Review: Terms of Service, by Ciel Pierlot

Blurb

When her cousin gets kidnapped by a dastardly trickster, Luzia is forced to sell herself in servitude to the Eoi in exchange for his life. But the terms of the deal turn out to be much more complicated than she ever imagined…

Luzia N.E. Drainway never really thought too much about the Astrosi. They lurk above and below Bastion City – a giant multileveled megalopolis she calls her home – and they tend to keep to themselves. On the rare occasions they use their magics to meddle with human affairs, most people with an ounce of sense steer clear of whichever unfortunate soul happens to be their victim. Luzia is far too dedicated to repairing and maintaining the frequently-damaged Bastion to pay them much attention, and prefers to ignore the Astrosi just like everyone else.

That disregard gets blown out of the water when a rogue Astrosi and nefarious trickster named Carrion kidnaps her nephew and sells him to the Eoi, one of the Astrosi courts.

With no other options to save her nephew, Luzia trades her life for his and finds herself in service to the Eoi. Unfortunately for her, Astrosi logic is acrobatic in ways even the most devious human mind can barely comprehend. It’s not until the deal is struck that she realizes she’s trapped in the most abstruse verbal contract imaginable. She is essentially conscripted into their ranks, and her devotion to her city becomes stretched to breaking point by her new masters’ orders.

As she struggles under this weight, she begins to uncover the secrets of the Astrosi people – the internal battles for power between the two kingdoms, the never-ending conflict between them, the trickster Carrion who somehow bridges that gap, and the very nature of the Bastion itself.

My Review

Thanks to the gang at Angry Robot Books for my advanced copy. I got it before the blog tour was arranged, but it gave me the extra push to read Terms of Service instead of adding it to the TBR ARC pile. I finished reading the book today. That wasn’t the plan but life got in the way.

Warning – SPOILERS

Luzia chases Carrion into the Deep to rescue her nephew and gets more than she bargains for. Literally. Do not make bargains with the fae, they always lawyer up. After exchanging her freedom for her nephews life, Luzia is given a new name and a death seed. As Ziane, she searches for Carrion, to get revenge, but after several disasters she goes searching for her family instead, only to find that the differences in time mean her nephew is already dead and his on an old man. Ziane asks Sef to take away her pain, and dies. She wakes as an Eoi, an Astrosi of the Deeps.

So far, so faery tale.

Except, Ziane and Carrion are still chasing each other and there are secrets beyond the Fringes. There is the whole world.

What we have here is a world within a world. The Bastian is a colony ship that’s crash landed on a Mars-like planet. In landing some of the terraforming technology had launched but some hasn’t. The Astrosi draw their power from two of them, and have formed cultures that have a resemblance to mythical fairy societies. The humans and Astrosi have forgotten the past as technology has degraded.

Carrion learnt long ago that they need to set off the terraforming devices to complete the terraforming of the planet. They’ve tried talking, which didn’t work, so they started fighting instead. Ziane’s purpose has always been protecting the Bastian, and everyone who lives in it, and as the final wall of the Bastian is eroding and the radiation will eventually kill everyone, she decides to help Carrion with their mission.

There are lots of fights, running away, dying, and finally getting where they need to be to do the job. To calm it all down afterwards, Carrion and Ziane lead Queen Sef of the Deeps and King Ari of the Mists through the Fringes to the door out of the Bastian and into the world.

I was quite, quite engaged by this book. Ziane is a complex character. Her early motivations are understandable – love for her nephew. Later after her death and resurrection as Eoi, she struggles to find her purpose, and we travel with her as she finds it, with Carrion’s support. The overarching purpose of her life is to keep people safe, first as a First Responder, then protecting her nephew, then chasing Carrion, and finally in her pursuit of ‘the diamond’ so that she can trigger the terraforming of the planet, but it only becomes clear after she dies again and is brought back by Carrion.

Carrion, the second main character, is also complex. We really only get to know what Luzia/Ziane knows, so their deeper motives become clear over time as Ziane and Carrion become allies. Carrion can eventually help break Ziane’s contract with Sef because she gave them her name first. The development of the relationship between Carrion and Ziane is subtly done and it’s not surprising when they eventually kiss.

The world building is intricate – it starts off as a faery story set in a closed world and then expands to become science fiction novel of failed space exploration and terraforming, and the sort of society that grows up in the confines of a crashed colony ship with uneven access to power sources, technology and information. I realised they were probably in an artificial structure fairly early in the novel, but I though it was a space station, until Ziane saw the window that ‘drove Carrion mad’ behind Ari’s thrown room. The clues to the reality of the situation are cleverly placed, so that as Ziane makes new discoveries and starts to remember things they slot into place.

The writing is very easy to read and I felt drawn into the story. I read most of the book in one go, so finishing it today was fairly quick. I just wish I knew what happens next. Do the Astrosi lose their powers? Do the humans realise they can leave the Bastian? Has the terraforming worked? What happens to Ziane and Carrion?

I’ve read three of Ciel Pierlot’s novels and each one has left me wanting a sequel, but especially Bluebird and, now, Terms of Service. Ciel Pierlot writes science fiction and science fantasy better than she writes pure fantasy, although that might be because as much as I enjoyed The Hunter’s Gambit, I prefer both Terms of Service and Bluebird. Your milage may vary.

Highly recommended.