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Inverted Frontier #4
Blade
The starship Dragon, accompanied by its fleet of outriders, is faring ever deeper into that region known as the Hallowed Vasties. Here, at the shattered heart of ancient human civilization, once-living worlds were ripped apart by the dimensional intrusions of a Blade. Yet despite the apocalyptic-scale destruction, the fleet’s telescopes have picked out signs of life among the ruins and the ship’s company is eager to go on—but should they?
From his post on Dragon’s high bridge, Urban looks ahead to the smaller starship, Griffin, now far, far in front of the fleet. The mind that pilots that ship—a stern and colder version of his lover, Clemantine—has gone silent. The implication chills him. Like Dragon, Griffin was an alien warship, designed to destroy without mercy all living worlds, and it still has a mind of its own. The question that haunts Has that alien mind somehow reclaimed control of Griffin?
It’s a question he must answer, and soon. Every wonder that lies ahead—and every ambition hidden within his heart—is at risk while Griffin’s true nature remains unknown.
From his post on Dragon’s high bridge, Urban looks ahead to the smaller starship, Griffin, now far, far in front of the fleet. The mind that pilots that ship—a stern and colder version of his lover, Clemantine—has gone silent. The implication chills him. Like Dragon, Griffin was an alien warship, designed to destroy without mercy all living worlds, and it still has a mind of its own. The question that haunts Has that alien mind somehow reclaimed control of Griffin?
It’s a question he must answer, and soon. Every wonder that lies ahead—and every ambition hidden within his heart—is at risk while Griffin’s true nature remains unknown.
372 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 5, 2024
111 people are currently reading
112 people want to read
About the author
Linda Nagata
109 books659 followersI'm a writer from Hawaii best known for my high-tech science fiction, including the near-future thriller,
The Last Good Man
, and the far-future adventure series, INVERTED FRONTIER.
Though I don't review books on Goodreads, I do talk about some of my favorite books on my blog and those posts are echoed here. So I invite you to follow me for news of books and many other things. You can also visit my website to learn more about my work, and to sign up for my newsletter.
Though I don't review books on Goodreads, I do talk about some of my favorite books on my blog and those posts are echoed here. So I invite you to follow me for news of books and many other things. You can also visit my website to learn more about my work, and to sign up for my newsletter.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 31, 2024
A step up from Books 2 & 3. A solid 4-star read, recommended reading for Inverted Frontier and Linda Nagata fans. But don't start here! If you are new to the series, start at the first, EDGES, which I liked a lot: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... 4.5 stars!
My comments there apply: if you like star-smashing galaxy-ranging space opera that actually has some (loose) scientific plausibility, this is your kind of book! I love this stuff. And Nagata sets the stage nicely for Book 5, the series wrap-up promised for next year. I'll be reading on.
The long review here to read is John Folk-Williams's: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Excerpt: the book "builds to a feverishly paced climax that makes Blade a high point of the series. Nagata has created a unique and powerful form of space adventure."
As he notes, BLADE doesn't offer much background for what has gone before.
I have a couple of Kindle highlights posted here: https://www.goodreads.com/notes/20521...
My comments there apply: if you like star-smashing galaxy-ranging space opera that actually has some (loose) scientific plausibility, this is your kind of book! I love this stuff. And Nagata sets the stage nicely for Book 5, the series wrap-up promised for next year. I'll be reading on.
The long review here to read is John Folk-Williams's: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Excerpt: the book "builds to a feverishly paced climax that makes Blade a high point of the series. Nagata has created a unique and powerful form of space adventure."
As he notes, BLADE doesn't offer much background for what has gone before.
I have a couple of Kindle highlights posted here: https://www.goodreads.com/notes/20521...
February 9, 2025
This time the crew has come across a functional alien civilization, or at least the artificial lifeforms created by that civilization which forms its own separate civilization. Humanity has long distrusted artificial intelligence due to their propensity to try to destroy all biological life, but perhaps they were created by humans. AI created by aliens may be entirely different. There's only one way to find out, and they may be the key needed to unlock even greater technological wonders.
The alien AI are suitably alien aren't merely humans described differently. They hate all biological life because it's unclean and causes them shun any member who comes into microbes or anything else biological. For the sake of their advance they're willing and able to overcome their disgust and the existential threat posed by humanity. Biological life has all other sorts of shortcomings, but there's no sense to hold that against them.
The ethics of the characters continue to make me wonder. There's seemingly only two solutions to ethical dilemmas. Either ignore them entirely or destroy their source. There's no working through them, coming to a compromise, or otherwise interacting with them. They're nothing if not ruthlessly decisive regardless of what the matter is. The primary benefit of this is that it doesn't involve many pages of moping, agonizing, or otherwise discussing decisions internally or externally. It does make the character seem rather callous at times though.
The biggest problem I have with this series is that it hypes something up only for it the fizzle out over and over again. It's basically "Here's a really cool thing. Woah, wouldn't it be awesome if we did this? Think of the implications! Did you think of them? Yeah, I think the same way, so it's a good thing we're not going to let the cool thing happen in any meaningful way. Consider all the problems that would cause. Anyway, here's a really cool thing..." Maybe it's intentional and trying to teach a lesson that not everything should be done and that we ought to be glad when our recklessly cool plans are obstructed. Even so, it makes me want to see the teacher after class and give them a failing grade.
Despite that, the promises made for the last book are grand ones indeed. I know that I should doubt them and expect that the same thing will happen yet again, but I want to believe. Surely the promise of cool thing and neat stuff will be fulfilled next time. If they aren't, well, that'd be disappointing but in line with what's come before and I won't judge it harshly for that.
Rating: 3.5/5
The alien AI are suitably alien aren't merely humans described differently. They hate all biological life because it's unclean and causes them shun any member who comes into microbes or anything else biological. For the sake of their advance they're willing and able to overcome their disgust and the existential threat posed by humanity. Biological life has all other sorts of shortcomings, but there's no sense to hold that against them.
The ethics of the characters continue to make me wonder. There's seemingly only two solutions to ethical dilemmas. Either ignore them entirely or destroy their source. There's no working through them, coming to a compromise, or otherwise interacting with them. They're nothing if not ruthlessly decisive regardless of what the matter is. The primary benefit of this is that it doesn't involve many pages of moping, agonizing, or otherwise discussing decisions internally or externally. It does make the character seem rather callous at times though.
The biggest problem I have with this series is that it hypes something up only for it the fizzle out over and over again. It's basically "Here's a really cool thing. Woah, wouldn't it be awesome if we did this? Think of the implications! Did you think of them? Yeah, I think the same way, so it's a good thing we're not going to let the cool thing happen in any meaningful way. Consider all the problems that would cause. Anyway, here's a really cool thing..." Maybe it's intentional and trying to teach a lesson that not everything should be done and that we ought to be glad when our recklessly cool plans are obstructed. Even so, it makes me want to see the teacher after class and give them a failing grade.
Despite that, the promises made for the last book are grand ones indeed. I know that I should doubt them and expect that the same thing will happen yet again, but I want to believe. Surely the promise of cool thing and neat stuff will be fulfilled next time. If they aren't, well, that'd be disappointing but in line with what's come before and I won't judge it harshly for that.
Rating: 3.5/5
August 8, 2025
The crew of far-future posthuman explorers rides on. They deal with the murderous Chenzeme philosopher cells on which they are dependent, meet some new and unexpected entities, divert their course to find out more about them, and get past a lot of scruples to attempt to create a blade.
Nagata rightly doesn't do much exposition to bring the reader up to date. Between that and the fact that the series pulls several of her older series together, this book is not a standalone, and the reader should have at read at least all the previous Inverted Frontier books. I have, but went a while before reading this, and it took me a while to remember many of the characters. Of course, Clementine and Urban are the most prominent and memorable, and this book guides them, I think, back to a bit more humility/vulnerability (there are some serious fails) and humanity.
Nagata rightly doesn't do much exposition to bring the reader up to date. Between that and the fact that the series pulls several of her older series together, this book is not a standalone, and the reader should have at read at least all the previous Inverted Frontier books. I have, but went a while before reading this, and it took me a while to remember many of the characters. Of course, Clementine and Urban are the most prominent and memorable, and this book guides them, I think, back to a bit more humility/vulnerability (there are some serious fails) and humanity.
August 15, 2025
Ugh, simply wonderful. This series was so beautifully well done, so complex and profound, so innovative that I lack the words to analyze its wonders. Clementine and Urban both had significant character arcs in this installment. So much grief over past actions and so many emotions to work through. So many alien and unconventional perspectives. Ugh, deliciously complex on many fronts, including human, societal and engineering
March 29, 2024
Loved it : )
The mistake I made was not reading the first three again before the fourth!
Love Linda's works
The mistake I made was not reading the first three again before the fourth!
Love Linda's works
Read
April 4, 2024Another weird, cool, inventive, far-future novel in Nagata’s Inverted Frontier series.
March 10, 2024
there's a lot going on in this hard sf series, #4 of 5 in the far future with all these posthuman adventurers sailing across time in the universe, and it's all captivating if you start at the beginning. i've been reading Linda Nagata for a long time and she never lets me down. great climax too, and an intriguing setup for Book 5, when she gets that one written.
March 9, 2025
The blurb is misleading -- this book is not actually focused on Griffin. That storyline was resolved pretty early in the book, and fortunately so because it left the rest of the book for much more interesting stories and action. Can't wait for the conclusion.
February 4, 2024
In previous novels of the Inverted Frontier series (Edges, Silver and Needle), Linda Nagata often posed the question of what it took to retain humanity in the face of alien power. In Blade Inverted Frontier 4 (out of a projected 5 volume series) she confronts as never before the potential of human destructiveness. Is it possible for humans to use nearly god-like energies for benign purposes, and can they even control the power they have come to possess?
The theme is sounded at the outset of Blade Inverted Frontier 4. The converted living warship Dragon, once an alien engine of destruction but long under the control of the human leader Urban, is guiding a small fleet of ships with several dozen humans on a millennia-long voyage. They are traveling from the last known outpost of human settlement back to the scene of destruction of what had been Earth and its many outlying settled planets and systems. Scouting ahead is another converted warship, Griffin, a living entity like Dragon that was once under the control of a vanished race called the Chenzeme, dedicated to seeking out and destroying other forms of intelligent life.
Griffin is guided by sentient philosopher cells that, in their original Chenzeme form, constantly scanned space for enemies to be destroyed. Converting these cells to peaceful purposes has taken an enormous effort by the ghost, or uploaded version of the key crew member, Clemantine. However, after centuries of operating on its own, this ghost of Clemantine seems to be turning to the dark side, listening more and more to the hostility of Griffin’s cells. Rather than controlling and pushing them in a peaceful direction, she now has fallen into their depths of instinctive desire to kill any potential target of intelligent life. As the Dragon perceives a distant ship, potentially created by humans, the crew wants to visit and explore, but Griffin does not respond to commands and seems to be getting ready to destroy this new “target.”
This distant ship turns out to be one of the type that used to carry humans across the star systems. Now its only occupants are Tio Suthrom, an uploaded human mind of a man whose physical form has long since perished. With him is Ashok, a synthetic or machine, known as one of the Inventions, created by aliens within the Hupo Sei system. Urban cautiously communicates with this ship to test its friendliness or hostility, and Tio responds with equal caution. He has become embittered about the human capacity for destruction and wants nothing more to do with his species.
But Griffin poses a looming threat as it begins to perceive this newly detected ship as an enemy, leading its sentient cells to build a consensus around the Chenzeme refrain, “Kill it!” The only recourse for Urban and others on board the Dragon, including Clemantine in her original human form, is to mount an attack on the Clemantine ghost that has been corrupted and retake control of the sentient cells in Griffin.
So from the outset, the theme of potential human destructiveness comes to the fore. It intensifies as the crew of Dragon overcome the initial skepticism of Tio and Ashok on the great ship and arrange to have crew members visit each other’s vessels to establish good faith. Urban and the Cryptologist, a human-like virtual entity with special powers, seek permission from the rest of the crew and from the Inventions of Hupo Sei to visit that system.
............
My only criticism of Blade is that it has too little background on previous events for a reader who isn’t completely immersed in the earlier books to fully understand the significance of certain dimensions of the story. It’s always a tricky balance between too little background and excessive repetition of key events from previous adventures (C.J. Cherryh is famous for elaborate info dumps of back story in her Alliance universe series). In the earlier books, I thought that Linda Nagata hit that balance just right, but in this one I kept having to go back and refresh my memory about certain characters, planet names and events. A glossary for the series might be helpful, especially for a reader who picks up Blade without having read the earlier books.
Despite that, I can’t recommend Blade and the whole series highly enough. This story in particular builds to a feverishly paced climax that makes Blade a high point of the series. Nagata has created a unique and powerful form of space adventure.
Read the full review at SciFi Mind.
The theme is sounded at the outset of Blade Inverted Frontier 4. The converted living warship Dragon, once an alien engine of destruction but long under the control of the human leader Urban, is guiding a small fleet of ships with several dozen humans on a millennia-long voyage. They are traveling from the last known outpost of human settlement back to the scene of destruction of what had been Earth and its many outlying settled planets and systems. Scouting ahead is another converted warship, Griffin, a living entity like Dragon that was once under the control of a vanished race called the Chenzeme, dedicated to seeking out and destroying other forms of intelligent life.
Griffin is guided by sentient philosopher cells that, in their original Chenzeme form, constantly scanned space for enemies to be destroyed. Converting these cells to peaceful purposes has taken an enormous effort by the ghost, or uploaded version of the key crew member, Clemantine. However, after centuries of operating on its own, this ghost of Clemantine seems to be turning to the dark side, listening more and more to the hostility of Griffin’s cells. Rather than controlling and pushing them in a peaceful direction, she now has fallen into their depths of instinctive desire to kill any potential target of intelligent life. As the Dragon perceives a distant ship, potentially created by humans, the crew wants to visit and explore, but Griffin does not respond to commands and seems to be getting ready to destroy this new “target.”
This distant ship turns out to be one of the type that used to carry humans across the star systems. Now its only occupants are Tio Suthrom, an uploaded human mind of a man whose physical form has long since perished. With him is Ashok, a synthetic or machine, known as one of the Inventions, created by aliens within the Hupo Sei system. Urban cautiously communicates with this ship to test its friendliness or hostility, and Tio responds with equal caution. He has become embittered about the human capacity for destruction and wants nothing more to do with his species.
But Griffin poses a looming threat as it begins to perceive this newly detected ship as an enemy, leading its sentient cells to build a consensus around the Chenzeme refrain, “Kill it!” The only recourse for Urban and others on board the Dragon, including Clemantine in her original human form, is to mount an attack on the Clemantine ghost that has been corrupted and retake control of the sentient cells in Griffin.
So from the outset, the theme of potential human destructiveness comes to the fore. It intensifies as the crew of Dragon overcome the initial skepticism of Tio and Ashok on the great ship and arrange to have crew members visit each other’s vessels to establish good faith. Urban and the Cryptologist, a human-like virtual entity with special powers, seek permission from the rest of the crew and from the Inventions of Hupo Sei to visit that system.
............
My only criticism of Blade is that it has too little background on previous events for a reader who isn’t completely immersed in the earlier books to fully understand the significance of certain dimensions of the story. It’s always a tricky balance between too little background and excessive repetition of key events from previous adventures (C.J. Cherryh is famous for elaborate info dumps of back story in her Alliance universe series). In the earlier books, I thought that Linda Nagata hit that balance just right, but in this one I kept having to go back and refresh my memory about certain characters, planet names and events. A glossary for the series might be helpful, especially for a reader who picks up Blade without having read the earlier books.
Despite that, I can’t recommend Blade and the whole series highly enough. This story in particular builds to a feverishly paced climax that makes Blade a high point of the series. Nagata has created a unique and powerful form of space adventure.
Read the full review at SciFi Mind.
July 6, 2025
This was enjoyable and well-written, like the previous books in this series. But there's a pattern to them that I find a bit unsatisfying. Generally there is something really exciting that can happen, that drives along the plot for the first 2/3 of the book, and then it collapses, doesn't happen, but we realize the real reward was the friends we made along the way character growth.
It's still a good book - and I'll still read the next - but I feel like the consistent twists that make things way less exciting than foreshadowed puts this in 3-star category for me, and not 4- or 5-star.
It's still a good book - and I'll still read the next - but I feel like the consistent twists that make things way less exciting than foreshadowed puts this in 3-star category for me, and not 4- or 5-star.
November 18, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed returning to this universe and these characters as they continue traveling through space looking for life forms and trying to find evidence of what happened to ancient humanity. There’s a lot to consider in this one, many questions to ponder, about humanity, our destructiveness, is it inevitable or can we evolve? What other sorts of life forms might have evolved, whether natural or artificial? And the ending, though I wouldn’t classify it as a cliffhanger, does setup perfectly for the next installment in the series.
March 20, 2024
The Inverted Frontier series by Linda Nagata must be one of the most underrated space operas of all time. It's simply a terrific read, with a outstanding, fascinating underlying concept and huge amounts to say about the intersection between technology and being. Blade is the best of the four books in the series so far, having that rare combo of not wanting to put it down while hating that meant you were rapidly running out of book. Highly recommended series.
January 29, 2025
The book started a bit slow for me because I admit I am not very invested in Urban and Clemantine’s personal relationship. But I love the Inventions so once they got more involved I was pretty hooked.
The argument over what to do about the philosopher cells at the end of this book was just like the best kind of Star Trek episode. I don’t know why it took me so long to identify the Star Trek vibes of this series, but it does explain why reading it feels so comfortably familiar.
The argument over what to do about the philosopher cells at the end of this book was just like the best kind of Star Trek episode. I don’t know why it took me so long to identify the Star Trek vibes of this series, but it does explain why reading it feels so comfortably familiar.
January 23, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ After a week long Brandon Sanderson read this was a refreshing change. Quick and light but still plenty of suspense. Was glad to be back with these familiar charactersuuu. A very enjoyable read. I’m not disparaging my previous read by any means. I gave Sanderson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ as well. Always do in fact.
June 3, 2024
This whole series is such a great read. Things that leapt out at me in this one:
1. wow, the crew of the dragon is super racist against intelligent robots
2. Nagata does a really great job at creating life-and-death stakes for a cast of characters that are all functionally immortal
1. wow, the crew of the dragon is super racist against intelligent robots
2. Nagata does a really great job at creating life-and-death stakes for a cast of characters that are all functionally immortal
April 6, 2025
The Inverted Frontier continues well with this fun and well-paced entry Blade. There's new twists and turns with new players on the stage, and the conflicts are not wholly backwards looking like some previous entries. It ends well too with a great setup for the fifth and final entry.
Read
March 11, 2024Actually read the unlisted Kobo epub edition.
March 12, 2024
Stellar prose and and out of this world storyline! Absolutely loved it and can only hope the author gives us more.
April 25, 2024
Very enjoyable read. Great to be back in the Inverted Frontier. Catching up on all your friends there. Another excellent story, some surprises. Glad to read Linda plans on a book 5.
May 25, 2024
Ok, I am always left wanting more, so I’m waiting for book 5!!
July 7, 2024
A very slow start to this one, but the last third packs a real punch.
December 29, 2024
3.5 stars.
December 16, 2025
The filler episode of the series
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews