Miles Cameron’s Deep Black picks up exactly where Artifact Space left off and provides enough context in the first chapters to catch the reader up. Marca Nbaro is now a hero of her ship and she is off to explore the deep-black area of space and interact with other alien races. The book expands the literary and physical universes to include a wider human conspiracy, spaceship battles, and break the final frontier.
Deep Black goes deeper into human-alien relationships and what it means to explore the vastness of space, and prompts the reader to question authority and Nbaro’s dedication to the service. Additionally, it also plants the seed of whether artificial intelligence should be trusted or not. This novel opens the panorama of the Arcana Imperii saga by hinting at a bigger conspiracy and leaving the ending quite open. In contrast to its prequel, Deep Black is less predictive and a lot more action packed. The jump from merchants to warriors is not rushed and follows a logical progression.
The book is mostly a medium-burn story with action interjections to keep the pace entertaining. However, its biggest strength lies in the slowest of moments: whenever Nbaro interacts with an alien and tries to learn their language. The stakes are high as Nbaro tries to establish a relationship with an alien and forge an alliance, and the call-back to Arrival (2016, dir. Denis Villenueve) is both inevitable and enjoyable.
And talking of things in this book that remind me of other things, the artificial intelligence in the book definitely reminded me of The Machine, from Person of Interest (2011-2016). Both artificial intelligences are all-seeing, all-knowing, all-listening and rely on their human agents to see their wills through. The issue of how much power an AI actually has and how this affects humans is underneath the surface throughout the book. Nevertheless, it did not quite finish its baking process.
Questioning authority and facing authoritarianism are at the core of the novel, but both the narrative voice and Nbaro seem to be a little afraid of dealing with it. Nbaro keeps postponing thinking about it, and the AI is never held accountable for playing chess with humans. The novel introduces a war of politics, but it is a little shy to see it through. Hopefully, this is just a sneak peek of what is to come in the next book.
Overall, the book takes advantage of its sequel status and goes deeper into the Arcana Imperii universe. I read both books back to back, so I enjoyed the little rabbit hole I went down. This novel is for you if you are looking for Arrival vibes and humans learning how to communicate with aliens, a conspiracy plot with a lot of layers, and witnessing Marca Nbaro’s growth arc.
Adriana Acevedo is an editor, writer, and sleep paralysis demon. She's been published in magazines like samfiftyfour and Impostor. She's bilingual and living in the monstruos Mexico City. Whenever she's not reading horror stories or watching horror movies, she's baking sourdough bread. Read more of her writing here.