Even among the diverse battlefields of the 41st Millenium, Rogue Traders have a special place. They offer a chance to step away from planetary warfare to something purely space based, sidestep many of the big problems surrounding xenophobia and open up story possibilities military tales cannot easily access. The sense of adventure, discovery and emphasis upon loot over "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" or "HERESY!" is often a welcome change as well.
While Andy Hoare delved into this with his own duology, it's been some time since Black Library devoted time purely to such a character, at least until a few weeks ago. With James Swallow's return, this audio drama looks as if it's set to be the beginning of an entirely new series, and it has to be said it's off to a promising start.
The Synopsis
Sailing through the void, the Corsair hunts for abhuman pirates who have recently pillaged an Imperial world. Under the command of Captain Athene Santiago, the ship bears down upon its prey within a dense asteroid field. Yet, few truly know just what the pirates have pillaged, nor even of the mysterious objects origin. The Rogue Trader soon finds that her treasure is far more dangerous than anyone could have imagined.
The Good
This is one of a handful of efforts by Black Library to develop true audio dramas. While most have followed transcripts, narration and a few actors in the lead roles, this dispenses entirely with the narrator in favour of actors. In many cases, this can easily prove to be awkward, as every action, expression, description, and statement needs to be conveyed by word. However, the vocal direction in Corsair: The Face of the Void is easily on par with the likes of Big Finish and benefits from some very talented and experienced voice actors. This allows them to perform a great deal of the heavy lifting, and carry the relevant exposition without it feeling too out of place. While there are certainly one or two forced moments, there is nothing truly out of place here.
A further point in the work's benefit is how the characters quickly distinguish themselves within the first few minutes. From an Imperial Naval Academy washout to an Eldar Outcast, the group is as diverse and colourful as you would expect. While the audio drama's style and brisk pacing permit very little in the way of background details or true introductions, what is conveyed through dialogue proves to be very interesting.
The key focus is on the Captain and two other characters, but it's a credit to the overall production that you can immediately single one character out from the other. Their histories, relationships, familiarity with one another and even disposition towards the life of a Rogue Trader are conveyed within the opening few minutes. Compared with many longer and larger scope tales, this one does an excellent job of making sure you never forget who is who even with relatively few scenes.
As you might imagine, executing combat in this format is a difficult task. Without a narrator to describe blows or more complex movements, it's left almost entirely to the sound effects and actors to convey this point. Naturally, this means that any direct duel or conflict was out of the question, leaving them to work around it. However, the production turned this weakness into a strength. Much of the action is delivered through statistical data and shipborne combat, while the few direct face-to-face engagements are won almost entirely through trickery. This is especially helpful, given the story throws a few exceptionally powerful enemies at them, so any conventional victory would have seemed implausible at best.
The story also performs a decent amount of world building in this time. While we are only granted a few basic facts through conversations and moments of exposition, it's clearly a sort of pirate haven. Less the orderly sub-sectors akin to Helican or even Ultramar, and more a hive of scum and villainy filled with pirates and lost treasure. It substantially helps that we are given a chance to see just who rules this realm, and her brief appearance adds to the mythos of this place substantially. This might sound as if it's glorifying a secondary aspect of the story, but it helps to alter the atmosphere of the tale substantially. This is less the realm of gene-forged Knights Templar and entities from beyond the realm of mortals, and one of profit, high adventure and lost secrets. It's the same place, but simply a different take on it.
Yet perhaps the greatest strength is that the overall story makes a point of subverting most expectations. While the Imperium of Man is a much larger and more varied realm than many would give it credit for, there's no denying that authors tend to favour a few distinct tropes over others. That's not so much the case here. In fact, the big mystery behind a certain item proves to be anything but what you might expect it to be. There are a few clever signs, obvious ones in retrospect, but it performs such an excellent bluff that its presence is a welcome change to the norm in these tales. The same is true of the characters themselves as well. They might retain shades or general aspects of what you might expect, but it never goes overboard at any point.
Yet, there are a few distinct problems here despite all o this good. Ones which, while margnial, are still evident very early on.
The Bad
It's very clear that this is intended to be a pilot for a bigger series. On the one hand, this is certainly no bad thing. It has a solid story, potential for bigger tales, and James Swallow's work on the Garro series proved that he can pull this off. Unfortunately, however, the story leaves a few too many questions unanswered for this stage. In a longer tale or even a more extensive audio drama this might not have been so much of an issue, but with its brisk pace and emphasis on action over character moments, it can leave you feeling a bit insubstantial. Or suffering from Lost flashbacks. That's a definite possibility as well.
The audio drama also tries to be both episodic and long-reaching in terms of its stories, but this compounds the point above. It resolves the core threat in of itself and tries to neatly wrap up the core events while leaving many threads for later stories. It's clear just why this was done and how someone might have considered this to be an apt method of keeping the story going. With that said, there are a few choice actions which simply end too swiftly or lack the sort of impact you would expect.
The audio drama's brisk nature also works against it on some occasions. While a swift story is hardly ever a bad one, when it focuses upon a select few characters it's usually worth keeping it focused upon a key location. Perhaps a few places or an ongoing journey, but with this one the story jumps around a great deal. While it's clear it would be difficult to get around this otherwise, the need to do so really feels as if it's speeding through events and not leaving them enough time to fully register certain actions. As a result, on the whole this is one which lacks the sort of memorable impact you would expect.
The Verdict
The best thing to say about Corsair: The Face of the Void is that it feels like a Ciaphas Cain short story. It uses humour in places, runs through events quite quickly and has clear links to a much bigger universe we do not get to see. Yet the charm of the characters, the excellent execution of the core story and obvious hooks to make people come back overwhelms the weaknesses inherent within the plot itself. It's certainly not nearly as heavy going as other stories, but that was never the point here.
If you're looking for an audio drama which doesn't focus on the Adeptus Astartes or Imperial Guard, this is easily the best option we've had in years. Definitely consider picking this one up, especially if you're a fan of the Fantasy Flight Games RPG adaptations.
Verdict: 7 out of 10
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