Book Review: Inverted Frontier by Linda Nagata

The latest (and possibly penultimate) volume in the Inverted Frontier series has the explorers on Dragon and Griffin have a true first contact, and possibly an enemy within.

The Inverted Frontier series (Edges, Silver, Needle), as successor to her far future novels such as Deception Well have told the story of a far future group of humans, some of the last survivors of humanitry known, slowly make their way back to Earth, exploring the “Hollowed Vasties” of the realm around the home star long since devastated by a variety of internal and external problems. Along the way, they’ve come across revolutionary nanotech (“Silver”) capable of making worlds, minds of an alien species intent on destroying biological life, and other wonders besides.

But on a long journey between star systems (there is no FTL in this verse), there are questions that arise regarding the nature and state of mind of those controlling the secondary ship Griffin. And then there are intimations that their next system on their tour might hold actual alien life that is not the xenophobically murderous Chenzeme automated vehicles (think Fred Saberhagen style Berserkers) . And then there are the ambitious of the crew of Dragon, too, to truly make their mark on the universe.

This and much more is in the story of Blade, the fourth in the series.

The story of Blade revolves, ultimately, around the use of the titular Blade. The Blade, a piece of worldmaking power powered by the strange and poorly understood nanotech known as Silver, has been a literal Chekhov's gun since the second book in the series, Silver, and nearly lead to disaster in the previous novel, Needle. Now in the fourth novel, in the making of first contact, Urban has another chance, a unique opportunity to do something he has sought to do since Silver: unleash the power of the Blade, use the nanotech Silver, and help create an entire world. He’s seen two results of what can be done with such power, and now, he seeks to unlock the last door in that knowledge and do it himself.

And in fact, to go right to the heart and theme of this novel this knowledge is all about knowledge and the power of knowledge. Knowledge is a blade. Knowledge is the knife that can carve a chicken in a kitchen, or cut against an enemy real or perceived. Knowledge withheld, shunted off, or changed, or faked can lead people to be manipulated, act against their own interests, and cause great harm. And the thirst for knowledge can cause all sorts of chaos and bad decisions in its wake.

Throughout this book again and again, knowledge of various sorts, and the fears and power of knowledge is what propels the plot. Urban, given the information he has, the knowledge at his disposal, is afraid that the alternate mind of his ex lover Clementine on board the secondary ship Griffin has developed divergent ideas of her own, and possibly is aligned with the rather dangerous alien substrate deep in the spacecraft. This leads to tragedy, possibly the extinguishing of intelligent life (a subtheme in this novel). The knowledge exchanges and negotiations between Dragon and the aliens they encounter (and the one human with them) also are fraught affairs. And then there is the very human AI lurking in the alien colonized system, and their agenda in information control leads to catastrophic results on several sides.

And then there is the titular Blade itself. The phrase “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is not meant as a slam on knowing anything. It’s meant as a cautionary tale on knowing some, but not enough, to think that you understand something extremely complicated and dangerous, to take shortcuts when you absolutely should not. And then the tragic results come out of it. And in the end, this novel, fourth in the series, turns out to be a Tragedy of Knowledge. I will leave the actual details for you to discover.

Nagata does leaven the tragedy of the Blade with a wham moment at the end of the novel, when Urban, Clementine and the rest of the explorers discover that (keeping in theme) a key piece of knowledge they thought that they had is wrong. And fitting that this knowledge, mistaken and now to be corrected, in this penultimate book in the series, is about the destination they have had since the first book: Earth.

That last bit helps highlight something I don’t want to get lost in discussing a book four of a series that itself sits on top of other books. This book definitely requires, to fully appreciate it, knowledge of a complicated half dozen science fiction novels. That’s a high wire act on the same level as keeping a very complicated epic fantasy series on course and making things comprehensible to its fans (Nagata has also written, to much less widespread knowledge alas, fantasy, so she knows of what she is doing). It’s extremely difficult to do what Nagata has been doing, building up this SF series and keeping it together, and providing a bigger, wider tapestry with every subsequent book.

To present new wonders, new ideas and new vistas in a wide ranging, big SF series is no mean feat. I’ve said in earlier reviews that the folks updating Stellaris should start paying attention to Nagata’s work, because there is such a richness of idea and invention here to explore and immersive oneself in. There are science fiction vistas and concepts that few SF authors are willing to go big screen canvas on, but Nagata gives this all, in of all things, a non FTL universe. And she makes it all work, but it does mean that the pace of the novel and the voyage of the Dragon and Griffin is years of quiet followed by high peaks of excitement (it is no wonder that many of the crew are not in active mode for the long years between systems). This novel, though, does have a significant amount of character conflict occur on the voyage itself.

But in general, character characterization isn’t quite as strong, there really are only several really strong characters in the fleet but Nagata uses characterization and character development (especially with the run up to the use of the Blade) strategically and energetically. And so when characters are, in fact, lost (difficult but possible even in a world of digital backups of people), it does leave a mark, as Nagata intended. She successfully shows that even in a world where I could go down to a dangerous planetoid because I have a backup handy with my memories in the software of the ship, there are still real stakes involved.

And that is where I am going to tie this book up. In the end, the stakes of the voyagers returning into the center of realms long lost, to find out what happened ultimately to Earth and its colonies in the wake of technological evolution, war, and alien berserkers ultimately is something Nagata makes me care about. I do want to know what they find in the 5th and subsequent volume of Earth and see how she finishes the series.

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Highlights:

• High Tech Space Opera winningly depicted and written
• Important theme of Knowledge, Good, Bad and Ill, an essential tentpole of the book.

Reference: Nagata, Linda, Inverted Frontier, Blade, [Mythic Island Press, 2024]


POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Microreview: Needle (inverted Frontier #3) by Linda Nagata

In Needle, Linda Nagata continues the story of Clemantine, Urban, Vytet, and the rest of the crew of The Dragon, as their inward quest to discover what has happened to the core systems of humanity leads them to perilous encounters in the star system of Tanjiri.

When last we left the crew of Dragon, they had escaped the very dangerous nanotech infused world of Verilotus (as detailed in the first and second book in the series, Edges, and Silver) and the entities they encountered there. They escaped the peril of that world (formerly seen in the novel Memory) and continued on their decades long quest toward the Hallowed Vasties, the former beating heart of humanity among the stars. Now, as decades pass and they reach their next target, the solar system Tanjiri, the question of what lies in this solar system is twisted and entwined with another: how to open and use the indecipherable titular Needle they obtained at Verilotus. The Needle, if accessed and used, could make and sculpt whole worlds and star systems...or destroy them. And much more. All the knowledge of the God like entity known as Lezuri is contained with it...if it could but be opened.

This is the story of Needle, the third Inverted Frontier novel from Linda Nagata.

If Edges was the story of a Call to Adventure and running right into a cliffhanger resolved in Silver, and confronting ancient nanotech and a god like figure, Needle by comparison is very much a novel of re-contact and the divergence of humanity, and what they brought with them, or didn’t, on their journeys. The non FTL pace of Nagata’s verse here means that it is years, decades between systems, and between novels, and significant time (months bordering on years) happens in the space within novels.

The Tanjiri system is the closest to the explorers of Dragon (and their small flotilla of other ships) as they continue to explore and discover the world of Nagata’s grand concept--the concept of an inverted frontier (hence the series name). This is a brilliant idea (that the folks at Stellaris should scoop up and put in as a DLC as soon as possible). The adventurers from, Deception Well and elsewhere(Urban being the prime mover of the expedition with his captured alien ship) started on the frontiers, the edges of where humanity had expanded to, and the novels are the rediscovery of what lies in the ruins and remnants in the core systems, the dangers, possibilities, and wonders within. What HAS happened to the decaying megastructures and amazing feats of construction, engineering and more in the “Hallowed Vasties”, the core systems of humanity who rose to building ringworlds and dyson sphere like objects...but now are radio silent and their structures (at least from telescopes) falling apart? What does it mean to explore the ruins of the past of one’s own ancestors and find those huddling (or hopefully more than huddling) within?

Imagine a group of adventurers from Britain in the 7th century AD, traveling to find out what has happened to Rome, with all the perils, dangers and more along that road to Rome. Or imagine, more science fictionally, if a comet wiped out the east and west coast of the US in 1880, and decades later, a group from Tulsa Oklahoma journey toward one of the coasts to find out what really happened and what remained. In each case, what was once the “frontier” is now where civilization still stands--but what has happened at the core, and what remains? Or Gustave Doré’s The New Zealander (1872), which depicts a ruined London and a visitor from New Zealand sketching the ruins.

 

The Inverted Frontier novels are a nanotech infused non-FTL space opera version of this core concept. This does lead to a style and direction that is much less frenetic than the solar system space opera of The Expanse, or the FTL verses of Gareth Powerll and Adrian Tchaikovsky. These novels, this world are much more measured pace in their approach, and much more of consensus (and breaking that consensus) approach to problems and opportunities in their adventures. The crew of the Dragon and the outrider ships (which are often versions of the crew) are much more Picard era The Next Generation (or more contemporarily, Pike era Enterprise) than, say, the original series Star Trek. Yes, they have secrets, concerns, and do things without permission, but there is a lot of debate and discussion, playing into the time scales that the novel is dealing with.

One of those discussions and a major factor in the book, is the creation, out of one of the main characters, an artificial personality named The Cryptologist, to investigate the aforementioned Needle. The creation, nature and the evolution of the Cryptologist brings together a lot of what makes Nagata’s writing work at it in its best--the speculation and far future nanotech and high technology needed to make her not just a ghost in the machine, but later (on her own initiative) get unsubstantiated into a body. It allows us to explore the ethics and considerations of having multiple versions of yourself, sometimes quite different than yourself, running around in one form or another. That last is already present as a feature of the verse, as Urban has several apparatchiks helping to run Dragon and its systems (and given the alien nature of the ship, he certainly needs them) but seeing the consequences of building one from the ground up, and the perils and promise of doing so, and the social considerations of doing so, are fascinating. Consider that the Cryptologist was made for a specific task. How does one navigate creating an artificial being that is designed to do (how difficult a thing)? And what happens when that being uses methods and procedures and avenues you did not intend, or want? What happens when the Cryptologist *grows*?

Nagata further enhances this unique new member of the crew developing and growing throughout the story with the story of Jolly. Jolly chose to join Dragon at the end of the Edges/Silver duology and is committed to the spirit and promise of exploration. He is much less experienced and younger than Urban and Clemantine, and thus provides an entry point of wonder and youth to the proceedings. It is no surprise, given the Cryptologist’s newness, that their stories intertwine. Their two stories sit front and center, giving sharp relief to the more experienced Urban, Clementine and Vytet.

Even as this social dynamic plays out (in some surprising ways as the plot goes on), the main action of the plot grabs the readers attention. At Tanjiri, Dragon encounters two very different human societies, one in the ruins of a megastructure with the most precarious of existences, and one seemingly in plenty and free from want--but yet near to but never touching the mysteriously lush planet and moon right next door. Nagata explores a lot with these two cultures--the nature of memory and remembering past wrongs (or not remembering them), how to build societies to external social and physical strictures, and what happens when those deprived are finally given power long denied them. All of this, combined with the mystery of what really is going on in this system, that Lezuri warned Urban about, provides the meat of the crackerjack plotting. I relished the landscapes, technology and the cultures of the societies that Dragon interacts with. And to go all Star Trek again, how the Dragon’s visit irrevocably alters and changes both of these cultures, especially since it is not intended. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, as The Dragon’s crew learns in this novel.

I had been a fan of the Nanotech Succession novels back in the day, and once again, I am very delighted by the return to that verse, centuries hence, in the Inverted Frontier novels. This book, unlike Edges and Silver, is a single standalone. Given how rich this novel is and how much it relies on the reaction to the events in those first two novels. I would not counsel starting here--since as much as Nagata packs in ties and grounding to the past, there is a LOT going on in this verse, even within the relatively limited world of Dragon and where it visits. So if you are interested in adventure in a far future high tech world, I commend you to start with Edges and come to here through that and Silver. (and then if you like, catch up with the earlier novels, particularly Memory, which will resonate directly with Silver). The Inverted Frontier novels continue to be some of my favorite space opera.

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The Math

Baseline Assessment: 8/10.

Bonuses: +1 for a strongly interesting new setting and set of problems for the crew of Dragon to explore

+1 for interesting ethics and ideas explored throughout

Penalties: -1 at this point, the novels no longer stand alone. 

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10 very high quality/standout in its category

Reference:  Nagata, Linda  Inverted Frontier: Needle [Mythic Island Press, 2022]

Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.