So Michael Cobley picks up where Seeds of Earth left off, continuing the story of humanity among the stars. This book certainly is, as the jacket blurb from Iain M. Banks proclaims, “galaxy-spanning”, and this reviewer confesses that it took a while to get in to the swing of thing, picking up numerous plot-lines and characters over a year since reading the first volume being an act that requires better recall than I possess. As a digression, it’s interesting that some authors of series in the SF&F genres provide a precis of what’s gone before, and others don’t, seemingly as a matter of principle – and Orphaned Worlds, however good it is (and it is very good) would definitely have benefited.

While the first book focused mostly on the action on the human colony of Darien, ‘lost’ to galactic civilisation for a long time before its discovery by the Sendrukan Hegemony, The Orphaned Worlds casts its net far wider, properly encompassing for the first time the fate of all three human colony ships that were launched to ensure the survival of humanity during the Swarm Wars. As well as the inhabitants of Darien, now locked in to an unequal struggle with the Sendrukan and Brolturan aliens who came proclaiming friendship, there are the Tygrans, a martial society of humans used as elite commandos by the Sendrukans, but whose history may not be all it appears to be, and the Asiatic peoples of Pilot Kao Chih, imprisoned and enslaved by alien overlords.

The fate of humanity, though, is a small part of a much bigger game – the ancient conflict between the Legion of Avatars, whose AI-tentacles reach deep in to the consciousness of some races, and the Founders. Human Ambassador Robert Horst is on a vital mission for the Founders in to the depths of Hyperspace, which here acts as a kind of alternate spatial reality, aided by a sentient droid and a sentient ship (whose mutual contempt is very enjoyable), while elsewhere a Legion Knight makes its way to Darien and infiltrates the planet, making the war that the rebels are fighting against the Brolturans that much harder. At stake is possession of the Warp Well discovered at the start of the first book – if it falls to the enemy, the Legion of Avatars can once again unleash chaos in the universe.

Cobley has given himself a number of plates to keep spinning, following the adventures of numerous key characters spread across half the galaxy, but keep them spinning he does, and the story fairly zips along. In the best tradition of the second book of a trilogy, things look pretty bleak at the end, but with the prospect of the lost tribes of humanity uniting for the first time, with powerful allies to aid them, you can’t help but feel it will all turn out for the best. Enjoyable twisty-turny space opera that packs a mighty punch, with the lack of a volume 1 recap being the only thing to complain about. Roll on book three…

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