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy and its exploration of different ideas of freedom. And if you don’t read the final battle of the book and think of Wrath of Kahn, I’m not sure how to help you. The sequel as I said is already out so get this book now, and then get to the sequel, which I’ll be reviewing here soon.