I wanted to like this book, because this author displays obvious talent. However, I was distracted by a lack of cohesion in general. The intended readership would probably not be affected by this situation, so you can take this review with a grain of salt.

This is a highly technical Space Opera of the type preferred by digital game players. The action is full of battles and ship boardings, and the text is full of tech speech, mostly about offensive and defensive weaponry.

As with most video game derived stories, the plot is episodic, sometimes with a lack of transition between sections. One completely separate incident had little to do with the rest of the story, like an episode in a TV serial. It might better have been published as a separate short story to be used as promotional material.

Personalities are of minimal importance, and the reader feels little inclination to sympathize with them. Until late in the story, we don’t get to know them as individuals past a favourite weapon. On the positive side, the characters are strong, slightly larger than life, and entertaining to follow.

The setting is a rugged, violence-filled void where the law of the jungle is rarely disturbed by the softer or nobler human emotions.

The plotline is of the “wheels within wheels” variety, with a mysterious cadre manipulating the lives and actions of everyday space buccaneers, who in turn have their own individual secret motivations, intertwining levels of treason and sedition in twisted threads too complicated to decipher. After several hundred pages of not knowing who is on which side, the reader stops trying.

Fortunately, the final episode settles down and gives us a hundred pages or so of cohesive action and character development.

Interspersed with this maelstrom of violent events are incidents of surreal poesy, as characters experience beautifully expressed bouts of transcendence, usually in communication with alien beings or mechanical sapience.

Recommended for young video-game enthusiasts.

Three stars.