{"id":3218,"date":"2024-01-20T16:28:45","date_gmt":"2024-01-21T00:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2024-01-20T16:28:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T00:28:45","slug":"review-void-black-shadow-and-static-ruin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=3218","title":{"rendered":"Review: Void Black Shadow and Static Ruin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This is the second book of Corey White&#8217;s trilogy that started with <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2472\">Killing Gravity<\/a><\/em>.  It continues to deliver on a well-tuned space opera.  I had been away from the characters for several years and fell right into the narrative.  I read both <em>Void Black Shadow<\/em> and <em>Static Ruin<\/em> back to back.  Since I&#8217;m not digging too deeply into plot, I&#8217;m covering about both here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I like that though White is clearly writing a space opera, he&#8217;s not writing in a world without logic.  His evil galactic empire isn&#8217;t shaky enough to put all its eggs into one Death Star.  And it&#8217;s also populated with the sort of punch-the-clock evildoers who wind up working for evil in the real world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s also a world with consequences.  While White and his protagonist, Mars, may understand how you wind up as a file clerk for the Empire, they neither excuse or forgive temptation into more nefarious vocations.  There&#8217;s a &#8220;break in to Devil&#8217;s Island to break our guy out&#8221; trope in here that runs aground on the kinds of terror that runs amok in such places.  Those responsible are neither excused nor forgiven, but Mars gets her scars, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Evil&#8217;s not incompetent either.  Mars&#8217;s plans do not always go as she expects or as a reader of space opera might expect.  Competent foes and real consequences are in play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I quite like the mix of full-bore planetary-class superpowers and real-world dynamics here.  Being able to throw a starship around with your mind has less practical application than one might wish.  White brings that home without losing the operatic scope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The protagonist remains a space witch, though some unpleasant alternatives are put forth as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the second book of Corey White&#8217;s trilogy that started with Killing Gravity. It continues to deliver on a well-tuned space opera. I had been away from the characters for several years and fell right into the narrative. I read both Void Black Shadow and Static Ruin back to back. Since I&#8217;m not digging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3219,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions\/3219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}