Wednesday, July 8, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ardulum: First Don by J.S. Fields


Ardulum: First Don is the first book in a Space Opera trilogy by author J.S. Fields.  I'd actually bought the book a long time ago when it was on sale, on recommendation from author Seanan McGuire, who praised it highly.....but I never got around to reading it, due to other library books and the fact that the series isn't held by any of my libraries.  Yet when my reading choices this past week were limited to a bunch of books I wasn't in the mood for due to depressing tones, I finally decided to pick it up.

And it's an intriguing start to a series, and does make me want to go further in reading it eventually, even if it's not quite yet reaching a level of greatness.  Featuring a mostly non-human world, in which humans are the side characters rather than the main ones, First Don tells an interesting story of sentience and the rights of beings as it follows an action packed at times space opera plot.  It's not a humor tinged space opera like a lot of the SO i read tends to be these days, but the characters are well enough done that I cared for the main duo at least, and the ethical questions the story brings up are interesting.


------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
The Charted Systems is an alliance of planets and species that live at peace in the galaxy, with its governing administered by a species known as the Risalians, the only race who is allowed to carry modern weaponry.

Neek is the only member of her species (also called "Neek") who travels the Charted Systems, working as a pilot for a small freighter ship Mercy's Pledge whose only other crew include its Terran Captain and a "Journeying" Terran youth.  Neek once dreamed of being a pilot for the government of her isolationist planet, but instead she found herself exiled forty years ago for speaking out against her planet (also called "Neek")'s religion: a religion which worshiped godlike beings called Ardulans from a moving planet known as "Ardulum", which taught the Neek species everything they knew.  Neek doesn't believe, and more importantly does believe that the Neek government has used this religion to prevent her world from experiencing any progress...but misses her family and home desperately.

Yet when Mercy's Pledge blunders into a firefight between the Risalians and an unknown outside Alien race, Neek finds herself face to face with a telepathic little girl who resembles the Ardulans to an unsettling degree, and who demonstrates incredible power at her disposal.  Will the Ardulan girl lead Neek back home or keep her exiled in space and what does it mean for her people and the galaxy that she exists?  The answers will reveal a dark truth about the Charted Systems and will change Neek's and the galaxy's trajectories forever.....
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Ardulum: First Don (hereinafter just "FD" because I'm lazy) is mainly the story of Neek, as she discovers truths in things she never wanted - and only ignite further her conflicting desires.  Neek carries most of the book, with most of the character based story in this novel being told from her own point of view - the only other parts of the character based story not told from her own point of view are a few segments from Emn's (the Ardulan girl) point of view.

I say "character based story", because Ardulum essentially carries two stories in one, integrated tightly together.  There's a character based story, in Neek dealing with her contradictory desires of wanting to come home and not wanting to bow to a religion and President she knows is wrong and hurtful and having her reality shattered by the existence of a being she has always refused to believe in - and who she grows to care about (and of course there's the character development of that being, Emn, as well).  Then there's the more idea based story about what is really going on in the Charted Systems, and how their idyllic peace has really been bought - not through diplomacy, but through a violent alien race who has genetically manipulated and enslaved another sentient race.  We see this second story not just through the actions and discoveries of our main character, but through large segments of this book which take place from the antagonists' points of view, giving the reader a more complete picture of what is happening than the characters.

Let me start with the idea based story first.  This is kind of spoilery and yet it's really not since it's revealed openly fairly quickly, so I'm not going to hide it behind spoiler tags.  The Risalians have genetically produced beings who resemble the "Ardulans" of Neek's religion, who have the ability to do things like manipulate cellulose and other telepathic powers and thus form the backbone of the Risalian military ships, which are used to defend and protect the Charted Systems.  These Ardulans do not have the biological ability to communicate verbally, and the Risalians view them solely as tools and as non-sentient.  We see from the very first chapter that this is false - the Ardulans may not be able to speak but they are telepathic and do have their own minds, they just communicate to other telepaths through images rather than language.

Some Risalians' views on the Ardulans are based in actual ignorance (an event occurs which showcases the shock some of them experience when one of them in this book displays clear sentience), but the vast majority we see do not care: they were created for the Risalians' uses, and as such, it does not matter if they might actually have feelings - and the Risalians do horribly essentially beat out those feelings from them.  Yet the Risalians are not the only people we found out to have opinions about the morality of not just the usage of, but the very creation of artificial beings: another group (spoiler, not revealing) believes they must all be destroyed as abominations no matter what, for example.  And then there is the President of Neek, who treats their existence as a tool for enforcing the status quo, despite them being looked up to as gods in the Neek religion.

Ardulum First Don obviously disagrees with all of these views and treats them with horror and disgust: not only do we see Emn grow as a person and feel terrible for her right at the beginning (which begins with her mother killed in front of her), but we get to see inside the head of one other Ardulan woman as she distressingly discovers that there is some other way to live out there aside from being used as a tool.  Their artificial creation really matters not, it's not the point - what is, is that they are people.  (It should be noted that none of the oppressors/oppressed in this story being human is an interesting way to prevent any reader from think the story isn't talking about every story of oppression based upon non-personhood, no matter who is doing it).  It's a pretty solid work in that regard, even if there really isn't a counterargument to the argument that it's making.

As for the character-based story, it's perhaps a bit less effective honestly.  Neek is our main character here, and the one who really gets all of the development - all of the other characters other than Emn have personality traits that only matter to the extent they relate to Neek.  It's easy to empathize with her, because she's right: her planet IS using religion as an excuse to avoid progress; the President is a corrupt asshole using it for both that purpose and to maintain the status quo with him in charge; and for trying to spread that truth, Neek has been unable to see her family, particularly her sick mother, for forty years.  And then comes Emn, whose existence suggests that hated religion might have some actual truth behind it, and Neek's whole world is torn apart.  And yet, the same instincts towards caring about her people's lack of progress make it impossible for her to just throw Emn to the wolves, even as Emn's existence makes Neek want to reject the strange little girl.  It's a character progression that's fascinating to read - and one that isn't done by the end of this book, to say nothing of Emn's own growth thanks to Neek's treatment.

All of this is wrapped in a package with space opera action - both in individual combat and space combat, that provides some fun for lovers of Space Opera.  Which is not to say that this is a "fun" book - there's a decided lack of humor compared to many other Space Operas these days, but it's not a grimdark one either.  And it's a package alas that's also a bit incomplete: the story ends with things in shambles, and our characters about to embark on a new and necessary journey, which means you can't read this novel and simply be satisfied with it all: you're going to have to read the rest of the series for that.  Which is not to say it's one of those books that doesn't resolve anything and is more frustrating than anything: it does resolve the main plot arcs here....but it's just not one of those first novels in a series that can somehow stand on its own.

So I'll have to get the next novel eventually.  Probably soon, but we'll see.

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