The Fourth Consort

In Ashton’s (Mal Goes to War) latest, the Unity and the Alliance are enemies locked in a race to scoop up possible client civilizations over the wide sweep of the galaxy, but this isn’t a story about the glories of war and conquest. Instead, the conflict between human Dalton Greaves and “stickman” Breaker takes place at the intersection of communication and commerce. They understand each other’s words but have little grasp of each other’s culture and context. As they fumble through misapprehension and misunderstanding, they eventually come to the realization that they have more in common with each other than with the cultures that sent them. This is a deep surprise of a story as it contemplates the perils and pitfalls of communication and the difficulty of reaching anything like understanding with a species with which one shares few if any frames of reference.