The Fourth Consort is a new standalone science fiction novel from the currently red-hot Edward Ashton (writer of Mickey 7). The premise is relatively straightforward, but interesting. The dialogue is funny, but thoughtful. The book isn’t reinventing the wheel, but I still had a good time.
Dalton Greaves is one of humankind’s first representatives to Unity, a pan-species confederation working to bring all sentient life into a single benevolent brotherhood. That’s what he was told when he signed up anyway. Now he is on a long-haul crew indentured to spread galactic “peace and harmony” to new species and help them get uplifted before a different evil cosmic organization (The Assembly) can corrupt potential new members with their wayward ideas.
Dalton and the other members of his team land on a new alien planet populated by horrifying insectoid alpha predators. In the process of negotiating their new membership, an Assembly cruiser arrives. The Unity and Assembly cruisers murder each other’s crews and destroy all their spacecraft, leaving only Dalton and the Assembly ambassador to try and convince the natives to their side of the conflict. Dalton is then exposed to increasing levels of introspection that force him to cope with things like realizing he’s on the wrong side of history, trying to square his moral compass with a desire for survival, and processing becoming the fourth husband to an enormous ant queen alien.
The Fourth Consort is short, sweet, and feels like a small pool that is surprisingly deep. Ashton has a pretty transparent agenda from page one as to where the story is going, and he doesn’t waste a lot of time with subplots or side quests in his journey to take us to the meat of his idea. Dalton realizes fairly early on that he is likely working for the “bad guys” (with the bad guys essentially being capitalism), and is then set a harsh deadline with clear stakes that he must weigh before deciding which way to jump. It is a simple thematic setup, but there is an enjoyable number of perspectives and considerations explored before the leap is made.
While I thought the themes were fun and interesting, the plot was a little meandering and didn’t go anywhere particularly interesting. A huge part of the conflict resolution revolves around the clear buildup to a twist that is fairly telegraphed, and it makes the entire thing feel a little bit like an exercise in political theory more than a fleshed-out novel. I like the ideas on display here, but I wish the landscape surrounding the philosophies were a little more convincing.
The characters are very fun. Between Dalton, the Stickman (Assembly ambassador), and the insectoid aliens, there was a really good intersection of culture clash and character evolution. A pretty clever plot device that Ashton introduces is that Dalton’s translator is inadequate, but it uses algorithms to learn and improve its understanding of the other species’ languages as the book progresses. This begins with garbled and partially translated conversations at the start of the book, which become clearer and cleaner as the book progresses. Our protagonist mirrors this change, as he comes to understand and interact with these two different cultures himself. It is a fun and clever literary choice, and it greatly endeared the entire book to me.
In the end, The Fourth Consort was a quick read that I blasted through on a flight in a single sitting. Ashton didn’t provide me with the complete checklist of needs for me to put this on my favorite bookshelf, but what he did offer I enjoyed quite a lot. If you are looking for a short sci-fi banger and you enjoyed either Mickey7 or Mickey17, this will probably be right up your alley.
Rating: The Fourth Consort – 8.0/10
-Andrew
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
