I bought this book relatively recently. I should make life easier on my memory and actually write down where I buy books, this is a common complaint of mine. It was at a mini-con, possibly BendiCon, I’m just getting those vibes. Pete Aldin was selling his books and as I already have all of his that I wish to read he sold me this one instead. A nice little sci-fi collab between two authors I respect. If 489 pages can be called little.
This book is set out in the universe sometime at least 3400 years from today. We’ve conquered the Milky Way and moved on. There is still some myth about Earth, but that’s fairly standard once you get that far out in the future. And there’s also stasis, and that can cover a multitude of anything. I was going to say ‘sins’, but changed my mind, Gordon and Aldin might take issue with it.
We have droids, I can make the old Star Wars joke, but I won’t. We’re told that droids who are out in society had human skin tones and were clothed. But I really like this droid. Torg has no clothing as he rarely leaves the vessel and is slaved to a vessel, but not to this one originally. He’s been retroslaved to this vessel and is loyal to the ship rather than the people who slaved him to the ship. I’m sure his loyalty has nothing to do with how they treated him…
The tournament brings us to some interesting people. Some with enhancements, either medical or subliminal training. I’d like some subliminal training, it’d be nice to sleep for a few hours and wake up knowing stuff. I’m ignoring the fact that Alexis was in stasis for 26 years with subliminal training at executive officer level, a far cry from her training of biology.
Going back through my notes I’ve made a note of history on page 214. Why? Because ‘History’s written by the victors.’ A nice little quote from the book which easily fits into real life. So many times we need to read between the lines or read whatever we can possibly find that was written at that time in history we’re looking at to get the real picture. And that totally fits this book, it’s at this point we’re given some history. The facts needed are doled out carefully, at just the right point.
I could pick out more bits to talk about, but there would be spoilers and I really don’t like doing that. What you need to know is that this book is nicely put together. I enjoyed reading it as it was another of those books I struggled to put down. A book of this length can easily take time even for me to read but when you’re meant to be sleeping then lying awake reading is not a good thing.
There’s chases across space and lots of fighting. One of the characters, Sabrya, comes out of the tournaments. Sabrya is my favourite character in this book. She’s sassy, she’s a really good fighter and she doesn’t choose her loyalty lightly. Once she’s chosen she appoints herself as guardian, and once she’s someone’s guardian she is the best. I’d really like to see her in future books. In terms of fitness she’s everything I’m not, part of it is the nanites in her system that make her react faster than anyone else. Let’s face it, I just want her nanites so I can have a good body and be faster. Someone should invent the nanites, forget about money, they’d own the world.
I enjoyed this book, there are some comedic lines and they came out quite nicely. It’s one I’d recommend if you’re into futuristic sci fi. I’ll be asking Aldin if there are more of this collab.