Breach of Duty By Daniel Gibbs and Gary Stevens

 Breach of Duty

By Daniel Gibbs and Gary Stevens

The Breach novels are a side series set in the wider science fiction universe of the Echoes of War universe by Daniel Gibbs. I've discussed both authors at length, Mr. Gibbs in our review of Fight the Good Fight and Mr. Stevens in our Breach of Peace review. That said I will repeat our disclaimer. I know Mr. Stevens, I read his work when he was “just” a fan fiction writer toiling for recognition of his peers in various science fiction forums (Full disclosure: I’ve co-authored some of that fanfiction.). He's actually one of our ever-wise patrons and even sent me a copy of this book for free. I tell you, my readers, all of this because I always want to be upfront and honest about anything that might be related to the reviews. That said, I’ve told Mr. Stevens when I don't like his work, I've told when I thought it was awful, directly. So I have no problems writing down that he wrote a bad book if it comes down to it and I promise you that everything in this review is my honest opinion. That said let me start by going over the premise of the universe.

A long long time ago on a faraway planet named Earth, a bunch of people decided that the only solution to our problems was a single party, one-world government with a command economy that declared itself socialist (With you so far…). This group of people really felt that all legitimacy (Um…{Yeah… You’re gonna need a drink or two for this bro})  needed to be channeled to the Party which would run the State on behalf of the Workers (That’s not how…). Without the need for pesky elections or other overt ways for the Workers to make their opinions known of course (Oh God Damn It!  Strawman communism.) To do that everyone would have to submerge their identities into a single set of approved human socialist identities(Yeah, this is revisionist garbage.  This is like, Communism As Portrayed By The John Birch Society.). Which logically meant that other forms of self-identities would have to go. To translate that, they banned religion, nationalism (Clarification here.  Communism and Nationalism do not mix.  They are antithetical.  However, that doesn’t mean that a sense of yourselves as a people is antithetical to communism, but a sense of national Chauvinism.  Sublimating national and cultural identities is reactionary revisionism.).  that and I assume many other ways of creating a group identity, although not languages for some reason which seems like a no-brainer to me. You want everyone on the same team? Make them all speak the same language, the languages we speak are a basic building block in how we see ourselves. Trust me as an Anthropologist and Adult Child of Deaf Parents, language is a powerful glue to hold a group together and transmit customs, the deaf community did it for over a century despite overwhelming pressure not to for example but I'm getting off-topic. As you might imagine large groups of people on Earth didn't want to give up their beliefs about themselves or their place in the world and they fought back. When that failed, thanks to the work of some geniuses, they fled. They somehow built a massive fleet (With what logistics, I do not understand…) and ran across the galaxy clear into another galactic arm and founded their own worlds with churches, monarchies, and in some cases blackjack and hookers.

Now, most of these people build the Terran Coalition, a federated republic of worlds that are democratic, capitalists, and very religious in certain ways (Ah, Space NATO.  Of course. {The Coalition is a nation-state, not an alliance}). Other groups decided they would rather not be a part of that and started their own colonies becoming what are collectively called the neutral worlds (Good for them!). For centuries the Coalition built and expanded and sometimes fought aliens while the neutral worlds did the same but everything changed when the League of Sol attacked. Because those people who believed in a single-party state? They won and built something that basically looks like a USSR on evil steroids, scrubbed clean of any nuance, and ready to conquer you and your nation and herd you into a camp for reeducation (<Screams in actual communist>). Especially those of you who are the wrong type of socialist of course

Now in the last two books, our main characters provoked the ever-lasting ire of the League of Sol by busting an attempt to conquer neutral worlds on the sly using stolen ships and some rather over-complicated but compelling political maneuvers. Our main characters are the crew of the Shadow Wolf, working for Captain James Henry, a former officer of the Coalition Navy who was wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit and dishonorably discharged to protect the reputations of powerful and corrupt men and officers (Well that’s on point…). Now Captain Henry is returning home but not for revenge or justice. Captain Henry is returning home to say goodbye. Because his uncle Charlie, the part-owner of the Shadow Wolf who gave him a new lease on life, is dying and even in the far future some things simply cannot be cured or endured. So the good Captain returns to his homeland, where members of his own family hold him in disgust, to say goodbye before it's too late. However, those powerful men won't consider such a human motive to Captain Henry's actions. Part of that is because with his recent actions Captain Henry has made powerful new friends within and outside the Coalition. There's also the fact that with the collapse of the League of Sol's ability to wage war in local space, political parties who would prefer a negotiated peace instead of invading another galactic arm after nearly thirty years of fighting within spitting distance of their homes may win power. The cherry on top is that several of Captain Henry's old officers never believed the cover up and have never stopped digging. With one of them about to become a general, the cover-up days may be numbered and there is much buried under that cover-up. Not that Captain Henry cares about any of this, he's just desperate to say goodbye to a man who was a second father to him and helped him survive the darkest part of his life.

However, the men who stole his entire life aren't even going to leave him this much, because they can't afford to. Driven by their own loss and grief from the war, these men, who have committed many sins in the name of final victory, will commit one more and in doing so drive Captain Henry and his crew into a final confrontation with his past for all the marbles. Ironically, their very refusal to practice some degree of mercy and humanity is what forges their opposition (Massive assholes like that usually create their own enemies, yes.).  An opposition that is needed, because what's at stake here isn't just some people’s wealth and power or even Captain Henry's freedom or life, but possibly the very existence of both the Terran Coalition and the League of Sol. Because underneath all of this, is hiding something very dark and very ugly that could lead to the death of hundreds of billions, if not trillions. Captain Henry and his crew, who already have to spend way too much time dodging League assets and League paid bounty hunters, now have to dodge the Coalition law enforcement and navy while trying to find a way to link up with their allies, find Captain Henry's old officers - who are also now hunted fugitives or prisoners - and expose the secrets that are driving these actions that could destroy them all. Desperate action will be taken, old secrets revealed and everything put on the line to prevent madness and butchery from running wild.

While there's plenty of action and skulduggery in this book, the core of this book is about loss and grief. Captain Henry has returned to his home not to fight but to mourn and grieve. Our antagonists are primarily motivated by their own loss and grief and their inability to properly mourn their loss driving them over the edge. That motivation is hovering in the background of most of the minor characters as well.  We see it in Captain Henry's old officers who are motivated not just by a need for justice but a sense of loss in that while Captain Henry is still alive, they have lost the man they served with. We also see it echoed in Captain Henry's crew as many of them can't go home again. The Saurian Yanik provides a great reinforcement to this when he shares his story of refusing military service because he believed that his government wasn't just wrong but actively perverting the very beliefs it was built on and he could not be a part of that. While Yanik remains a stoic and somewhat hard-to-read character, it's clear that he mourns the loss of his home and life every day. The newest crew member, and young Muslim Samina, also helps along this theme by talking about how her family lost their homes, how she lost her parents, and her fears of losing her own second-father someday. Captain Henry's best friend and crew member Felix reinforces it as his standing with Captain Henry causes a divide between him and his Father that will likely never be healed. There's also Tia, the socialist rebel (Yas Comrade!) who lost her homeworld when her revolution was betrayed by the League of Sol to the Megacorporations who run her world of Hestia (Marx’s Beard.  They’re Dengists.  That’s right, come at me, revisionist garbage! {I find it more comparable to how the Soviets promised tanks for gold, took the Republican Spanish gold reserve, and immediately started laughing about how easy it was} I am unfamiliar with that incident, to be honest.). It's here that the theme falls down though and it's mainly because of Tia's actions and how she treats the people around her. My biggest problem is that Tia spends a good chunk of the book putting herself in a position of judgment over the people around her and I end up wanting to smack her in the mouth. For example, yes it's dangerous that the CDF is hero-worshiped by the population of the Terran Coalition, at the same time this is a military that has fought a 30-year war, pretty much the whole time on its home soil, and maintained its role as subordinate to civilian rule. On top of that, the military has managed to mostly stay out of politics and prevent any danger of the Coalition turning fascist. Additionally, they are the one group of people keeping billions from being herded into “re-education” camps where most of them will never leave. Frankly, some hero-worship is perfectly reasonable here, and for her to sneer about how militaries are more tools of oppression comes across as an inability to read the damn situation for what it is and an inability to empathize with anyone who isn't a socialist. (Having not read the book yet, I cannot really offer a comment because my reaction is gonna depend on the nuance of what exactly she said and under what context.  Keep in mind though, that at this point, she is being hunted by agents of that same military.  {Actually, she starts with this before Captain Henry is even arrested.  This makes her sound incredibly insensitive to the situation that the billions of regular people in the Coalition are living with}   So yes, they do good things, but she might feel a bit… put off by the hero-worship of people who are trying to kill her. {The military only started chasing her because she led her crew in an armed intervention to break Captain Henry out of custody, which was very much the right decision and I applaud it actually but at that point, it’s kind like… What do you expect their reaction to be?  Hugs and kisses?} Fair.) Her treatment of Felix in the book doesn't help and her high-handedness given that if she was in the same situation she'd likely do the same thing Felix did, was galling, to say the least. I really enjoyed her character in the last two books but in this one? I kept asking where the fuck she thought she had the right?

Tia's behavior isn't gonna bother everyone though but it's a major glaring problem for me. On top of that there is still the problem of there just not being enough space to explore Captain Henry's crew in full, so a number of characters who are constantly hinted at being really interesting end up shoved into the background (This is an issue with the Huge Ensemble Casts Mr. Stevens likes to do, generally.). Which I find aggravating, that said I did find the villains of this book more interesting and compelling than the last one but I won't really get into them because that would be a massive spoiler. Instead, I'll encourage y'all to read the book and tell me what you think. As for myself, I could not put this book down, I mean it literally as I went through it all in a single sitting. If you're looking for a series that has interesting, colorful characters in strange places, risking things for high stakes, then this is for you. This is also a book that is willing to embrace the idea that even if you win, you will still suffer loss and pain and need to grieve and mourn those losses, and some things once broken cannot be rebuilt and some ties once severed cannot be reforged. Breach of Duty by Daniel Gibbs and Gary Stevens gets an A-.

We hope you enjoyed this review which was voted on by our ever-wise patrons. Our patron's vote decides what books and graphic novels get reviewed, as well as what theme months (like last year's Fangsgiving) we pursue. If you would like a voice join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for a dollar a month you get a vote on reviews and themes! Next week, we've be reviewing Monstress Volume IV. Until then stay safe and keep reading!

Read Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The Hidden City By Michelle Michiko Sagara West

 The Hidden City

By Michelle Michiko Sagara West

I'll be referring to Michelle West by her married name for convenience sake but she was born Michelle Michiko Sagara, the first child of Japanese immigrants to Canada. She was born May 5th, 1963 in East York, Ontario where she grew up reading Nancy Drew, the widely varied works of Enid Blyton - an English writer who was so prolific that rumors she employed entire armies of ghostwriters would dog her until she died - and of course, JRR Tolkien. She attended the University of Toronto to study physics and English but dropped out to write, turning in her first novel in 1987 when it was rejected by Del Ray books. But they did it by calling her up directly, so she doggedly revised the manuscript and sent it back. This time it reached the great Lester Del Ray, who sent her a 4-page letter of corrections, among them a note that if you're gonna write a 97-page flashback, the flashback should be the first book in the series (He’s got a point.). Mrs. West, who got married in 1990 while all of this was going on, wrote that novel, turned it in, and saw it published in 1991 under the title of Into the Dark Lands. Since then she’s written at least 34 novels that I could track down, an army of short stories, and about 56 book review columns for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. During all of this, she has also, amazingly, managed to raise two sons with her long-suffering husband. Considering the struggles I've had to write these reviews and do anything else, I’ve got to say I respect her work ethic. Let's turn to the book though.

So a bit of back story, The Hidden City, despite being held up by some of Mrs. West's fans as a great jumping-on point is kind of awkwardly placed in the timeline. It's something of a prequel to the Sun Sword series in that it takes place before the events of that series but it's also deeply tied to those events, and Ms. West would later confess that she hadn't considered that some lunk like myself would wander into her universe on this book without reading the Sun Sword series first. This is one of the dangers of writing more than one series set in the same world, especially series that end being closely related and even overlapping. I'm not going to beat this point into the ground, I'm just going to note for any growing writers reading this, there's nothing wrong with writing closely related series that interlace or take place closely together. Just make sure that each series can stand on its own okay?

The Hidden City takes place in the capital of the Essalieyan Empire, Averalaan. However, you won't get a look at lofty imperial politics or the wealth of empire here. This book takes place in the streets and slums of the great city, as a result, you're barely aware that wealth and power on a large scale flow not too far from the main characters and their struggles (Wasted opportunity for class struggle?). Which I honestly rate as a point in the book's favor, showing how that despite being so close together that often the elite classes of an empire and the underclass might as well live on different planets (Problem is, they do, but the wealthy like to lord it over the underclass.  So the underclass should be able to see, but not touch.  Also eat the rich.{Nonsense, that’s what servants are for.  No reason to see the actual underclass}) but let's take a look at our characters. The book focuses but doesn't turn on the efforts of two protagonists: Old Rath and Jewel “Jay” Markess. Old Rath is a man who works and lives alone, unearthing the artifacts of a fallen and mostly forgotten empire whose relics can be identified by runes that only a few people even remember exist, let alone can read. A man sank into his old grievances and grudges, barely interested in the common man. Until Jewel tries to steal from him. Jewel, or Jay as she prefers to be called, is a newly orphaned girl trying to survive.  What grabs Old Rath's interest are two things; her ability to block his dagger strike despite an utter lack of training and her refusal to surrender the core of her morality even as the streets of Averalaan try to pull her into brutality and savagery. When Old Rath decides to take her in when fever strikes her down and in the midst of her fever she tells him a vision that ends up saving his life, their relationship is set. Although there are going to be some bumps along the road of course.

While Rath is more or less uninterested in his fellow man, Jay is committed to helping as many people as she can, her mystic visions guiding her to other street children who need her. So Rath finds his home filling up with children for a purpose he doesn't understand but finds himself increasingly committed to. Jay for her own part cannot explain it to Rath because she doesn't understand it herself, only that she can help these children and she needs to. Here we're introduced to a good number of supporting characters such as the large Arann and mangled Lefty, streetwise Carver, and others. Then Jay has a vision that leads her to rescue a girl named Finch, who reveals that she escaped a child brothel. There's only really one response to finding out there's a child brothel in your neighborhood and if the cops won't do it, well, Rath hires a band of adventurers and gets it done. It's here that the plot finally starts to pick up when they meet the young lady Duster, who had freed Finch as much out of spite as a desire to do something good. As Rath finds himself pulled into an ancient conspiracy of demons who seek to twist and corrupt imperial society, Jay and Duster find themselves on a different playing field, which is vastly smaller but no less important. Playing for the fate of Duster's soul. Can Rath move past his old grudges long enough to gather the resources and aid he needs to combat the very soldiers of hell? Can Jay find a way for Duster to avoid becoming something akin to those demons in human form? Does Duster even want to avoid that fate, or will her bitterness and hate over a lifetime of abuse that no one should ever suffer push her over the line into only wanting to drown everyone else in her rage, hate, and pain? This is all the better done in that the battle for Duster's soul isn't one of magic and fireworks but of simple human choice.

So having come into this story without any background in this universe, I will say that the book does a good job standing on its own. You can read this book without knowing a damn thing about the other books and series and still get a good story out of it. However, I can't help but feel that certain scenes and characters are inserted not for the benefit of this book but for other books that either have already been written or were going to be written (The House War series has 7 more books after this). There's also a definite pacing problem here.  For example, I wasn't entirely sure what the plot of the book was for over 300 pages (out of 754). Contributing to that was the whole story of whether Rath would end up adopting Jay being stretched out over 100 pages (Good God), which was pointless. Because if Rath doesn't end up adopting Jay then he has no role in the story and the entire story changes.  We know Rath is going to adopt Jay by page 10, we don't need to see it dragged out so you can honestly do it in 50 or fewer pages.  A large amount of time is also taken up introducing characters that don't have a large impact on the story. The duo of Arann and Lefty gets a lot of space in the first 300 pages only to be more or less shoved to the side to make space for characters like Lander, Carver, Finch, and Duster. While Lefty does play a part in inventing a kind of sign language for the group and being a bone of contention between Duster and Jay, it's a role that could have been played by another one of the orphans pretty easily (for example yet another orphan named Teller could have taken that spot). I'm left feeling like some of the characters are required to be here so that the books that take place in the future make sense instead of because they're important to this specific story. So the book feels like it's at least 200 pages or so too big and should have been cut down some, as does the collection of characters.

Now that said, the book doesn't feel like a bloated mess, if there are scenes and plot beats that go on for too long, at least they're mostly in service of expanding on the characters and letting us get to know them. Because at the end of the book, we do actually get a good sense of the main characters and can at least tell the supporting cast apart. Additionally, Ms. West ensures that the reader at least understands what's going on and how everything is connected even if the characters don't. So it's very clear that Ms. West knows what she's doing and is at least a competent writer. Her ability to connect a large scale plot (literal demons are pretending to be wealthy men in the very heart of the Empire seeking to find weak and corruptible men for unknown reasons[I mean, that doesn’t seem like a plot that should take too terribly long.]) and a small scale plot (will Duster allow herself to become a weapon that spreads the same pain and hate that destroyed her childhood and marred her entire life?) is very well done. Although I think there is a bit of overuse of tell, she did back it up by showing the readers how they're related. I'll also note that these demons feel more like ancient creatures of sin and hate than many other depictions. There is something chilling in a major demon willing to take time out of his plot to corrupt an empire to tempt a preadolescent girl into betrayal and sin because he believes she's on the cusp of becoming something like a creature of darkness and hate and nurturing that is at least as important as speeding up the fall of an empire to him.  The fact that Ms. West sells that in a bare half a dozen pages tells me that she could have told this story in a lot fewer pages too! The end of this book is brutal and chilling but also manages to have uplifting and affirming ideas of healing and friendship. So whatever else, I can say that Ms. West knows how to manage an ending, which seems to be a rare skill these days.

So I'm left with decidedly mixed feelings about this book. At no point did I hate reading it and it was engaging enough that I enjoyed the characters but at the same time, the book took to long getting to the damn story. I should be able to tell you the plot of any book I'm reading in under 300 pages folks. This book had me unsure and guessing until nearly page 500 but it was a very readable 500 pages. I'll also admit this book has gotten me interested in looking at other works by Ms. West, so it's done a fairly good job there. That said, it's clearly a victim of the bloat that's infecting the fantasy genre as a whole these days. Folks, your novel does not have to be weighty enough to kill a medium-sized house pet for it to be good. Oh well, I will abide in hope that we can battle that back without going too far the other way. I'm giving the Hidden City by Michelle West a C+. It's better than average but the outlined issues hold it back. I don't think that would be a problem for people who have read the other works in this universe. So maybe start with the Sun Sword series?

I hope you enjoyed this review, if you did consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you can vote for future reviews, theme months, and more for as a little as a dollar a month! Next week we're reviewing Breach of Duty by Gary Stevens and Daniel Gibbs. Until then stay safe and keep reading! Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your editor Garvin Anders

Conventions of War By Jon Walters Williams

 Conventions of War

By Jon Walters Williams 

Conventions of War is book three of Dread Empire's Fall, the book series that takes a look at what happens when a government set up around there being “perfect men”, no longer has those “perfect men?” Now since I went over the second book in May of last year, let me sum up the back story. The alien Shaa decided they had learned everything that was important to know and had unlocked the perfect society and government (Their whole ideology is anti-dialectical poison.  Everything in any society is changing.  I can do an in-depth Materialist analysis of their culture and layout the principle contradictions of their society that they were papering over with naked brutality.  And by naked brutality, I mean antimatter bombs from orbit.{or mass indoctrination at every level of education and life, backed up with secret police that tortured people to death on life tv}). So they marched out and conquered as much of the galaxy as they cared to, putting six species under their heels, including humanity. They stopped, mostly because they ran out of motivation and focused on creating and enjoying an ever-unchanging state. But the Shaa made several mortal mistakes. First, the Shaa had embraced immortality but had not adjusted themselves or their societies to deal with their immortality (You can guess where this goes, dear-readers.  Ritual suicide!  Yay!). Second, the Shaa destroyed their own ability to have offspring and having banned genetic sciences - not to mention innovation and organized inquiry into the workings of the universe - they were unable to find a solution for their mistakes. So after a time measured in millennia, the Shaa began to take their own lives. Some out of despair, others out of boredom they couldn't admit, and still others because there was no other acceptable course of action left to them. Our series opened with the very last Shaa in the universe committing suicide with the devout wish that nothing would ever change (Imagine how fucked up you have to be to commit suicide because you can’t stand your own existence and not having any regrets about the society you created. {You’d have to believe that you’ve done everything worth doing and that the society you’ve made will outlast you.  Which it doesn’t in this case}). But change cannot be denied forever, no matter how high or thick the walls you raise, or how deep and wide the trenches you dig, change can only be slowed not denied. So it was that change came to the Empire of the Shaa, known as the Praxis, within months of the death of the last perfect man who anchored it. Because it turns out the only center the Praxis had was the Shaa themselves and without them, their successors turned on each other (And this kids is what happens when the contradictions inherent in a society become heightened.).

The first race that the Shaa conquered, the insectoid Naxids, decided that what was needed was a new race on the top spot instead of rule by a multi-species committee of noble peers (Also fuck these guys.). Of course, everyone else strongly disagreed and now the Praxis is in a situation that it's never been before, split in two with each part facing a peer competitor (To illustrate how “out of their depth” everyone is, they have wargames.  These wargames are pre-scripted, and commanders are praised or castigated based on how well they follow the script.). Because of that our two protagonists: Gareth Martinez, a backwater noble who before this was only allowed to rise just high enough to see what real power and wealth can do; and Carolina Sula, a woman with dark secrets that had to lie, steal, claw and fight to get what others are given just for being born; may just be allowed to exercise their full talents and gifts. If they can survive their enemies and their superiors that is. Because the rallying cry and the bedrock of the ideology of the Praxis is that everything that is important is known but the only way anyone is going to win this war is by innovation and experimentation (And everyone else in a position to do anything is has taken out their brains and polished them to an obsidian-smooth finish because that was required of them to survive and advance in this society.{That’s unfair.  What was required of them was that they master complex codes of behavior while learning to keep track of increasingly interrelated webs of alliances and social debts}That is also true, but god damn.). These are things Martinez and Sula are better set up to do since they have nothing to lose by doing so and everything to gain. Martinez has been able to win important small-scale victories using radical new tactics (Which, honestly, are actually pretty basic. {he has to use some pretty advanced math to create those tactics, to be fair Sula really helped with that}), this has led mid-grade and junior officers to increasingly study his tactics but in the upper ranks resistance has only increased (Because you know… their precious system of patronage!  “We can’t recognize merit!  We have clients to consider!”). Meanwhile, Sula has been cut off from the fleet entirely and is doing something even more outside anyone in the Praxis' experience: fighting an insurgency. You see when the Praxis conquered a planet any attempt at insurgency was simply met with mass bombardment by antimatter weapons until the rebels gave up their weapons (Or, you know, got melted with gamma radiation.). So the people of the Praxis never developed sophisticated infantry tactics or a grasp of how to run (or take apart) a resistance. Sula is however operating in the capital city of the Praxis, Zanshaa, which as the foundation of the Praxis and the site of the tombs of the Shaa is the closest thing to Holy Ground the Praxis has. If the Naxids want to step into the Shaa shoes, they can hardly start by wiping their capital city off the face of the galaxy... Can they? Well, Sula is going to put that to the test, as the incompetence of her superiors has led to basically everyone but her three-man team being captured and publicly executed by the Naxids. This however might end up being a mistake for the Naxids because they've kinda taken one of the most ruthless, intelligent women in the galaxy and removed any leash on her behavior. Worse they've done that and then tried to kill her! 

I've made no bones of finding Carolina Sula's story more compelling and her character vastly more interesting than Gareth Martinez in my last two reviews. It's not that Martinez is a bad character or his story is boring: in this book alone Martinez has to solve a murder mystery, deal with political intrigue and fight a war. That's without mentioning the complications of his romantic past with Sula and the fact that due to politics he's married to a woman he's known all of seven days. Sula's story meanwhile is an epic rise and fall on the scale of Greek Tragedy, all hinged on the gifts of a single woman. In this story, you'll watch a woman go from two followers to practically conjuring forth an army through pure willpower and desire. Of course, even such an army can't live off of willpower so Sula turns back to her childhood as Grendel, the bastard daughter of one mobster and the mistress of another who lied, murdered, and stole her way into the aristocracy. Turning to basically organized crime for logistics and support is a decision that insurgencies often have to make. The fact that Sula does so but manages to stay in control is amazing. The tragedy element is that Sula will gain just about everything she fought so hard to get but find it worthless because she'll basically lose everything that would let her enjoy it. Often it'll be her own fault that she lost it all as well, as her very real character flaws, mixed with the fact that she knows she's frankly smarter than just about everyone around her, lead her to push too hard. This costs her allies and makes her unnecessary enemies on the flip side, it also allows her to be among the first to realize the old rules that the Shaa have put down are gone and meaningless. The fact that Mr. Williams works so hard to make this work is what keeps Sula from sliding over into Mary Sue territory and allows him to write a competent, genius character. First give them real flaws that would make some readers feel like they wouldn't like the character in person, second, make sure they lose and make it hurt at least once or twice in the story. Third, having another protagonist who is almost as smart but with different flaws that allows them to avoid the same problems. This isn't entirely necessary but it helps.  Having someone else who can get things done keeps people from feeling that the entire world revolves around one character.  This series also serves as a great example of how to make sure your character avoids ending up in the trap where a large part of your audience sees them as a Mary Sue.  While some argue that Mr. Williams has just written a very sympathetic sociopath because Sula barely seems to acknowledge society’s rules much less obey them at times (Because the rules of the society in which she lives fundamentally suck!  Had I been in her position as a teenager, I would have done the exact same thing and not looked back.). My argument to that is, when or where was Sula given any choice but to be what she is or die? At what point did society ever provide her a moral code that didn't demand that she submit to being an object for the use of others or be otherwise crushed under a boot? I would also point out that Sula feels love for people beyond what they can do for her and keeps her word to people who keep their word to her. Even at great personal cost to herself. So I feel calling her a sociopath is off the mark (If a person is capable of doing those things, they are not a sociopath.  Full stop.). I would argue that Carolina Sula, aka Grendel, is exactly what her society made her. What that is, is a savage person, willing to lie, kill and steal to protect herself and believing that she must be ready to do so at the drop of a hat.  Because it gave her the choice of being that or being nothing and she was too gifted to choose to be nothing. I would give that as a warning, if you force your children into the mold of killers, you cannot be surprised when they kill.

Mr. Williams also uses a method I'm not sure I can full-hearted recommend. The fact is that the Naxids and the other aliens in the Praxis are ruthlessly othered here. By which I mean they are firmly presented as unknowable, none of our main human characters really form close relationships with them even if they are working on the same side. Also, the alien characters are never made point of view characters. This is subtly reinforced in the story itself, each species lives in separate neighborhoods, serves on separate ships, and almost always has patrons of their own species. Cross-species alliances aren't rare but they seem to be rather cold-blooded distant affairs. We don't see human officers spending off-hours with aliens, nor do we see the other species really mixing with each other.  Even in the navy!  You don't see cadets from different species getting together to bet on races or play cards, everyone pretty much sticks to their own species until you get to the command ranks.  This means that the Praxis isn't really an integrated society, even if you ignore the fact that the Naxids were able to get 90 to 99% of their aristocrat and military class to sign off on a coup without alerting a single member of the other five species that they supposedly live side by side with. I honestly wish we had a chance to see the world through their eyes.  (Part of this, I suspect, is that they truly are alien in terms of their cognition.  There are only a few rare gifted authors who can really write the inner life of a species with alien modes of communication and thought.  Hell, most authors cannot even credibly write the inner life of someone of a different race, sexual orientation, or historical epoch.)

Although this is just one of many cracks we are shown in the Praxis if we pay attention, another is the sheer divide between the aristocrats and the commoners; and now Sula and others are aware of it. They are also aware of the increasing incompetence of the aristocrats, while there are stray members of the aristocrat class that are skilled and competent, they are often hampered by the resistance of their peers and the fact that their skill generates suspicion in their superiors and that their natural drive towards innovation and adaptation will set them at odds with the entrenched interests in the Praxis. After all, if all that is important is already known, then what do you need to innovate for? Of course, if the only thing your elite class can agree on is that they deserve more wealth and power, and have drawn knives within months of taking power... How long before they turn on each other? How long before their desire to gorge themselves sick on the loot of the universe secure in the knowledge that they have no foe and no rival drive them to turn on the only obstacle in their way, each other? Given that two novellas and two more novels have been printed, we might not have to wait long to find out.

Mr. Williams gives us a tale full of tragedy and triumph, we see characters reach dizzying heights only to fall, mistakes are made, promises are kept and the darkest treachery is done. He doesn't only give us the war but gives us a view of the end of the war and plants the seeds of the next war as cover-ups and slander abound to make sure that the “right” people get the credit for the victory. The series itself is a story about how every empire has the seeds of its fall planted in its very nature if you look for them (This is true.  They all do.). Because whether any character besides Sula realizes it, the empire of the Shaa has fallen, the question is what is going to replace it and as of the close of this book, the question remains unanswered. I recommend this series to anyone who enjoys harder than average space opera, as the laws of physics play a large and unforgiving part in fleet battles here and there are no energy shields to make battle less lethal. I also recommend this series to anyone who likes characters who are multifaceted, flawed, and great at the same time. Conventions of War by Jon Walters Williams gets an A.

I hope you enjoyed this review, which was selected in an open vote by our ever-wise patrons. If you would like to join them to vote on upcoming reviews, themes, and projects coming down the pipe for as little as a dollar a month, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Every bit moves us closer to the day when the review becomes self-supporting. Next week, I'll be reviewing Michele West's Hidden City, which is a prequel to her other fantasy series. The writer herself has recommended it as a good jumping-on point for her universe so... We're leaping. Until then folks, stay safe and as always Keep Reading.

Red text is your editor, Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer, Garvin Anders

GI Joe Vol VIII By Larry Hama

 GI Joe Vol VIII

By Larry Hama

So I was asked recently why GI Joe keeps popping up in this review series. There are three reasons, first, our ever-wise patrons keep voting for it, and what they vote for they get (Yay Democracy!  Unlike us, who vote for stuff like minimum wage increases and healthcare that we don’t get!  Vote Frigid for Senate!  He has a proven track record of listening to voters!  If we’re gonna have Bourgeois Democracy, we might as well have someone in office who gives a shit.  No he isn’t running, but he should!). Second, I've been a fan of GI Joe since I was eight years old, and frankly, my appreciation for what Larry Hama has done: taking something envisioned as an extra-large toy commercial and turning it into a complex and compelling story with real breathing characters and a willingness to explore some complicated ideas has only gotten deeper with age. Third, I feel the series is intensely underestimated, along with Mr. Hama. This is a comic series that in the 1980s built a fan base that ranged from single-digit brats like myself to housewives in their late 20s and early 30s and solid male professionals as old as their late 40s. It crosses generational gaps, along with race, gender, and class, and every group had their reason for liking the series but everyone agreed on the quality. You don't do that if you are not writing something worth reading and I'm gonna stack fallen opponents on this hill until I'm buried on it. If you don't believe me, I dare you to read the series, that simple. I hope that clears it up. Anyways, Volume VIII covers Marvel issues 71 published May of 1988 to issue 80 published November of ‘88 so let's see what 1988 brings us (Other than cocaine and more AIDS {Always with the cocaine, is Air America giving you a sponsorship?}! Spoilers to follow folks.

Volume VIII first focuses on closing up the story arc in the ever-melting-down nation of Sierro Gordo, which was invented to serve as a stand-in for the Central and South American countries that were often victims of American foreign policy. I will now pause to allow my editor to scream and rant (You know the term Banana Republic?  Yeah.  That term exists because the US government subjected any country that didn’t subjugate itself to American fruit barons who kept their population in feudal servitude to “regime change in the name of democracy”.) At this point, they're on their third revolutionary government (military dictatorship) with the GI Joe-backed and trained counter-revolutionaries grimly holding in the jungle hills attempting to create a non-military government. Cobra has been chased out of the country, however, this only left an opening for an American banana corporation to swoop in and plant their own general in charge. Out maneuvering the Departments of Defense and State much to the disgust of the Joes and the Ambassador they've been ordered to evacuate (Wow, this is revisionist as fuck.{Eh, I can point to some equivalent events in Iraq and Afghanistan} Sure, but not within the context of our historical operations in Latin America. {Fruit companies actually did the Marines dirty a few times in the 1930s so Ehhh}). When the Dreadnoughts decide to hijack their way out of the country and steal the Joes' ride home, they're forced to flee to those same jungle hills that the counter-revolutionaries hold with the military hot on their heels. It's here that a fifth force shows up. Destro, who for various reasons I'll get into later in the review, has decided he needs to operate more independently from Cobra to the point of expanding his ancestral men-at-arms into an outright mercenary company so he can have his own armed force. While he sells anti-armor and anti-aircraft missiles to the military, which is a stupid purchase given most of their enemies are light infantry fighting in rough terrain, Destro makes contact with the Joes and the counter-revolutionaries. His deal is simple, he'll get them out of the country and help the C.Rs win in exchange for them nationalizing the banana company holdings and handing them over to him (What the actual fuck?{Destro is a CEO and with this, he grabs economic assets and locks out the US and Cobra}I get that, it’s just fucking bizzare.). Meanwhile, the Joes on the hijacked plane get hijacked and crashed by the Dreadnoughts and have to work together with them to protect a group of refugees and each other to escape the country. It's a good story that shows just how stupid the average Dreadnought is and how good their leadership is at adjusting for that and pointing them in the right direction. This storyline shows us just how good Destro is at achieving his objectives when he's not tied down by Cobra or Cobra's leadership. The biggest difference between Destro and Cobra is that you can count on Destro to fulfill his contractual obligations to the letter and in full. This doesn't make him a good guy because he'll have no hesitation in throwing you under the bus for bigger and better deals afterward; but it does set him up as something of a Magnificent Bastard, which we'll see in the new plotline and the one that dominates the Volume.

That of course is the long-awaited Cobra Civil War. As a quick run-up, Cobra Commander is being impersonated by a Crimson Guardsmen known as Fred VII (because they get plastic surgery to look like a set of guys to make them more interchangeable as agents) who shot the real CC and left him in a shallow grave when CC decided to quit Cobra to try and make amends with his son. Fred is backed by the Baroness and Zartan but opposed by Serpentor, the super-soldier project who thinks he's a dozen different mighty warlords reborn via dark science. Between being the first attempt at this, being a mix of random DNA from a dozen donors with no real quality control (I mean some of these guys have been dead for millennia!), and having a very unstable life, Serpentor is unstable. I'm sure you're shocked (I am completely shocked.). He is however still a better tactical commander and more caring of the lives under his command, if only marginally, than Cobra Commander. Serpentor is backed by Dr. Mindbender and the twins Xantos and Tomax. Now, Cobra command has always been a snake pit of plots and double-dealings but now it's worse than ever and everyone knows this can't last.

The war sparks off when an experimental trooper called a Star Viper is sent by Dr. Mindbender to the new Pit - the GI Joe secret base - breaks in, steals a bunch of top-secret intel, and escapes. When the Star Viper arrives, Serpentor is so insufferable that a fistfight breaks out between him and Cobra Commander and the war breaks out before anyone can even say good job to the Star Viper. I feel bad for the guy.  Imagine letting Dr. Mindbender hack your nervous system, taking on the best the US has to offer, winning, and when you get home literally no one gives a shit. I don't think it's an accident that we never see the character again (Yeah, I’d just go… Probably to start a real revolution in Latin America to be honest.).  I can only hope he chose desertion over other more permanent methods of exiting Cobra. The initial exchanges go poorly for Serpentor because Cobra Commander, or rather the Fred pretending to be him, was smart enough to bug all the android soldiers that Serpentor has been using as a personal guard (Infosec, people!). However fake CC isn't good enough to use this intel to stop him. This is where Dr. Mindbender gets the idea of grabbing the stolen US intel that's been just sitting there and trading it back to the US days after stealing it in exchange for US military aid, with the idea of handing it over and selling Serpentor as a constitutional monarch looking to overthrow the fascist dictatorship that is Cobra Commander (What the actual fuck?  That… isn’t how monarchies work? {Cobra isn’t a real country}No it isn’t, which makes it even weirder!). Thus making Star Viper's humiliation complete, I really feel bad for the guy. That said I will note that CC is a fascist dictator so there's some truth here.

Now the Joes weren't sitting on their hands when all of this happened. Needing to do something to avenge the loss of classified data, they had sent a Recon unit to Cobra Island and were gearing up for an operation to crash into the island and get it back. This is when they’re been informed that the State Department has cut a deal with Mindbender, instead of crashing in, wrecking up the joint, and grabbing the data, they are to crash in, link up with Serpentor and plant his clone ass on the throne of Cobra Island (What!? Monarchies don’t work that way?   Though I guess it is totally on point for the US government to just install a completely illegitimate government anywhere it wants.  I don’t like monarchies, I would unalive the Romanovs in a heartbeat, but at least there is usually some historical sense of legitimacy to them.  This is just… no. {Serpentor has a better claim as a monarch than anything else given that he claims to be an Emperor, also monarchies work a lot of different ways, including election by the army (Yes they do, but not typically “By the way, country that has no history of monarchy, you have a King now, because we’ve decided things that way, and he isn’t even OUR king.”{Monarchy has to start somewhere, Cobra at this point has less than 10 years of history behind it!}). Plus remember you’re the State employee who has to sell this to Congress and the people at some point.  What would you rather say?  “We backed this guy because he gave us back the stuff that he stole from us a bribe”?  Or “By doing this we turn Cobra from a fascist barely a state military to a Constitutional Monarchy and get rid of noted terrorist Cobra Commander, a man wanted by the West and East blocks for crimes against humanity”? (Probably the latter but it is still fucking bizzare)  Plus, Cobra isn’t a real country!  While the UN and the US legal complex has decided to treat them like one (Which they should not have done.), they’re a terrorist organization holding onto an artificial island in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico claiming sovereignty!  In a sane world, General Hawk would have been handed 1st and 2nd MarDiv along with the Joe Team and told to make the problem go away, but CC has subverted that much of the civilian world that it isn’t happening!} ). This is about as popular as smallpox but they salute and get ready to do it. Things get even more bizarre when Destro shows up, smuggling an armored battalion via cruise ship in the middle of the battle, and proceeds to dig in on the beach and just watch everyone else kick the ever-loving shit out of each other. Destro even orders his junior officers to make sure they're taking notes of the tactics and equipment on display when he stands down his men for a hot meal after entrenchment (Okay, that is legitimately funny.  That’s like a Prussian military officer hanging around watching the US civil war, only more; because he brought his entire staff and the infantry. {complete with formal tea set under an umbrella on a fancy table set up on the beach, I gotta admit Destro is styling hard in this volume}). Hama does a good job of making this a brutal fight and showing us Joes going down with injuries and taking losses even when being the most effective unit on the battlefield. Showing that even if you're a super badass, war is not gonna be super fun for you. Meanwhile, most of Cobra's problems are one of command.  When Serpentor sorts himself out, he's able to simply wreck CC forces, especially with the Joe’s support. However, when Zartan decides to take matters into his own hands and remind us just how good of an archer he is, it all falls apart. Without the evil Captain America that is Serpentor, his faction simply falls apart on the very cusp of victory, and Cobra Commander is left with his trembling boot back on everyone's neck. This is where Destro rolls in and informs everyone that unless someone hands over Baroness (who spent half the battle tied to Serpentor's tank because she was the only one on CC’s side willing to lead from the front), he'll bury their exhausted and out of position troops with his well-rested and positioned troops. This means Destro is the only one who got everything he wanted and at a low price. As the Joes are sent home in failure, CC has control of Cobra but one that is brutalized and full of people still reaching for their sidearms when no one is looking, and Serpentor is dead.

The Joes head home and find themselves set up to take the fall to protect the Senators, State officials, and generals who had made the deal with Dr. Mindbender by a conspiracy of Generals known as the Jugglers (This is totally on-point.  The Joes really need to start recording incriminating evidence for insurance purposes. {They really do, there have been a legit dozen times they could have ended Cobra only to be sideswiped by their own government}). So Roadblock has to put together a resistance to free his commanding officers so they can mount a defense. Of course he has to confront a hospital where everyone has been replaced with federal agents. He does this with the help of an anti-military activist that's appeared several times in the comic, Dr. Adele Burkhart. Dr. Burkhart is a character that shows how complex the GI Joe comic can be because while she's a critic of the Joes and the US government, she has aided them several times and has always tried to stand up for human rights as she understands them. In short, she's a pain in the ass but you can't help but respect her conviction and utter fearlessness in their pursuit. Dr. Burkhart and the Joes led a raid on the hospital in daylight on national news with Dr. Burkhart denouncing the government for sending the Joes off on an invasion and then throwing them under the bus, while being fired at by federal agents (Damn.). The whole thing is brought to a close by Destro who caught the News and was infuriated by such treatment of loyal soldiers. So he drops in on his private helicopter and presents evidence that not only were the Joes ordered to invade Cobra Island but the general leading the charge also contracted him to supply the invasion (Wow, yeah this guy was wasted in Cobra.  That having been said... were I the Joes, I’d fucking walk. Just leave.  They don’t have to be perpetrators and victims of US foreign policy and domestic shitfuckery {US troops don’t get to walk until the contract is done.  Plus if they quit, then what protection does the country have against an organization that can move armored battalions into striking distance of D.C at will?} Loyalty is a two-way street.  They might not be legally able to walk, but morally they have no obligation to stay.  If the government is that subverted, corrupt, and ineffectual, the United States is, realistically - and not in comic book logic, obviously - a walking corpse.  Best to set up a parallel power structure and challenge Cobra that way.  Otherwise, even if Cobra loses eventually, what the fuck are they propping up?  Did the guilty parties, for instance, actually pay for their crimes?{Yes, actually and the idea that the US government is a walking corpse is ridiculous, it’s nowhere near as bad as in the 1850s.  That said, you’re basically saying the only way to fight Cobra is to become Cobra by breaking away from the government and setting up a secret paramilitary organization that doesn’t answer to any outside authority.  Do you really think that’s gonna end well?}). Imagine being a news executive with that as your lead story.  How would you ever top that?  Honestly, guys, this is Destro's volume to show off his stuff and he does a fine job of it. The last story is a bit of a stand on its own issue of a group of Joes tasked to hold a small piece of newly emerging land in the Gulf of Mexico that could be used as a staging point against Cobra Island and their struggle against the Cobra forces that show up to take it. This leads to a seesaw battle that ends up not going anywhere because the island promptly sinks right back into the sea. Leaving Cobra and the Joes both nursing their wounds, neither of them able to get off a killing shot on the other. This sums up the whole conflict at this point.

I strongly recommend that anyone who has even a passing interest in GI Joe check out Vol VIII. This is honestly Larry Hama at his best, showing off his ability to write big epic plots turning on small personal details. It's brutal, but not gratuitous and unlike some people, Hama knows how to write an ending that leaves you satisfied if not entirely happy. GI Joe Vol VIII gets an A from me. Although I could have sworn there were maps in the original run of the whole battlefield that were left out here, if that's the case it was a bad decision. Still worth the read though.

Next week we finish the Praxis War with Conventions of War by Walter Jon Williams as voted for by our ever wise patrons. If you'd like a vote on upcoming reviews, theme months or other ideas, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for as little as a dollar a month you get a vote! Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!