Pawn: A Chronicle of the Sibyl’s War

Low-level gang member Nicole Hammond spends her nights getting blackout drunk. It’s worth the constant hangovers to quiet the voices in her head. Then, one morning, she’s forced awake by her maybe-ex-boyfriend, Bungie. He’s bleeding from a bullet wound to the abdomen and wants her to drive him to the hospital. His plan is to kidnap a doctor at gunpoint for a private outpatient procedure.

Then comes the twist: Aliens swoop in and abduct Nicole, Bungie, and the hapless doctor (don’t feel bad for him, he’s an asshole). It turns out that Nicole hears voices because she is a Sibyl, a special human who can commune with the aliens’ ship, the Fyrantha. She is put in charge of a work crew of fellow-abductees. Her new job is to listen to the ship and tell the crew what needs fixing.

Nicole settles into this new living situation. Bungie, however, wants out. He’s looking for an angle and rebels against the status quo. His violent impulses raise some eyebrows. Plato, the leader of the human workforce, warns them that the aliens must never see humans fighting. Pure logic would suggest that he explain why. But, no, that’s being saved for the big reveal.

In the early stages, I was excited about the prospect of a space opera starring a gang banger from Philly. This seemed like a great genre mashup. Unfortunately, Nicole’s background is little more than window dressing. We never get a real sense of what she is capable of or what she’s done. It’s so glossed over that I began to wonder if I was reading a young adult novel. Maybe the author just doesn’t know the thug life.

But never mind. There are bigger problems that left me scratching my head.

First, Nicole spends half the book passively reacting to everything that happens around her. Given her circumstances, she asks shockingly few questions. She simply has no agency, which makes her a frustrating viewpoint into this world. She is finally pressed into action when she stumbles upon a huge, forested arena. The ship’s overlords have set two alien species to fight to the death over limited rations. The faces of two starving alien creature children weigh heavily on Nicole’s mind. She decides to do something about it.

I won’t reveal what happens next, except to say the mysteries of the Fyrantha take a backseat to this new conflict. All of the characters and worldbuilding we’ve established up to this point vanish. It almost feels as though the author, Timothy Zahn, cobbled this together from two short stories. I kept wondering if Nicole would round a corner and stumble into her work crew. “Where have you been?” they’d yell. This does happen eventually, but by then, everyone is afflicted with Nicole’s initial apathy. Oh well.

The novel ends with very little resolved except to set up the next book. If this sounds lackluster, that’s because it is. Pawn is a 350-page preamble. It’s like a table-setting episode of prestige television. Not much happens until the final pages. Even then, it is only to establish what will follow. Naysayers will argue that this is the start of a trilogy, but it feels more like the first two episodes of a season-long arc.

Look, this isn’t great fiction, but it’s a fairly brisk read. I’m curious enough about where it is going to check out the sequel. You could charitably say it left me wanting more.