Breach of Faith book II By Daniel Gibbs and Gary Stevens

 Breach of Faith book II

By Daniel Gibbs and Gary Stevens

Breach of Faith is the sequel to Breach of Peace that we reviewed last month. So the only thing I'm going to repeat here is the Dread Disclaimer. As I've mentioned before, both your editor and I have known Mr. Stevens for years, although I've never met him face to face. I've been giving him praise and grief over his work for years. In fact, Mr. Stevens was kind enough to send me these books and was the one to tell me about Mr. Gibbs' work. I'm honestly pleased to see him publishing works but I hope to see him writing in his own worlds soon, as his imagination deserves its own space in the written world (Seriously.  His imagination is endless, and I have never seen anyone else with his creative drive.). Come on Stevens. You know you can. That said, everything you are about to read is my honest opinion but I feel I would be doing my readers a disservice if I wasn't upfront. If you'd like to know more about Mr. Stevens, I encourage you to read my Breach of Peace review and perhaps even read the book. That said, let's catch everyone up on the setting and the plot right? Warning there will be spoilers for the first book here.

The Breach series as I'm going to call it takes place within the wider universe of the Fight the Good Fight universe by Daniel Gibbs (I've reviewed the first book of that series). The series takes place far in the future, Earth has been unified under a single government but unfortunately, it's a tyrannical single-party state, called the League of Sol, preaching an extremist (by the standards of such things as Juche {League of Sol, when the North Koreans ask if maybe you should calm down...}) brand of socialism alongside a deep hatred of individuals and anything that smacks of individualism. Demanding that instead, people abandon any other identity than servants of Society, the idea of an overarching whole that united everyone into a single machine-like society. Strangely this idea was not universally popular and entire populations fled Earth into the stars thanks to the work of a genius, who also didn't want to live under a single-party state that was determined to dictate their every move. The dissenters fled far from Earth and settled the worlds of the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy. The largest group formed the Coalition of Terra, mostly made up of people who were religious and believed in individual rights, democracy, capitalism, and apple pie. This group from what I can tell was dominated by Americans, Israelis, Commonwealth nations, and several Arabic states. Strangely, the Coalition idea of governmental and economic organization was less than universally popular (Plus, not everyone likes apple pie.  I am more of a strawberry rhubarb man myself.{You… Wait is that a real pie?  Man, I want to try that now.[It is so good]}) and some populations split off to settle their own worlds, with blackjack and hookers! (And less authoritarian forms of socialism.) These worlds would have a... Complicated history with the Coalition, as most of them, were single star system states against the multi-system state of the Coalition but if nothing else the Coalition prevented alien empires from preying on them. However, most issues had settled down and it appeared the human nations of the Sagittarius arm might know an age of peace and plenty. But everything changed when the League of Sol attacked! (You just had to go full Fire Nation didn’t you?  Didn’t you!? {If you look into my eyes you’ll see a reviewer with no regret! [You shall have cause to regret!]})

The League of Sol fell on the Coalition of Terra like a mountain but the Coalition was able to fight off the assault and force the League into a nightmare position. That of fighting a long war against a large, industrialized enemy, while you're at the very end of your supply chain and have enemies closer to home (My God.  They did a USSR Turnabout! {bound to happen eventually}). The League wasn't completely brain dead, however, deciding not to open hostilities to the non-Coalition worlds, who would now be referred to as the neutral worlds. Instead deciding to play on the resentments and preexisting rivalries to try and diplomatically and economically isolate the Coalition. Enter Captain James Henry, disgraced former naval officer of the Coalition turned independent spacer. Captain and owner of the Shadow Wolf, a cargo ship with a souped-up engine and a diverse and skilled crew of professionals ranging from the former socialist revolutionary from a megacorp dominated planet, Tia, the escaped League of Sol doctor Oskar, the frankly insanely libertarian Felix, and the alien Yanik and more. In fact, to be honest, the crew is big enough that at times I lose track of some of them. So one practical suggestion I would have for Mr. Stevens and other authors writing ensemble novels like this would be to include a dramatis personae list in the back of your book (Can concur!). Trust me, it'll make things easier for everyone folks. Now that said, the crew that does manage to get a good amount of screen time is colorful enough to stand out and stand on their own. Hopefully, in future books, the rest of the crew will get space to shine.

Breach of Faith takes up right up where Breach of Peace leaves off (In fact, full disclosure, they were intended to be one book, but the editor and Gibbs forced the split.). Merchant ships had been disappearing at a higher rate than normal in neutral space and Captain Henry was hired by three competing interests on the planet Lusitania, one of the strongest and wealthiest of the neutral planets, to find and bring back a survivor of one of those disappearances, Ms. Karla Lupa. This was complicated in that each of the three were pretty opposed to the other, one for example being the leader of the planetary fascist party and the other being the minister of trade for the unity government looking to tame the fascist (You can’t work with the fash, and you cannot tame them.  The only solution to fascism is the death of the fascists.) and the third being the local Coalition spymaster. Because Karla Lupa is telling everyone it was the League who hijacked her trading ship and everyone wants to hear this story first hand. A further complication is brought about when Karla Lupa turns out to be Miri Gaon, a legendary Coalition spy whose infiltration of the League caused one of their greatest defeats in the war. Which explains why, when she realized that the League had seized the trading ship she was working on, she stole a spacesuit, a radio beacon, and a bunch of oxygen tanks and jumped ship (I certainly would have done the same thing.  Just nope right out of there!  Take my chances in the void!). Because if the League catches her, they're throwing her out of an airlock without a spacesuit. To top it off, because Mr. Stevens can't cut his characters a break (He really can’t), there's another problem when the Shadow Wolf limps into a landing on Lusitania. Someone blew up the planetary parliament! Killing most of the ministers and assembly members and now the planet is in chaos as everyone tries to figure out who set off the bombs and why. Captain Henry faces the fact that he might have escaped the deep space forces of the League to have thrustered right into a trap. He'll have to navigate a situation that is increasingly escalating into a possible civil war and that's without even considering what the League is doing. I do want to take a moment to mention that I really enjoy the work Mr. Stevens put into Lusitania here. He provides us with a complex political and social situation in a multicultural state that is fracturing under the weight of the contradictions of its laws and the needs of its citizens.  Mr. Stevens also takes care to provide us some native Lusitanian citizens in both books to give us an inside view of the situation, even as he blows up the situation he's set up and pushes everything to the breaking point. Of course, this is only a small part of the dangers facing Captain Henry; because even if he escapes Lusitania the League is still mustering forces, including its fleet of stolen ships for some hidden purpose and the League knows Captain Henry's role in things so far. A role that makes the forces of the League decidedly unhappy with him.

Captain Henry will have to build his own coalition of unlikely allies to figure out whatever the League's plan is, counter it and get enough evidence to expose it to the galaxy. Which will mean cutting deals with pirates, knife happy psychopaths with a grudge, and worse making dubious bacon-centered deals with alien nomads. Mr. Stevens doesn't pull any punches here; imagine having to sit down to dinner and be civil with a man who was trying to kidnap you a few days ago and might have killed someone who helped you just to give one example. Another piece of stress that Captain Henry has to manage is the fact that the intelligence services of the Coalition are involved in this and might be trying to recruit him to serve a nation he's pretty sure he wants nothing to do with anymore. He'll have to thread all these conflicting loyalties and desires however if he's going to survive and protect his crew and you know, prevent the League from conquering human space and snuffing out the idea of religious, economic, or individual freedom. Mr. Stevens gives us a story that takes intrigue, political wheeling, and dealing, and blends it with gunfights and fleet battles. Along with some simmering popular uprisings for flavor of course (The best kind.). It was a fun and easy read and I was honestly caught off guard by a couple of the plot twists but I was never left feeling that the plot twist was unbelievable. Mr. Stevens also frankly does a better job with the villains in this universe, although there are times when I feel his work is something along the manner of frantically gluing layers to a cardboard cut out to create some depth to the League of Sol. The League Admiral Hartford for example comes across as a patriot and a professional member of a military fleet and above all else a human being. He treats his crew reasonably, he learns from mistakes, and carries grudges. On the flip side, we also get Commander Li of the security forces, who is an out and out fanatic who screamingly compares individualism to being a murderer. This does add a bit of depth to the League but they still come off as a bit flat to me but I can't blame Mr. Stevens for that. Of course, not everyone arrayed against the League is a shiny paladin of justice, as we have pirates who Mr. Stevens makes clear are very dangerous and brutal people, and Mr. Kepper, the professional psychopath out to teach people why you don't make the work personal. Mr. Stevens' willingness not to pull any punches and blend of good character work and exceptional world-building along with a plot with enough turns for high-speed car chase creates a fun book that you'll enjoy if you like space opera with a bit of gray. That said, the book is at times overcrowded with characters and the pace gets a bit too frantic as Mr. Stevens tries to tie everything up. Breach of Faith by Daniel Gibs and Gary Stevens gets an A-, try reading Breach of Peach and Breach of Faith back to back so you get the full story all at once.

I hope you enjoyed this week's review, if you did consider joining our ever-wise patrons at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for as little as a dollar a month you get votes on upcoming reviews, themes and more!  Hope to see you there.  So next week, we kick off a little event we're calling Fangsgiving!  For the whole month of October, we'll be focusing on a singular character that has dictated in a lot of ways how we see a classic monster of the night!  We'll be paying tribute to the original count of the night, Count Dracula.  First we'll be looking at the historical figure that inspired Dracula, Vlad Tepes in Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times by Radu Florescu and Raymond T. McNally.  Then we'll be looking at the official prequel to the novel Dracula, written by Brom Stokers' great nephew and JD Barker.  From there we move on to the novel itself and then the long lost Icelandic adaptation that turned into its own novel.  We hope y'all enjoy the upcoming reviews.  Until then though, stay safe and Keep Reading. 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Normal text is your reviewer Garvin Anders