Remanence picks up pretty much where Fluency left off. Jane has a two-fold mission that she is undertaking with several of her former NASA crew members. First, return the ship which they found in Fluency to its makers. Second, seek out more of E'Brai's race, the Kubodera.
This story took a turn that I both did and did not expect, which is somewhat strange. We learn during Fluency that there are a few things going on. First, all sentient races have been under attack by The Swarm. Second, there is no knowledge of what started the mysterious plague that wiped out E'Brai's crew, leaving him stranded in the asteroid belt of Earth's Solar System. In Remanence, we learn a great deal more about what has been going on.
While searching, Jane does indeed find other ships; damaged, with no crew, and frequently with a dead kuboderan floating in space. This reveals that the plague is not an isolated event - it is widespread.
Ultimately, Jane finds a world, and its populated moon, which have been ravaged by the same plague that killed E'Brai's crew - and, like E'Brai, not a single soul knows where it came from or how it started. We finally get to meet the aliens who created the ships and harnessed the Kubodera, although they have reverted to a pre-industrial society that is barely holding on. All of their technology, which was based on the squillae (think organic nanites), could not be trusted after the plague, so none of it is used.
Jane's relationship with E'Brai', begins to change, as she proves her trust of him over and over again, giving him more freedom. We learn more about E'Brai's race, where they come from, and how they are harnessed into the ships. As with the first book, there are many surprises when it comes to the relationship between these two characters. Very inventive.
As a side note, I recently started watching the TV show Farscape, which aired from 1999 - 2003. In this show, there is a living ship - a Leviathan named Moya. There is a pilot for the ship, which is physically linked in many ways to Moya, and acts as a middle-man between the crew and the ship. In addition to having a pilot, the ship also has a control collar, which limits the independent actions of the Leviathan. To me, this all seems somewhat similar to E'Brai's situation, with his limited freedom and servitude, and his complete control of the ship - although I don't believe the ship itself is truly alive. I wonder if there is some inspiration here?
At the conclusion of the story, we do learn more about the plague came, and as you could expect, things are far worse than anyone could have dreamed.
Highly recommended read! I'm very interested in reading the next three books in the series, but the "to read" list is quite long and ever changing.
As always, I'm interested in hearing from fellow science fiction and fantasy readers.
Have you read this book? What did you think of it?
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