Tomlinson, Patrick S. In the Black. Tor, 2020.
The blurb on Patrick S. Tomlinson’s In the Black calls it “The Hunt for Red October in space.” It certainly is that, and it is a refreshing change from space warfare as battleships exchanging fire like eighteenth-century naval vessels. Space battles as submarine-like encounters is certainly as plausible as anything in the Horatio Hornblower tradition. Tomlinson does not hide his homage to Tom Clancy: at one point he has one of his spaceships do a “crazy Ivan” turn. Tomlinson’s alien spaceship commander is a good stand-in for Clancy’s Russian sub captain. But, as Tomlinson points out in an afterword, he had more on his mind than a pastiche of Clancy. Our pandemic inspired a bioengineered plague threatening a planetary economy. He also has some sharp things to say about cultural diversity and the gap between the haves and have-nots. The relationship between corporate and military power centers is nowhere near as cozy as Clancy would have us believe. The novel does have the same three-ring structure that worked in Hunt for Red October. There are several scenes set in the alien warship that develop their culture, biology, and crew dynamics. The center ring is the pursuing human ship and its crew. In Tomlinson’s world, warships are now built and financed by private industry, and every ship is required to have a company rep on board, much as Clancy’s Russians are spied on by the KGB. The third attraction is a corporate espionage story that eventually ties all the elements of the plot together. In the espionage story, our hero is a corporate exec struggling to moderate his sense of entitlement. His interactions with a working-class scientist and his strong AI assistant are entertaining, with some surprising turns. Throughout the novel, characters are well-differentiated, the dialogue is witty, and the action well-paced. I don’t think military space opera fans will be disappointed. 4 stars. ( )