Cauldron of Ghosts by David Weber and Eric Flint
Published by Baen Books
Cover art by David Mattingly
Cover design by Carol Russo Design
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
This book is the third volume in one of the first side-branch storylines of David Weber's Honorverse. This sub-series came into existence as it became increasingly obvious that the Honorverse was becoming a victim of its own success. When At All Costs came out, a lot of readers started complaining that it was a tangled mess of multiple storylines, so many that it was almost impossible to keep track of them all. There were even concerns that David Weber had become "too big to edit," that Jim Baen was too worried about messing with success and no longer willing to insist on excellence.
And then Jim Baen announced a new strategy for dealing with the explosive proliferation of storylines within the Honorverse novels: some of them would be branched out into their own sub-series. The story of Honor's friends and proteges would be branched into the Saganami Island series, while the story of the battle against the genetic slavers of Mesa would become the Wages of Sin series. That sub-series had begun almost by accident, when Eric Flint was invited to write a story for the Honorverse anthology Changer of Worlds, and wanted a scenario in which a Manticorian could plausibly work together with an agent of Haven.
Thus began the partnership of Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat. They're quite the political odd couple, especially when their respective star nations are officially at war. But both the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the (People's) Republic of Haven have a long-standing opposition to genetic slavery as an abomination against the fundamental rights of all people. Although neither star nation has been in a position to openly oppose the genetic slavers of Manpower, Inc and the other megacorps of the planet of Mesa, both have been quite happy to do that crew a bad turn by proxy, providing covert support for the various groups that did bring the fight to the genetic slavers. And they were happy to enforce the Cherwell Convention, a multi-lateral agreement that equated trade in genetic slaves with piracy -- and treated the presence of certain apparatus on a spaceship as evidence of engagement in the genetic slave trade even if no slaves were found onboard.
The status quo changed radically in the first volume of this sub-series, Crown of Slaves, with the liberation of the notorious plantation planet of Verdant Vista, nicknamed Congo by those who knew of the horrors taking place there. Renamed Torch, it was declared a home for all genetic slaves. Think Liberia done right, not as a dumping ground to make the problem of freedmen go away, but as a genuine homeland with support from powerful and committed allies (of course it also helps that the planet has no indigenous sophonts, so they won't have to worry about encroaching upon anyone in the process of making a home for themselves and their descendants). The second volume, Torch of Freedom was partly about the new star nation's initial struggles -- but it was also the story of the effort to take that struggle to the heart of the problem, Mesa itself.
In the process of a covert scouting mission to Mesa, Victor and Anton made connections with people at all levels of Mesan society who were not comfortable with what was going on in their society. For the "seccies" or second-class citizens, stigmatized descendants of the very first generations of genetic slaves who were emancipated while it was still possible, it is a burning but frustrated resentment of the restrictions of a caste society. But even some of the people at the top of the system are starting to see the gap between the high ideals on which Mesa was founded and the things that Mesa is actually doing and promoting, and realizing that there is a point at which no matter how noble the ends, they cannot justify these means.
That novel ended in a bang, with a disaffected security agent setting off a nuclear weapon in order to give sufficient cover to enable a bereaved father to get off world with information about Mesa's long-term plans and goals. But it was also clear that those actions had set off much larger long-range consequences.
In this novel we discover just how big those consequences are: the mysterious Mesan Alignment which operates deep within layers of obfuscation has decided that their cover has been blown and it's time to bug out. It's a plan they've been preparing for ages, and they have even worked out strategies for making sure that they can take all possible advantage of the chaos and disruption that will be created when they have to make people disappear. Since they have to cover the "signal" of significant disappearances with plenty of "noise," they will blame the mass casualty events upon terrorist activities by the opponents of genetic slavery, particularly the Audobon Ballroom, whom they condemn as terrorists.
Meanwhile, Anton and Victor are preparing for a second covert trip to Mesa, this time for more in-depth work to develop and encourage local opposition to the Mesan government. However, they are known to the government from their last visit, and in a universe with sophisticated DNA recognition, they can't just run up a bunch of fake documentation and some superficial changes in their appearance. Any disguise that will provide meaningful protection must be far more sophisticated, which means the use of nanotech to alter not only their appearance, but also the DNA traces they leave behind.
In the process we discover just why the Honorverse has such uneven technological development, with spaceships that fly between the stars in days and weeks, but very limited robotics and AI and very little in the way of nanotechnology. People still live in Mark 1 biological bodies, and are totally dependent upon the body they get at birth for continued existence. There is no uploading of minds or any of the cool stuff we see in ultra-tech worlds like Eclipse Phase, which in theory shouldn't be covered by taboos against genetic tampering.
As it turns out, the Final War was a lot more than just genetic super-soldiers gone wild and turning on their masters. It didn't even stop with genetically engineered viruses and other nasties. There were also nano-plagues, killer robots, and other things so vile that even trained military elites prefer not to discuss them in much detail. Small wonder that the trauma of those years should have resulted in taboos so powerful that people who are too old to benefit from Prolong when their planet is brought into the Star Empire of Manticore will accept death of old age rather than try to beat it with nanotechnology or other methods. Even if someone had the money to get someone to bend the rules and do it, a person who is visibly not aging normally but not a Prolong recipient will be a social pariah to the point that, even if they don't face criminal charges, they soon will find all their wealth of no meaningful value to them.
The first part of the novel has a lot of "housekeeping" chapters as the various plans are made, although there is one very dramatic battle when a slave ship gets caught in the process of making a delivery. But once our heroes arrive on Mesa, things really start ramping up. First, they have to make connections with the seccies, which means making connections with the criminal gangs that have become the only effective local government in those sectors. Of course that means establishing that they are predators even more aggressive and dangerous than those who head up these gangs, and that it is far wiser and more profitable to work with them than try to prey upon them.
And then everything comes to a head in a violent battle. Mesa's government is trying to spin it as the vile criminal activities of known terrorists against the innocent citizens of a peaceable star nation, but pretty soon the ugliness levels reach the point that the prating of the Culture and Information goons reach Baghdad Bob levels of ridiculousness.
At first glance, the ending of this novel seems to suggest that this will be the conclusion of that storyline. But that's just the effect of the relief at the realization that this battle is over and the good guys have not just won, but survived and been honored for their heroism. Somewhere out there, the elite of the Mesan Alignment are hiding in their bolthole, so secret that they have been shown to be willing to kill anyone who accidentally stumbles upon the wormhole gate to the system. And given how long the Mesans nursed their grudge against Beowulf after being driven out of that society, it's pretty obvious that these are not people who are going to just let bygones be bygones.
No, there's going to be more trouble from the Mesan Alignment. The only question is how soon, and whether it will constitute a direct continuation of this storyline.
Review posted June 20, 2018.
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