On the outer limits of the Milky Way, Haimey Dz, space salvager, and her crew, find evidence of a terrible crime and accidentally gain access to an ancient technology - now they are on a run from space pirates interested in this techology; or is it something else they're after?In a way, the life on the salvage tug reminded me of "A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet" at first, but then things took different turns. There were many surprise scenes and turns that left me astonished in what a visual b...

An early moment in Elizabeth Bear’s expansive new space opera Ancestral Night has narrator Haimey Dz offer a meta-commentary on the ancient, 19th century novels she reads during the long hours spent drifting through space: “They’re great for space travel because they were designed for people with time on their hands. Middlemarch. Gorgeous, but it just goes on and on.” Ancestral Night is a busy and boisterous novel, complex and beautifully composed, but also has a tendency to labor its points.Hai...

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.This book takes off running, offering little explanation and a lot of unfamiliar terms, but I know to expect that from science fiction and I vastly prefer it to pages of tedious infodumping. The world of Ancestral Night was introduced gradually and, for the most part, seamlessly. I often cringe when authors invent their own future slang because so few can pull it off effectively. Elizabeth Bear is...

3.5 StarsThis is a smart, entertaining space opera that manages to feel fresh despite hitting on so many tropes of the genre. The writing was great, managing to be both intellectual and humorous at the same time. The actual plot did not entirely grab me, yet I still generally enjoyed the reading experience. 

I had some really good fun with this book. The transhumanist elements, from all the various augs for the mind, body, and all the relevant lock-ins required to pilot, communicate, or engineer spacecraft is something I always tend to enjoy. It's realistic. After all, our bodies are such weak meat sacks. :)In this case, our MC is got at from several directions all at once. Memory, behavior modification, social and political nastiness, all the way up to full and voluntary body control for the Space

Ancestral Night is a story set in the far reaches of outer space in some future time where most civilized entities have been engulfed into a loose organization ( the Federation, anyone), but on the outskirts are space pirates who shun artificial intelligence and group conformity as well as surviving remnants of ancient races barely recognizable as sentient beings. The star of the story along with her pilot and her AI shipmind work off their debts as a salvage crew. There are shades of 2001 Space...

Ahoy there me mateys! I have really been enjoying my foray into Elizabeth Bear’s works and this was no exception. This story follows Haimey Dz who is a member of a three person salvage crew. A routine salvage trip turns to disaster when the ship they attempt to retrieve is a crime scene. And Haimey also catches an unknown alien virus. What results is a foray into ancient alien technology, dealing with space pirates, and exploring Haimey’s own past.While I enjoyed this book, it was a very odd rea...

Only a couple of weeks ago, reviewing a 1960s SF book, I bemoaned the fact that science fiction novels of ideas are less common now. Although it is correctly labelled a space opera, Ancestral Night delivers ideas with aplomb.Let's deal with the space opera aspect first. Elizabeth Bear provides some excellent adventure scenes in space, and we've the usual mix of huge spaceships and interesting aliens. Main character Haimey Dz is an engineer on a ship that salvages wrecks - but, as we gradually di...

“What would it do to your psyche if this were your sky? What would it do to the racial awareness of your species if this were their memory of their dirt-bound cradle, before they stepped out into the great emptiness beyond?” Elizabeth Bear's Ancestral Night is a giant space opera featuring an engineer with a parasite inside of her that grants her unique abilities, a ship AI, the salvage operation of an alien ship that doesn't go quite as planned and galactic pirates. Lots of action and intrigue-...

Slow start -- in fact, I kept dozing off* -- but she hits her stride around 100 pp. in. A scary sheriff who's a giant mantis! *Deep* space stuff, with the Synarche, Bear's take on IMB's Culture, and pretty well thought-out. Though the exposition took the form of college bull-session look-alikes, a fine sleep-aid. But now we're up to a Sexy Pirate babe with mystery Superpowers, and Our Heroine is discovering her own Superpowers too**, which she acquired investigating a horrible crime. And her sal...

Space opera is back, and at least in the hands of some female writers, it is not even remotely retrogressive in the ways that were standard some thirty years ago.While portions of this book were claustrophobic in ways that usually lose me, Bear kept me reading as the questions opened outward, and I hoped to see more of certain secondary characters (two of them not human).For me, space opera has to hit at least some of the following elements:Larger than life characters with interesting exploratio...

I'm halfway through and still no sign of a plot - just a lot of random encounters. I'm assuming the plot is not forthcoming. Some fun ideas and writing isn't bad, but in general it seems disjointed and pointless. DNF

From my Kirkus columnIn many ways this book is an excellent pairing with MCU’s recently released Captain Marvel. No, really, hear me out. Both are stories centring women being told what or not to do, told that their emotions are crap and that they should know better, that their choices of how to deal with their emotions are wrong. It is about empowerment, going against what anybody else thinks and finding your own way by embracing your identity, flaws and all. Also fighting against baddies and f...

Notes:Glad that's over! Note to Self: Do not read more in this series. Maybe try Bear's Fantasy vs SF next. I loved a few of the ideas presented in the book but I never got to a place where I saw the MC as a whole person or cared about what happened to her. The ending was not worth the hours between to get to it.

I’m stopping. I’m sorry. I made it to 70% and I don’t even have the desire to skip to the end and see how it plays out. I’m putting the content warnings up here in case you don’t want to read my spoiler laden review: (view spoiler)[suicide bombings, death of partners, abduction, references to a hive mind/cult, murder of children. (hide spoiler)]This is not what I expected it to be. I saw space salvage and space pirates and expected a thrilling action filled plot. Maybe a cat and mouse game, mayb...

I don't know how many times I came really close to abandoning this book. From the very start, I struggled, and found the text slow and the world puzzling. Then, something happened around the 40% mark, and I started to get a good feel for the book. I still found that the text was slower to get through than I liked, but I persevered, and have to say that I enjoyed this book.Haimey, Connla and Singer (their sentient spaceship) are salvage operators. They're given a tip about a ship, and once there,...

You'll either learn to love or hate the word 'atavistic' from reading this book.

Space salvage tug operator finds alien derelict that leads to intergalactic conspiracy and revelation about personal origin story.Did-Not-Finish (DNF)My e-book copy was a hefty 550 pages with a 2019 US copyright.Elizabeth Bear is an author of American science fiction and fantasy. She has more than thirty (30) published novels in both several series and stand alone. This is the first book in her White Space series. I got to about page 100 and stopped reading. This isn’t a bad book, if you’re trai...

I struggle when in the far, far future people still read 19th century books and refer to 20th century culture. I also struggle with books that go on and on about some detail or event. Unfortunately Ancestral Night ticked both boxes. And then it featured a character that gained more and more powerful and unique capabilities that continued to get her out of whatever pickle she was in. Nope this one was not one I enjoyed.

A far-future post-scarcity space opera that owes a lot to Iain M. Banks (well-acknowledged in text), particularly in looking at the overall structure of society and an individual's place in it.Haimey Dz and her small crew of space salvage operators stumble across the scene of an atrocity and an abandoned ship. An incident that occurs as part of the investigation of the abandoned ship leaves Haimey in particular the focus of pursuit and acquisition by pirates. All of which is a catalyst for Haime...