Crusade

First, a word of warning. Audible has screwed up the order of these books. Chronologically in the universe, this is Book 1. Publishing order though, this is Book 2. And even after considering that, Audible has the next couple of books orders mislabelled. After listening to the entire series, the chronological order is probably best, but just make sure you know what order to listen to first before you start.

There, rant over. Now to the actual review.

So I’ve been on a fantasy binge for a long time now, and even the sci-fi I’ve listened to has been very character heavy. I love a good military fantasy/sci-fi series, and hard-sci-fi most of all. I’m a scientist myself, and so having a universe based on real physical laws and believable methods around them is something that quickly became my favourite sci-fi genre. This book is no exception.

The story follows the events of an interstellar war between the Terran Federation (that’s us humeez) and a space-faring nation of religious zealots who, after first contact with a lost human expedition, unified their planet under a bastardised melange of human culture and religions and now seek to purge the actual humans who have turned from the (entirely fictional) righteous path. This concept really tweaked my interest. Interesting, unusual, but objectively plausible premises (particularly within sci-fi) are something that I love, and this one was done beautifully. Seeing how these aliens have cherry-picked aspects of human culture and faith and hammered it out into a puritanical, fanatical religion that drives every aspect of their lives is genuinely interesting, and listening to the warped logic-tangles they wrap themselves in to explain why, after rediscovering humanity, the human race itself isn’t following that same religion is a beautiful dissection of the minds of religious nutjobs that we’ve seen throughout our own history. This book at its heart is a wonderful thought experiment set to the backdrop of an interstellar war, and I couldn’t wish for more.

Now this book is not character-driven. We are given the perspectives of probably some 30+ different characters throughout the books, with, lets say, maybe 5-10 recurring with enough regularity that we actually get to know them. This, as it sounds, is a little jarring, particularly when the jump between characters can happen instantaneously with little if any break in the prose. I think this is more of a writing-style issue than a problem with the narrator, but after the first couple of hours you grow accustomed to it and it isn’t so much of a problem. As I said, this book isn’t really character-driven, and the constant head-hopping, although a little disorientating, serves the purpose of telling the story of the events taking place masterfully. This book is what it is, and if you can clamber over that first little hurdle, then you are going to enjoy yourself.

This book is full of vast space battles, clever tactics, gritty ground combat, and truly satisfying political manoeuvring. There are characters in this book who are wonderfully competent, pragmatic, and practical in what they do, and seeing how they react to evermore challenging circumstances with iron-will and indomitable resolve is, for lack of a better word, inspiring. This isn’t a book where characters spend the entire book struggling with their personal demons and shortcomings to overcome them in some epic last-chapter finale. These characters see a problem, then find a clever way to get around it, and if they have got any personal shit eating away at them, then they bury it deep, deep down to be dealt with at some later date when the fate of the human race is no longer at risk, as any good soldier should. This book is gratifying, satisfying, but it won’t be for everyone. It is, however, exactly the kind of arse-kicking, gut-punching, sly smile-inducing military sci-fi that I love so much. It was great.

As for narration, as I said, there is a hell of a lot of head jumping, something that Marc Vietor manages to navigate with skill and precision. Could I tell the difference between the voices of the tens of short-lived character perspectives? Not really. But could I always tell who was who of the smaller number of characters that made up the bulk of the novel? Absolutely. It was a hell of a hard job to pull off, by Marc Vietor managed to do so with style.

Personal Score: 4 stars

Professional Score: 3.5 stars