I've always been fond of Alastair Reynolds despite his flaws as a writer (also, Reynolds, please stop with the Afro-Futurism, it doesn't look good when you're getting massive advances while black writers struggle).
His latest, Revenger, is...rather different from anything he's written before. This is not a bad thing; it's a good book, although the Pern style conlang isn't done as much by modern writers and may throw off some readers (lungstuff for air is totally something McCaffrey would have done).
Now, I can't review this one without spoilers, so...don't read past this if you don't like spoilers.
But the real way in which Revenger differs: It's not science fiction.
But what? What do you mean not science fiction? It's about starships, right.
No, it's about sunjammers, which are solar wind sailing ships. Reynolds postulates a civilization where the fastest way to travel within a solar system is by sailing and ion drives are used as auxiliaries for docking.
The world of Revenger is one in which an abandoned series of colonies, which is similar to the Glitter Band (and may be the Glitter Band, although I have another theory) has now been occupied by "monkeys."
Which may or may not be human.
In fact, the biggest flaw in this book relates to the question of whether monkeys are, or are an offshoot of, homo sapiens almost directly.
Reynolds can't do aliens.
The actual "alien" species, as in alien to the MC, are so bland that you could insert pretty much any less-than-savory species and the story would not change one iota. Stick in the Ferengi, for example. Same story.
The monkeys are so ambiguous as to what they are as to come over as Star Trek style guys in suits.
Prior to this, Reynolds has written around aliens. They don't really exist in his other work, or if they do they're a Deux Ex Machina (Century Rain). And either he needs to sit down with some Vinge books or he needs to go back to writing around aliens. I say this as a fan - Reynolds is a good writer and based off of our brief meeting a good person - but he writes aliens even worse than Heinlein wrote women.
The MC is a typical Reynolds MC, a bit of a jerk. Revenger is not being marketed as a YA novel, but it could be, and if this was a first novel, likely it would be. The MC's arc is pure coming of age at its best, and I suspect younger readers will relate very well to Fura. Not too young, due to the violence in the books, but I strongly recommend this book to 15 to 17 year olds who are tired of all of the books marketed at them having romances (or, worse, love triangles).
And the story itself?
The story itself could be set in the Caribbean with no differences. The technology of the baubles (a term he stole, ironically, from Vinge) is really the only science that is integral enough to pass the Schmidt test. It's important in that it limits how long the treasure hunters can spend on their looting.
But sunjammers are sailing ships in space and they felt to me more like ether ships than anything that belongs in true science fiction.
Revenger is a space pirate story set after multiple apocalypses, and as that it works very well, but it is far more Star Wars than Star Trek. (Somebody even loses a hand). It is space fantasy, not science fiction.
The direction is unsurprising after the brilliant Terminal World, but it goes a lot further away from science fiction than that work.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if the conlang was a tiny bit grating at times. But the central flaw turned what could have been a deft subversion a la Terminal World into an uncomfortable ambiguity that made the ending more satisfying.
I def. recommend, though. Also, this book is a Romance Free Zone, which I know a lot of people are looking for. Especially the older teenagers who will likely enjoy the strong female protagonist, sailing ship feel, and the MCs transformation from child to adult.
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