2008 YA SF, fourth in its series. Ishmael Horatio Wang, now a
freshly-graduated Third Mate, takes up a new post, a ship where
everything is wrong.
Well, that's a bit of a change of pace. In the previous three
books, Ishmael has been aboard a good ship, and while there might be
individual problems they've been relatively easily resolved. Here the
Captain is an absentee and the first mate is a sexual predator with a
pair of thugs to enforce his will, and the rest of the officers and
crew surly and withdrawn.
So when Ish starts doing what he's always done before, making things
better for everybody, he gets in the way of the guy who's determined
to keep his cushy rape pit running the way he wants it… but who seems
curiously ineffectual at actually defending it. There are a couple of
attempts at violence (though since last time Ishmael has become a Tai
Chi expert) but that's really about it; frankly I was expecting an
attempt at murder by spaceship, a pressure suit sabotage, an airlock
malfunction, anything that would remind us that space is a dangerous
place. (Or indeed similar attempts by the victims against the
perpetrator.)
Which leads to a secondary problem, that there's not a lot of
spacefaring here. Yes, I understand that Ishmael is now an officer now
and isn't supposed to be getting bogged down in the details of ship
maintenance and operations any more; but that was an enjoyable part of
the first few books, and to have basically none of it now beyond some
mention of cleaning and keeping the ship's computer running seems like
a major change of pace. There's also none of the trading on his own
account that was enjoyable before.
There's some humour here, like the idiots aboard assuming that Ishmael
is screwing his bridge watch, and if the bridge ends up cleaner at the
end of their shift it must be because they had to clean up the
evidence; but overall the story feels like a lecture from one of those
well-intentioned adults who used to tell one to stand up to bullies,
even as those bullies casually beat up anyone who stood up to them and
suffered no punishment for it.
And in the end the new Captain (appointed more or less by deus ex
machina) keeps on one of the thugs, a known (but not legally
provable) rapist, because she thinks he's salvageable away from the
bad influence of the former first mate. How do you suppose his victims
might feel about that?
Somewhat engaging in the moment, but much less fun than before.