James Nicoll Reviews

Walter Jon Williams’ Ambassador of Progress is a stand-alone anthropological science fiction novel. Although Williams was a veteran author by 1984, Ambassador was his debut SF novel.

Fiona, her close friend Kira, and the rest of their starship crew intend to guide a planet (Demro to some, Achadan to others) towards modernity. Fione’s path takes her to Arrandal. Kira’s takes her to Neda-Calacas.

Arrandal and Neda-Calacas are about to go to war.

Arrandal and Neda-Calacas are both merchant cities belonging to the Elva vor Denorru-Dorsu, the Alliance of/for Community of Interests. Their ruling councils have a keen eye for profit. For military expertise, they rely on hired soldiers. Previously they hired local mercenaries. Lately they’ve taken on the Brodaini.

The Brodaini arrived as refugees, fleeing a lost war in far-off Gostandu. The Brodaini ruling caste are warriors. This would make them ideal mercenaries, were it not for the fact that Alliance and Brodaini values are very different. Considerable care must be taken not to offend the haughty, easily provoked Brodaini¹.

Tegestu leads the Brodaini employed by Arrandal. He is alarmed to receive a message from Tastis, his counterpart in Neda-Calacas, that in response to an unforgivable affront from his employers, Tastis has murdered Neda-Calacas’ rulers and taken the city for his own.

Tastis’ coup cannot be tolerated. The challenge facing Tegestu, in Arrandal, is two-fold: he must overthrow Tastis and convince the Alliance that the rest of the Brodaini are loyal.

Life in Elva vor Denorru-Dorsu has suddenly become all too eventful.

This is not an ideal moment for the starship folk to make first contact. The visitors are supposed to be neutrals in service of a higher goal, one that they have not yet revealed to the locals. Tastis, the Brodaini usurper, has no respect for this supposed neutrality. He sees the alien tech as invaluable and tries to force Kira to share it. She dies, leaving her fellow envoy, Fione, with a pressing problem. Should personal vengeance trump official neutrality?

~oOo~

Although I am using the original mass market paperback cover art, the edition I read before writing this review the 2012 revision, which is the author’s preferred edition.

As is often the case, Walter Jon Williams posted online about the genesis of Ambassador of Progress and other novels. A shocking blackmail deal was involved. Not for this novel, but the next. When I reviewed Knight Moves last month, I completely forgot about the whole blackmail deal, so I will link to it here for folks curious about how the sausage gets made.

Ambassador was the first SF novel by Williams I’d read². As previously established, it wasn’t the book that hooked me on his work, although clearly Ambassador was good enough to ensure that I picked up the next WJW I saw.

In retrospect, I was unduly harsh back in 1984. Ambassador is skillfully written and the characters are engaging. However, on first reading I was distracted by elements of the setting.

We are told why Fiona’s people are so eager to fast-forward technological progress on backward colony worlds³. WJW has come up with some interesting concepts which are almost entirely superfluous to the actual plot. Maybe if the book had had a sequel, those issues could have been resolved in a more interesting way.

A closely related issue is that I was expecting a first contact novel, but what I actually got was a condottieri military adventure.

But that may just have been MY problem. If you don’t start reading with the same expectations, you may quite enjoy this book. If what you’d like is a military SF novel, one in which the conflict is enormously complicated by profound cultural gulfs, Ambassador is what you are looking for.

Ambassador of Progress is available here (from the author), here (Barnes & Noble), and here (Kobo).

Ambassador of Progress does not appear to be available from any branch of Bookshop, Chapters-Indigo, or Words Worth Books. My guess is it is ebook only.

1: A good way to provoke a Brodaini to violence is to call them a mercenary. They see themselves as warriors of unimpeachable honor.

2: And now I am kicking myself because I am trying to tackle all subsequent WJW works in chronological order and I’ve already skipped something by him that I know I read before Ambassador. Ah, well. Next month, if we’re still alive.

3: As it is motivation, not actual plot, I won’t treat this as a spoiler. Way back when, the Terrans settled the nearer part of the galaxy until they discovered their reliable FTL drive had catastrophic side effects on a galactic scale. When one of the handful of surviving planets clawed its way back to interstellar-level technology, they detected a vast alien fleet en route from the inner part of the Milky Way. The aliens are determined to prevent a repeat of the cosmic whoops by exterminating all humans. As they’re prudently not using FTL, we have some time to prepare.

Avoiding this sort of judgemental reaction is likely why the aliens in the Kyrra novels prefer to conceal the fact the Milky Way explosion is entirely their fault.