ETERNITY’S END

Carver extends his established series about the star riggers, who navigate spaceships through the perilous region of space-time called the Flux. Rigger Renwald Legroeder, captured by the piratical Kyber seven years ago, makes a miraculous escape and returns to the Centrist World of Faber Eridani. His escape, along with his report—that the pirates are using the ghost ship Impris, lost in the Flux 124 years ago, as a lure—brings only hostility, accusations of complicity, and disbelief. Arrested, jailed, then released on bail, thanks to lawyer Harriet Mahoney—her grandson went missing on Legroeder’s ship when it was captured—Legroeder realizes he’s stumbled into a vast conspiracy to conceal the truth. The deception began a century ago, when the Centrist Worlds, at war with the Kyber, sold out their alien allies, the Narseil, in order to buy a precarious peace. The Narseil themselves mean to make the truth known, and intend to start by recovering Impris—whose crew, thanks to the weird time effects in the deep Flux, seem to be still alive. In order to find Impris, though, the Narseil need Legroeder’s help to contact the Kyber underground—not all Kyber agree with the Kyber’s piratical approach. But even if they do contact Impris deep in the Flux, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to get back out.

A large, bustling, salty yarn whose plot doesn’t withstand too much scrutiny. Overall, much less convincing than the author’s splendid Chaos Chronicles (The Infinite Sea, 1996, etc.).