Torchship is a mix of civilian and military space opera, leaning mostly on the civilian side. The background of the universe is that Earth and some of its original colonies have been lost to the nightmare combination of out-of-control Artificial Intelligence and grey-goo nanotech. That has left Earth’s remaining colonies in two factions, divided over their varying levels of AI paranoia, and it has also left a lot of spaceships doing navigation with sextants and pencil-and-paper math. Out protagonist Michigan Long is one of those navigators, and she flies on the Fives Full under the command of Captain Schwartzenberger, though there are strong hints that she has her own agenda.

We see an interesting mix of various freight and tourism missions before they have a chance at the brass ring. A client wants to recover his family’s long-lost treasure trove of ancient Earth artifacts hidden on a comet in AI-controlled space. Meanwhile a crazed group of pilgrims want to charter a mission to Earth itself to be uplifted/absorbed into what they are convinced is still a well-meaning AI group-consciousness. It’s a dangerous mission to be sure, but the reward is potentially great.

I really enjoyed the mix of characters as well as seeing some of the old tropes of space opera shown in a new and interesting light. There’s a sequel out already, so I look forward to checking it out as well.

About the reviewer:

Dan Thompson started writing fiction at the age of ten. Luckily for the world, all copies of that early Star Wars rip-off have been lost to time and Sith retaliation. Moving on from that six-page handwritten epic, he has self-published two books with more on the way – honest!

He lives near Austin with his wife and three children, drives old police cars, wears kilts when the weather permits, and is generally considered to be the weirdo next door. Fortunately, the neighbors don’t know how weird he really is.

Find out more about Dan at http://www.danthompsonwrites.com