Ragamuffin: A Novel

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Engaging Space Opera.

I thoroughly enjoyed Crystal Rain, the first installment of Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth series. That book introduced us to John deBrun and Pepper. Pepper was presented as the most dangerous man in existence; deBrun was presented as extremely competent. The pair are shipwrecked on the fallen and lost human colony world of Nanagada. Buckell bases Nanagada culture on the culture of the Caribean. Nanagada shares a continent with Aztlan which is based on the Aztecs.

Crystal Rain follows the pair as they deal with the consequences of an invasion of Nanagada by Aztlan. The Aztlan are beholden to their “gods”, an alien race known as the Teotl. Nanagada's voodoo culture has its gods in the Loa who are a different race of aliens. The book is filled with plots and counterplots, action and adventure, as the two attempt to reach the Ma Wi Jung.

Ragamuffin opens up with a galactic perspective. We discover that humanity is a bit player in the galaxy, and has occasionally been reduced to the status of pets, by aliens. Humanity has only recently been emancipated but the controllers of the political system, known as the Benevolent Satrapy, are in the process of reversing that decision. A human liberation movement is engaging in acts of terrorism and has hired Nashara to perform an assassination. Nashara turns out to be every bit as competent in the ways of killing as Pepper and we follow her as she performs her task, flees, avoids traps and stays one step ahead of everyone. The Natasha sequence makes for engrossing action-adventure.

Buckell's world building is also satisfying. We get glimpses of the human diaspora, alien cultures, and the future history that has brought mankind to its status. We are introduced to the Hunggao, a human mercantile enterprise turned military enforcement for the Satrapy.

Nashara, we discover, is a tool devised on the lost human planet of Chimson, which was sealed off with Nanagada, by the Satrapy out of fear that human technological innovation might overturn the Satrapy. Nashara wants to return to Chimson, so she sets out in search of the Ragamuffins, the surviving military arm of Nanagada and Chimson on the wrong side of the sealed-off wormholes.

Most of the story involves the adventures of Nashara. However, a substantial component of the story involves Pepper and deBrun on Nanangada as their world is overturned by the return of the Teotl who have found a way to unseal the wormholes.

The two strands of the story come together in the end in a life and death showdown between Hunggao, Ragamuffins, Human liberation forces, Teotl and Pepper, all scheming for their own ends.

I found this to be a terrific story. I enjoyed the Jamaican cultural elements that dominate the side of the good guys. Any culture that can name a warship the “Starfunk Ayatollah” is going to be one that can keep a reader's attention.

PSB