The author states in the appendices to the book that it was written by popular demand from the fans of the "Sword of the Stars" games. I wouldn't know. Last game I played was Ms. Packman 25 or 30 years ago.
This is a nice juicy space opera full of interesting aliens and a sort of double agent working for both the human Consortium and the Catholic church. It's interesting to note how he manages to do that without constantly pressing everyone around him to convert or betraying either one. Nice contrast to current politics.
It's easy to see the author is educated with her title referencing Chaucer and the sprinkling of Latin that she remembers to translate for those of us that have forgotten our class in Word Study. The story moves along at a good pace with tender scenes with old friends and exciting battles with an alien intelligence wanting to absorb him like a tasty snack.
I got the book from the author with a request to please post a review. She tells me it's going to be on sale at Amazon March 1st for $2.99 and for 282 pages of good fun, it's a steal. ( )

The author states in the appendices to the book that it was written by popular demand from the fans of the "Sword of the Stars" games. I wouldn't know. Last game I played was Ms. Packman 25 or 30 years ago.
This is a nice juicy space opera full of interesting aliens and a sort of double agent working for both the human Consortium and the Catholic church. It's interesting to note how he manages to do that without constantly pressing everyone around him to convert or betraying either one. Nice contrast to current politics.
It's easy to see the author is educated with her title referencing Chaucer and the sprinkling of Latin that she remembers to translate for those of us that have forgotten our class in Word Study. The story moves along at a good pace with tender scenes with old friends and exciting battles with an alien intelligence wanting to absorb him like a tasty snack.
I got the book from the author with a request to please post a review. She tells me it's going to be on sale at Amazon March 1st for $2.99 and for 282 pages of good fun, it's a steal. ( )

The author states in the appendices to the book that it was written by popular demand from the fans of the "Sword of the Stars" games. I wouldn't know. Last game I played was Ms. Packman 25 or 30 years ago.
This is a nice juicy space opera full of interesting aliens and a sort of double agent working for both the human Consortium and the Catholic church. It's interesting to note how he manages to do that without constantly pressing everyone around him to convert or betraying either one. Nice contrast to current politics.
It's easy to see the author is educated with her title referencing Chaucer and the sprinkling of Latin that she remembers to translate for those of us that have forgotten our class in Word Study. The story moves along at a good pace with tender scenes with old friends and exciting battles with an alien intelligence wanting to absorb him like a tasty snack.
I got the book from the author with a request to please post a review. She tells me it's going to be on sale at Amazon March 1st for $2.99 for the Kindle version and for 282 pages of good fun, it's a steal. ( )

Surprisingly good.

It's a free book, issued with the Sword of the Stars PC game, and hence set in that universe. I expected it to be a clunky character driven generic SF, like a bad ST clone. But it isn't it's actually very readable.

For some unexplained reason in the year 2400 Catholism is still going strong, and RuiCai comander of humanities Black intellgience section dealing with new aliens is a devout believer. So when a church colony on a Tarka (otter based) world is ransacked by 'Rippers' he's the man to lead the investigation. A few neogotiations with the allies - Liir (dolphins), Tarka, and Hivers (insectoid) - and a bit of hitstory and politics all of which fairly quickly leads to an epic space battle. Probably best appreciated by dedicated fans of the game the weaponry is kept canon and possibly the weakest point of the book as the descriptions of the diiferent effects quickly pall.

It's only a novella so you can't expect too much details, but the exposition level is quite reasonable, and probably helped in that the intended audience should have some idead of the universe from the game. The characters are comanding, and the plot clever with quite a few twists for it's short length.

If you own the game, it's a must read - others, may be enough to inspire you to play. ( )