Book Review – Ragamuffin
Author: Tobias Buckell
Cover Artist: Todd Lockwood
Publisher: Tor
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date: June 2007
Ragamuffin is the second work by Carribean-born Tobias Buckell, I reviewed its prequel Crystal Rain last August at my blog and was pleasantly surprised how well the writer blended different styles and genres together in an exciting novel. In many ways the novel, although it could be considered a science fiction effort, had a distinct adventurous feel to it. I remember using the word ‘refreshing’ quite a lot, as it was the perfect word to illustrate that setting. If you have not picked it up, I would recommend you doing so. Later on in the novel, the science fiction elements gained the upper hand. Ragamuffin pretty much continues onward in this trend, yet it almost reads as a book of a whole other series. The first half of the novel is firmly set in outerspace – away from the familiar planet of New Anagada- in a space opera setting. The first part also serves to introduce and add an another bunch interesting characters to the cast, Nashara a technologically advanced human hailing from the planet of Chimson being the most notable addition. This switch of settings actually caught me a bit off guard, but I quickly grew fond of the space opera theme. Admittedly, my experience with space operas is rather limited, I have not read any of the classic space operas in the genre but reading this book did make me want to pick up more examples dealing with these settings. It demonstrates how well Buckell’s writing thrives in such an environment and how well he succeeded in making the setting as plausible as possible. In the second half of the novel, there is a reacquainting with our old friends from Crystal Rain, John deBrun, his son Jerome (whose actions play more significant to the overall story than they did in Crystal Rain) and of course my favourite, Pepper. It was in this second half of the novel that things really kicked in higher gear. Not surprisingly, the various plot-lines were tied together in these latter chapters. I won’t go into details, but I think it was rather deftly done how these different characters ‘clashed’ and were forced to cooperate in some instances. It confirmed once again the qualities of Buckell as a writer.
On to the reviewing part. I can safely conclude that this was a very satisfying read, providing me with a lot entertaining hours spanning over the 300 odd pages. The prose was good and enjoyable but not mindblowing. When it comes that aspect of a book, I tend to enjoy the (what I consider) more difficult prose to access, the darkly poetic styles wielded by Steven Erikson and R. Scott Bakker come to my mind, but it is not a mandatory thing in order to really enjoy the book overall. I can still enjoy a book quite a lot even when there is no real groundbreaking prose to speak of. Of course, when there is groundbreaking prose to speak of, it naturally is as an especially satisfying bonus which usually results in a higher level of enjoyment. In this case, the prose was certainly solid enough and supported the story nicely for me to enjoy the novel overall. One of the strengths of this novel is the characterization, especially Nashara the newest addition to the cast, was portrayed in an interesting way. The novel benefited quite well from another ‘strong’ (in terms of personality) character, because she can kick ass ladies and gentlemen. When the advanced technology came into play, it produced some amazing scenes that left me grinning like a madman. The stucture of the short chapters (at times barely one page) also enabled Buckell to switch point of views in high rate, thus every character got plenty the attention and polishing he/she deserved. This in turn affected the level of characterization in a positive way.
However, with regard to the short chapters, there was one downside. Although the characterization did benefit from the point of view switching, the pacing certainly did not. The pacing was actually the only really major drawback of this book. I mentioned earlier that in the latter parts of the book the characters met up with each-other, needless to say the frequency of the chapter switching increased there as well. It resulted in a rather fragmented sequence of action scenes, it almost felt too ‘jumpy’. It was as if Tobias Buckell had trouble keeping all the balls in the air at the same time. It was also difficult to gain a clear view of what was exactly going on at the same time, I imagine these parts would have improved in quality when the author would have chosen to settle with one character to describe the action from. The plotting was mostly OK, Buckell tied up most of the plot lines quite nicely like I said earlier on, but there still was one plot line that seemed pretty pointless in the end. Thinking back to it, I can’t actually recall what purpose it served other than a more thorough introduction to the ruthless methods of the alien Satrapy make use of when controlling humanoids all over the universe. When push came to shove, the boy and the girl featured in the plot line were cast aside as characters without any importance. I do hope that Tobias Buckell has something up his sleeve for them in the next novel Sly Mongoose (which will be published in 2008) otherwise the whole thing seemed a precious waste of time. So far there is one thing that Tobias Buckell has succeeded in pulling off in both novels, quite an accomplishment really, and that is in giving each respective work a kind of Caribbean flavor that makes it stands out as an unique work from the rest of the pack. It is fun to see how his Caribbean background is gradually incorporated in the story and setting, with the Ragamuffins (who talk in some sort of Caribbean version of English), who could be dubbed as the Caribbean Space Cowboys, being the perfect examples to illustrate that.
So in short, Ragamuffin was an enjoyable novel with memorable characters to whom I look forward meeting again in the next novel Sly Mongoose. The rapid switching from different point of views in the latter parts of the novel does result in a bit awkward pacing, but the solid characterization, the unique Caribbean flavor and the craftly executed space opera setting fully make up for this major drawback. An accomplished second novel by a clearly talented author.
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