Space colonization had not been the great equalizer the capitalist billionaires had advertised. When their homes vanished due to the rising seas, the people of the Antillean islands found no sanctuary from any nation on Terra. With nowhere to go, they signed contracts that put them back in bondage, to work jobs on the far-flung mining and agricultural planets. [loc. 204]
This novella, described by the publisher as 'a queer Caribbean anti-colonial Count of Monte Cristo set in space', snagged my interest. Virika Sameroo lives in the Æcerbot Empire: the Exterran Antilles star system is nominally independent, but economically and politically subjugated by a number of competing empires. Virika has risen quickly to first lieutenant in the Æcerbot merchant fleet -- but when her captain dies under suspicious circumstances, a jealous rival frames her for murder and treason, and Virika is imprisoned in solitary confinement in the terrible Pit of the prison planet Tintaris. When she creates art in her cell, she's punished. She is medicated, without her consent. She has no hope of escape: but one of the warders, Kalima, is sympathetic to her plight. And finally Virika, with a decade's worth of rage, is free...
Countess has the framework of a good novel, but doesn't really work at novella level. There's little sense of the passage of time (that 'decade's worth of rage' comes from a random comment about something happening a decade ago) and the vengeance consists mostly of piracy and sabotage, with a side order of tracking down the rival who framed her. Virika's title of 'Countess' is never really justified, and her personal relationships feel shallow.
There is much to like here, but I'd have enjoyed it more at novel length with more depth, more sense of the interminable imprisonment, more explication of Virika's post-prison rise to success and happiness.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 10 SEP 2024.
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