Ancestral Machines: A Humanity's Fire Novel

by Michael Cobley

Overview

A new standalone epic space opera, set in the same world as the Humanity's Fire trilogy.
No world is safe.

The Warcage: two hundred worlds harnessed to an articial sun in a feat of unprecedented stellar engineering. Built to travel through space as a monument to peace between alien species, now its voracious rulers have turned it into a nightmarish wasteland, capturing new planets for slaves and resources, then discarding the old.

Now, when a verdant agri-world is pulled out of its orbit, the captain of a smuggler ship must journey into the Warcage to rescue his crew.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316221184
Publisher:	Orbit
Publication date:	01/12/2016
Series:	Humanity's Fire
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	918,233
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Michael Cobley was born in Leicester, England and has lived in Glasgow, Scotland for most of his life. He has studied engineering, been a DJ and has an abiding interest in democratic politics.

His previous books include the Shadowkings dark fantasy trilogy and Iron Mosaic, a short story collection. Seeds of Earth, The Orphaned Worlds, and The Ascendant Stars, books one, two and three of the Humanity's Fire sequence, were his first full-length forays into space opera.

Editorial Reviews

11/16/2015
In Cobley’s overcrowded fourth Humanity’s Fire space opera installment (after The Ascendant Stars), a deal gone sour draws smuggler captain Brannan Pyke and his raucous crew into a rebellion against the Gun-Lords of Shuskar. The grotesque, despotic Gun-Lords rule an “exotic mega structure” once known as the Great Harbour of Benevolent Harmony and now called the Warcage, where the populations of stolen planets are pitted against one another in eternal conflict. Also involved are an alien military leader guided by the spirits of his ancestors and a human officer who is pulled from a dead-end job by a sentient combat drone working for an enigmatic machine intelligence. Cobley’s space opera is plainly influenced by the works of Joss Whedon and the late Iain M. Banks, but he lacks their finesse. This uneven agglutination of ideas and underdeveloped characters has at least one major plot thread too many. Agent: John Berlyne, Zeno Agency. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Proper galaxy-spanning Space Opera ... a worthy addition to the genre."—Iain M. Banks on Seeds of Earth

"The invention is endless."—SFX on Seeds of Earth

"A well-constructed space opera...a thick and satisfying 10-course meal of starchy pageantry, meaty characters, bitter losses, and sweet romance."—Publishers Weekly on Seeds of Earth

"Seeds of Earth has everything: well-realised extraterrestrials, scheming artificial intelligences, set-piece space battles and bizarre technology from the dawn of the galaxy."—The Guardian (UK) on Seeds of Earth

"Space opera has never been in more capable hands."—The Guardian (UK) on The Orphaned Worlds

"Michael Cobley has added a fine piece of work to a grand tradition."—SF Crow's Nest on The Ascendant Stars

From the Publisher

"Michael Cobley has added a fine piece of work to a grand tradition."

SF Crow's Nest on The Ascendant Stars

"Space opera has never been in more capable hands."

The Guardian (UK) on The Orphaned Worlds

"Seeds of Earth has everything: well-realised extraterrestrials, scheming artificial intelligences, set-piece space battles and bizarre technology from the dawn of the galaxy."

The Guardian (UK) on Seeds of Earth

"The invention is endless."

SFX on Seeds of Earth

"Proper galaxy-spanning Space Opera ... a worthy addition to the genre."

Iain M. Banks on Seeds of Earth