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Burnt Ice (A Fury Of Aces)

2.43 of 5 stars 2.43 · rating details · 14 ratings · 7 reviews

SUPERB SPACE ADVENTURE FROM A FRESH NEW VOICE.
In our future worlds the Administration rules the Sphere of Humankind, the Games Board sanctions and funds wars and conflicts, and the Haulers′ Collective roams the space routes like the caravanners of old.
Marko and his crew of fellow soldier-engineers are sent to investigate an unknown planet. When they encounter strange artef...more

432 pages

Published April 1st 2012 by HarperCollins Australia

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Apr 22, 2012 Tsana Dolichva rated it 3 of 5 stars

Burnt Ice, the first in the A Fury of Aces series, is Steve Wheeler’s debut novel. I was really excited to read a new ANZ science fiction novel since there are so few of them being published, especially by large publishers (this one is from Harper Voyager, if you’re wondering). And it has such a lovely cover, too (so much SF coming out of the US has unappealing covers with artwork ruined, in my opinion, by unpleasant typography).

When I picked up Burnt Ice, I was expecting something like a Sean W...more Burnt Ice, the first in the A Fury of Aces series, is Steve Wheeler’s debut novel. I was really excited to read a new ANZ science fiction novel since there are so few of them being published, especially by large publishers (this one is from Harper Voyager, if you’re wondering). And it has such a lovely cover, too (so much SF coming out of the US has unappealing covers with artwork ruined, in my opinion, by unpleasant typography).

When I picked up Burnt Ice, I was expecting something like a Sean Williams and/or Shane Dix novel, but that wasn’t what I got.

Burnt Ice follows the adventures and misadventures of a military engineering crew in a distant future where wars are called “conflicts” and are sanctioned by the ever-watching Games Board. Of course, only part of the story revolves around the Games Board. The novel is actually structured as four almost self-contained stories with different but related missions at their centre. The over-arching plot holds everything together, even if at times it’s not obvious how the current conflict connects.

The plot was solid and fast-paced without a dull moment. New dangers kept arising and the crew’s missions took them to interesting places. The world building was also fairly strong, especially the planet at the start, which I enjoyed reading about. I also liked that there were aliens they didn’t know much about that popped up to cause trouble every now and then.

The writing was heavy on the technobabble, which I didn’t mind, although at times every new procedure was described in a bit too much technical detail. It didn’t bother me at first, but it got a bit much towards the end. On the other hand, the science and pseudoscience didn’t make me angry with it’s lack of credibility (as in, it was mostly correct and at least semi-viable), so that’s always a plus.

There were some things that did bother me, however. The characters were not very well developed and, especially in the first half or so when the focus was on the core crew, it wasn’t that easy to distinguish between them. The characters that stood out were basically Marko, the mainest character, Fritz, The Oddball Genius, and Jan, The (Mysterious) Girl. The other two crew members didn’t read terribly differently to Marko. Very little time was spent developing the personalities and relationships between them to the point where, for example, we’re told when there’s a romantic connection but no reason is really given for it and I was left wondering why those two would even want to hook up. The characters that came along later on were more distinct and interesting, but they weren’t further developed either. It would have been a stronger novel if some of the technobabble were exchanged for some character development.

Easily my favourite character was the sentient ACE (Artificially Created Entity) soft-of-pet Marko built for himself in the latter half of the book. Basically an animal cyborg, it’s quirky lack of understanding of human idioms gave me a couple of laughs. It wouldn’t really have meshed with the plot earlier on, but I do wish it had come along sooner.

The other thing that bothered me was the unnecessary (and I assume unconscious) use of gendered slurs. For example “arrogant woman/bitch” was used two too many times. In an ostensibly gender-equal world, it felt like everyone who screwed up and more than half the dodgy people (as in bad guys, but there were shades of grey and mystery to some of them) were female or AIs. I was particularly offended when someone called the suddenly rogue AI a f*cking bitch (the swearing I don’t object to because the AI was trying to kill them). Even though the AIs were loosely gendered, you can’t get much more asexual than a computer so you’d think notions of gender would have been redefined by that distant future point. As I said, I very much doubt it was intentional sexism, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t bother me.

The ending was very much an ending to part one in a series. There were a lot of unanswered questions, including some mysterious new characters who showed up towards the end and promised (the reader, not so much the other characters, which isn’t a bad thing) some answers as well as more interesting questions. If the characterisation hadn’t bothered me so much I would be interested in reading what happens next. As is, I’m not sure that I will be picking up the next in the (possibly ten book long) series.

3 / 5 stars(less)

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Apr 15, 2012 Colin rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No one

Recommended to Colin by: The hype of the internet

The best place to start with Burnt Ice for me, would be the end; It was a chore to get there.

I was looking forward to this book as it had an interesting premise and was written by a first time Author from just across the pond in New Zealand. It's been a while since I've seen some real Science Fiction in a novel, something that could give the classics a modern-day run for their money but unfortunately, Steve Wheeler's Burnt Ice doesn't come close. It fizzles in the first few pages and only goes d...more The best place to start with Burnt Ice for me, would be the end; It was a chore to get there.

I was looking forward to this book as it had an interesting premise and was written by a first time Author from just across the pond in New Zealand. It's been a while since I've seen some real Science Fiction in a novel, something that could give the classics a modern-day run for their money but unfortunately, Steve Wheeler's Burnt Ice doesn't come close. It fizzles in the first few pages and only goes downhill from there.

Burnt Ice is the first in the Fury of Aces series by Steve Wheeler. It tells the tale of Marko and his squad of soldier engineers as they investigate planets and battle alien squid across the Sphere of Humankind as all of their exploits are filmed and broadcast for the entertainment of the masses. The book reads like just about every Science Fiction or Space Fantasy story you've ever heard of mashed into a single entity.

The problem isn't simply with the story (or lack thereof), the story could have been something special in more adept hands. The biggest hurdle Burnt Ice struggles with is the writing which comes across amateurish. The kind of amateur-fiction you find around the internet where universes of no consequence are created and then populated with cliche and dull characters. The universe within Burnt Ice is indeed quite literally, without consequence; Our heroes are never in any real danger because if they are ever killed they can just be regrown through a DNA replicating technology called a Soul-Saver. You don't care about any of the situations they get into throughout the book because you know that in the end, no matter what occurs everyone will still be fine. Not that you would really care if they could die as each character is extremely one-dimensional and differ very little from one to the next.

Within the first page the author has already fallen into the literary faux pa of switching between the points of view of three separate characters with nary a paragraph break in site. It's hard enough to decipher which character is actually speaking their stilted, trite dialogue (that's punctuated by a completely unnecessary amount of cursing) let alone who's point of view the events are unfolding through. Colour me confused, I almost gave up reading by page five but somehow managed to keep enduring and am still wondering how this kind of thing got past the Editor in Chief.

Techno-babble is something of a staple within Science Fiction and Burnt Ice has more of it than Stephen Hawking and Captain Kirk combined can shake a stick at. Usually in a Science Fiction story, this would be something that holds my interest long after I've finished the actual story. Techno-babble is one of the main reasons I love Science Fiction as a genre but it has to have purpose. Throughout my entire experience with Burnt Ice, I was left confused by the science of it all. Again, it falls back to that feeling of reading someone's internet fiction. Pseudo-techno/science words stitched together and trying to come across as more intelligent than the actual nonsense that they are. I'm left with the impression that Mr. Wheeler believes himself to be more of a techno-wiz than he actually is.

SUPERB SPACE ADVENTURE FROM A FRESH NEW VOICE and MOVE OVER STAR WARS are the tag-lines on the book; I don't think George Lucas has got anything to worry about just yet as Burnt Ice is about as stale as it gets.

Well, at least the cover by the great John Howe is nice.
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Sep 13, 2012 Anna rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: wtf-is-this-shit, nope-can-t-finish-it

This book was so abysmally bad I could not make it past the first few dozen pages.

My chief criticism is that the dialogue was painfully awkward and in no way reflected the speech patterns of how people actually speak. I cringed with each sentence I read. Popular sci-fi today is fast-paced, gritty and dirty and Burnt Ice is none of those things. the characters actually use the term 'bedding' to refer to sleeping with someone (I'll stick to Richard K. Morgan for an example of someone who can writ...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Angelya (The Oaken Bookcase) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, reviewed

Captain Michael Longbow and his crew of engineers, warriors and operatives are about to catch up on some recreation time on the resort world of Cygnus 5 when an investigation of some ancient underwater ruins turns into a full-scale battle. A series of missions takes them to different worlds to investigate alien tech and rogue Artificial Intelligences, during which the crew must work together and innovate to survive.

Burnt Ice reads a lot like a television series - four or five episodes with a var...more Captain Michael Longbow and his crew of engineers, warriors and operatives are about to catch up on some recreation time on the resort world of Cygnus 5 when an investigation of some ancient underwater ruins turns into a full-scale battle. A series of missions takes them to different worlds to investigate alien tech and rogue Artificial Intelligences, during which the crew must work together and innovate to survive.

Burnt Ice reads a lot like a television series - four or five episodes with a variety of outcomes. The only problem with the story being separated into episodes is the sometimes drawn-out story building between each action sequence.

When the action does happen, it's fast paced and well-described. The heroes and their various bio-enhancements are pretty awesome in how they deal with situations, and it's all recorded for broadcast by the Games Board. No wonder they become celebrities!

This book contains a lot of technical descriptions - the team's every invention and creation are intricately described and I found I had to really pay attention to keep up sometimes. The creations themselves are amazing though - Artificial Created Entities created from the combined traits of various animals to make a pet with benefits? Awesome! Being able to upload yourself into a computer so that if you die, you can just grow yourself a new body? How useful! There are a huge variety of other interesting inventions and advancements that the crew of the Basalt have at their disposal.

The members of Captain Longbow's crew are likeable enough and they all have secrets that are hinted at, but not revealed. Emotional range is a little limited but that's made up for by general bad-assery. The fact that they use Aussie/Kiwi vernacular such as "mate", "have a yarn", "bugger!" and other local phrases means that the whole story felt like a very local production. This is by no means a bad thing, just different!

If a Space Opera with plenty of battles interspersed with high-tech wizardry sounds appealing to you, Burnt Ice is worth a read! I'll be watching out for the future of this series.

Warnings: Strong language and sexual references. Not as G-rated as Star Wars.

Review originally posted April 10 2012 on The Oaken Bookcase.(less)

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Jul 09, 2012 Andrew rated it 1 of 5 stars

Seemed promising, then I started to read it. It just lurched from one place to the next with no real structure or story line. At one stage a character was apparently killed off, only to suddenly reapear a few pages further on... Huh??

The writing style was hard to read and the colloquial language that appeared through the book made reading difficult.

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Sep 08, 2012 Firephox rated it 5 of 5 stars

Good fun read! Fast paced and enjoyable, reads like a SF show, not for people who like literary classics or deep character development. Builds an interesting universe, I want to find out what happens next.

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May 20, 2012 Peter Johnston rated it 1 of 5 stars

I gave up after the first chapter, the author has a tin ear for dialogue, I can't understand how this got past an editor. First book I've given up in in a decade or more.

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