In exchange for Berkley Publishing’s generosity, I’m reviewing Sean Danker’s Admiral series. As part of a contest, I won a hardcover Admiral and paperbacks of Free Space and The Glory of the Empress. I reviewed Admiral already, and have now finished Free Space. This second book finds the Admiral taking Salmagard on vacation, but as with their first voyage together, this one takes a horrible detour. This is deep space Taken from the viewpoint of the abductees.
TL;DR
Free Space by Sean Danker grabs a hold of the reader and never lets go. This fast moving abduction tale keeps you turning the pages. Recommended.
From the Publisher
In the follow-up to Admiral, the intergalactic war has ended and hostilities between the Evagardian Empire and the Commonwealth are officially over, but the admiral is far from safe. . . .
I’d impersonated a prince, temporarily stopped a war, escaped a deadly planet, and survived more assassination attempts than I could conveniently count. After all that, there shouldn’t have been anything simpler than a nice weekend with a charming Evagardian girl.
However, some corners of the galaxy aren’t as genteel as the Empire, and Evagardians aren’t universally loved, which is how I ended up kidnapped to be traded as a commodity.
Their timing couldn’t have been worse. I’m not at my best, but these people have no idea whom they’re dealing with: a highly trained, genetically engineered soldier in the Imperial Service who happens to be my date.
Story
As with Admiral, Free Space is a survival story but in a completely different way. The Admiral and Salmagard are kidnapped with two other Imperials for the purposes of human trafficking. Because they are Imperials, their absence will be noted, and so for them it’s a waiting game. Survive long enough for the good guys to come rescue them. But that wouldn’t make for a very exciting story; so, complications require that the characters take an active role in their own survival.
For the beginning two thirds, this novel is tilted more towards the thriller genre. Whereas Admiral had the horror baked in from the start, the horror doesn’t get to Free Space until two-thirds of the way into the novel. The terror of being kidnapped is there, but due to the fantastic amounts of action, I wouldn’t classify this as a horror novel. That being said, the shift in gears at the two-thirds mark was interesting and worked for me. It opened up some new mysteries about the Evagardian universe that I’d love to see explored.
Characters
Free Space features the two best characters from the first novel. The Admiral still develops as a character here but not as much as I had expected. He’s pretty much what you get from the first novel. Salmagard’s character gets more depth and complexity here, and her complicated feelings towards the Admiral clash with her complicated ties to her family. She continues to be Mr. Danker’s best character in my opinion.
The other two additions to this novel Diana and Sei are okay. They have enough character building to fit into the novel without slowing it down too much. Diana, like Salmagard, is a complex, interesting character, and her backstory could be interesting. Sei, however, didn’t really stand out. He got some character work, but I couldn’t pick him out of a line up. The rest of the characters in the novel aren’t developed too deeply. At the speed this story goes, there isn’t enough time for deep character study. Of the others, I found Willis and Freeber very entertaining. They were sad and scary and human.
Worldbuilding
In Admiral, worldbuilding is kept to a minimum in order to maintain its high pace. Free Space had more worldbuilding but not much exploration of the new locales. Free space sounds like a libertarian dream while being a humanitarian nightmare. The final third presents some interesting questions that will hopefully get a longer novel.
Diana’s backstory hints at interesting military and scientific research. For two books now, we don’t get much about the Evagardian military, but we do know they have a widespread intelligence service. Also, they protect their citizens no matter where in the universe they are through the Galatic Rescue service. These badasses go out to save Imperials in trouble. We know that Evagard cares and supports its citizens. In Free Space, we learn that life on Empire’s assistance is better than roughing it elsewhere. It’s possible that the Empire is a socialist success, but we don’t get enough to know for sure. It seems like there’s decent political systems underpinning the whole series.
Thoughts
Like Admiral, Free Space is a standalone novel. The story ends, but it sort of doesn’t. All the plot threads from the book are tied up by the final page. However, the ending leaves a big cliffhanger. Maybe. Mr. Danker could want us to infer an ending. All the plot lines are wrapped up, and that is satisfying. But the abrupt ending is a bit jarring. I’ll need to think and process the ending more. On the one hand, it’s frustrating because we’re left in uncertainty. On the other, it’s a bold artistic choice, and I like it when authors take chances. Only in fiction do we know everything and get a nice tidy denouement to exit us gently from the story.
Once again, the last third of the novel is different than what came before. It’s an odd style, but it works. Again, it’s jarring, more so this time, but it’s not enough to throw me out of the story. The shift introduces its own mysteries with its own urgency. I’d love to see an exploration of the various ingredients of this last portion.
Conclusion
Free Space is a fast-paced, thriller SF novel. It’s is an excellent continuation of the Evagardian series. Sean Danker wrote another intense, action packed novel that tells a new adventure of the Admiral and the negotiator that he wants to date. Recommended.