Book of the Week: NOVA VENDETTA #1: The Injustice

Commonwealth Universe

Downfall Era/Era I

The Sorendaal/Pirate novels

From Writers Exchange

“End the suspense already,” Garen said, reaching as if he would take the box from Niall’s hands.

The other four laughed, mostly because Garen was usually the one who tormented the others by making them wait for news or to find out the latest rumors or which professor was taking interns and apprentices.

“All right.” Niall pulled out the multi-tool his professor of field service had given all the graduates. In a moment, he had slit the outer sealed skin. The box was held shut with straps that he cut in a moment.

Inside were small translucent green cubes.

“Old-style video cubes,” Garen said, picking one out of the box. He turned it over between his hands. “I think I know where you can find a player.”

By the time Niall, Amber and Garen tracked down a machine that would play the cubes, they had lost the other two friends, who professed sleep interested them more than video cubes. The trio ended up in one of the machinery archives. They were just as amazed as the archives keeper that there were more than a dozen of the obsolete display and playback units in storage. One cube was marked, “play this first,” so they did.

“Hello, son.” Gaellon Encardi smiled from the screen, looking even more battered and worn and browned from thin ship shielding than he had the last time Niall saw him -- when he was twelve Standard years old. His Exploration Corps uniform looked new enough for all his badges and insignias and honor citations to be crisp and clean and bright. That meant he was heading out for another long-range mission. The elder Encardi specialized in finding habitable planets and clearing them for colonization. If there were any conditions that would threaten the security and success of a colony, especially the health and reproductive ability of the colonists, he could identify it faster and with more accuracy than most others. It made him a valuable asset to the CAW’s colonization efforts. If the truth were ever admitted within the Niallon household, it gave him an excuse to stay away from Sorendaal and his wife’s family, the dynastic leaders of the colony.

Book of the Week: NOVA VENDETTA #1: The Injustice

Commonwealth Universe

Downfall Era/Era I

The Sorendaal/Pirate novels

Niall Encardi heard the news of the coup at the beginning of the final lecture in MERAH, before graduating as a doctor from the Merkator Medical Academy. His classmates spread the rumors and speculations in harsh, rapid whispers, punctuated by curses, as they waited for the team of professors to step up to the lectern in the center of the lecture amphitheater.

The timing of the news struck Niall as symbolic and ironic. The new regime called itself the Restoration Alliance, and had been threatening the entrenched government of the Central Allied Worlds for nearly three years now with strong backing from the Set’ri, who insisted on “purifying” the Human genome. Their dogma included sterilizing all “defective” genetic variations, and making slaves of any humanoid race that didn’t match their narrow, exclusive criteria. 

MERAH stood for Medial Ethics Relating to Augmented Humanoids – meaning Wrinkleship pilots, Khybors, and all the lesser mutations and variations that had come about by accident or as byproducts of the tinkering of generations of scientists. The ones who couldn’t reproduce were safe, and perhaps to be envied. The Set’ri didn’t care about them. The ones who could pass their augmented genetics on to their children -- especially Khybors -- or whose tangled genetic side trips could show up in future generations of their family line even if they themselves didn’t or couldn’t reproduce -- such as Wrinkleship pilots -- were their targets.

Book of the Week: NOVA VENDETTA #1: The Injustice

Commonwealth Universe
Downfall Era/Era I
The Sorendaal/Pirate novels

From Writers Exchange

Niall Encardi was ready to graduate after long, intensive years of medical training, and go home to the colony world of Sorendaal. His life-long dream was to be a healer and help the people led by his uncle, the governor. 

The revolutionaries who overthrew the current government of the Central Allied Worlds had other plans. When the homeworlds of Niall and his classmates didn't immediately give support and approval to the revolutionaries, the medical students were labeled enemies of the state, and transported to prison.

Despite every effort to stay focused on his first calling, healing and medicine, Niall became a leader, first on a prison planet, then on the prison space station known as the Abyss. Every time the government changed hands, he and his friends and then his allies in the prison society were labeled conspirators and sympathizers and condemned to yet more imprisonment.

By the time the Abyss was attacked, Niall and his people had become a force to be reckoned with. Their goal: freedom, even if meant turning pirate like the falsely imprisoned nobleman who sailed the ancient seas, on a ship called the Vendetta.

Off the Bookshelf: HAVAH, by Tosca Lee

The subtitle is: The Story of Eve.

Should say it all, right?
Umm, no!

One-word reaction when I finally finished reading this (after kicking myself for taking so long to get to it?):  WOW.

Beautiful writing. Beautiful imagery. Intense.

But don't read it just for a compelling literary journey. This is the kind of book that keeps you up late, reading past midnight when you're supposed to get up early because you have a long day of physical activity in the July sun ahead of you. Yeah, that intense.

When you think about it, what could be so compelling about a book that covers a story we all know? Or at least, a story we all THINK we know?

That's the genius and the skill and the gift of Tosca Lee. We all know the bare bones of the story of the first people, the Fall, the Curse. All the slanted variations of the story to fit in with different ideologies and trying to place all the blame on one or the other, or even rewriting the truth -- another way of saying we've been lied to. We all know who is at the bottom of every attempt to change what God said, don't we?

No, this puts flesh on the bones, and tears, and joy, and wonder, and innocence and pain and an aching sense of that oneness that was lost, the tragedy of the destroyed Paradise. This makes Eve's story more real, more understandable, and yet doesn't excuse anyone.

Bravo. And again, WOW.

Book of the Week: THE TALON

A breath of chill, stone-scented air drifted across his face, and Edrian opened one eye to see a thin, flickering beam of light come out of the wall, right where his floor-to-ceiling bookshelves should have been. Oddly, in the soft moonlight spilling through the sheer screens, the bookshelves were almost a meter to the right of where they belonged, and the light came from an opening between bookshelves and stone wall.

“Grandfather?” he whispered, understanding, and sat up quickly. Edrian grimaced as his mattress creaked. He preferred the old-fashioned bedstead, with ropes and natural cloth and fluff-bush filling in the mattress. That would have to change if he wanted to get up without alerting half the building.

“First lesson, my lad.” His grandfather held up the cylinder that produced the soft, flickering glow. It wasn’t a candle or a lantern or lamp, and the source of the light shimmered from gold to green to soft amber-orange and back again, pulsating just enough to be visible.

“The passage or the light?” Edrian asked, once he had followed Elbarto through the opening and the bookshelf slid softly back into place.

“Many things to make up one lesson. And here’s something it takes people their whole lives to realize -- the older you get, the more you realize you spend your whole life learning.” Elbarto handed him the cylinder. “Light without heat. How can that be?”

In the soft glow, a passageway extended in both directions behind the wall of Edrian’s room. His grandfather gestured to the right, where another opening revealed a narrow passageway filled with steps going up and down. They started downward. Edrian studied the light, which was soft enough that he could look directly at it and still see well enough to make his way down the steps without having to wait for his eyes to adjust. That pulsation … was it breathing? He hefted the cylinder. That was liquid surrounding the thing … a living thing?

Book of the Week: THE TALON

“Now,” Elbarto said, turning to look across the wide expanse of flat ground, where Government House perched, a massive, sprawling building that had been the first habitation on the colony world. It had grown beyond that, exponentially, so it was the government offices, the center of learning, the center of healing and science and military activity. And in times of fear, it provided shelter for refugees, both in the multiple layers of building dug down deep into the butte, and even in the caves. “Let’s see what we can do to frustrate the too-obvious minders the Council has set over us, shall we?”

“Booby-traps and bombs and sleeping drugs in their food?” Edrian whispered, leaning closer and glancing toward Government House, as if he feared someone would come running from over six hundred meters away and slap them in restraints.

“Hardly. And not half as much fun. Although some nasty potions in their food to make them sick might be a good idea.” The elderly man chuckled. “Or at least a good start. No, our duty is to defend our colony and our people and most especially our home. It’s a given the Council has called your father and Eryk away to try to … hmm, shall we say … re-educate them? Try to plumb the recesses of their minds and determine their loyalty, if nothing else. And while they’re away, these babysitters set over us, to ostensibly help me act as governor --“

“You don’t need help, Grandfather. None of us need help.”

“Hmm, yes. We’ve done just fine without the Central Allied Worlds for generations, but anyone who tries to convince them of that gets re-educated. We’ll just let them think they’re helping us, and we don’t suspect anything. When they’ve relaxed and become even more oblivious and obvious than they already are, that’s when we strike.”

“And do what?”

“We’ll figure that out when the time comes. For now, though … you’re in charge of protecting the Nightskimmers.”

“What are you going to do?” Edrian asked, while his pulse tripled and he could barely restrain a howl of delight. He had known since infancy that restraint was a matter of survival when it came to the spies the Central Allied Worlds inflicted on them on a regular basis.

Book of the Week: THE TALON, THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

Commonwealth Universe
Colonies
Downfall/Era I

The Talon is, basically, Zorro set on a futuristic, alien colony world. Plain and simple.

Except this masked vigilante rides through the sky on a winged ... well, not a horse, that's for sure!

THE TALON
From Writer's Exchange

It is a time of turmoil in the Central Allied Worlds when the governor of Rensler, his wife and eldest son are forced to attend a "conference" of colonial governors, leaving his youngest son, Edrian, in the care of his grandfather--the former governor--who must now take charge of the planet.

The two begin a secret project: befriending the sentient, nocturnal Nightskimmers.

As Edrian grows up, and unrest intensifies, he learns real heroes sometimes operate in secret, and that his position as younger brother of the next governor requires him to present a false face to the world, against the day when he must strike out on behalf of the colonists if they are to keep their freedom.

When the expected revolution does erupt, Edrian's father and grandfather are taken away, accused of treachery. His older brother flees to the wilderness to lead the rebels, and Edrian and his mother become hostages.

Edrian hides behind his false reputation of being sickly and studious, allowing him to move freely at night, freeing prisoners and striking in defense of the colony. He is only a boy on the verge of manhood, but the Talon's reputation has already taken root.