always start most of my reviews like this, but I picked this up at the used bookstore on my credit. Was nosing the scifi books and it looked interesting. So, let’s see what author John Birmingham penned us, shall we?

In this novel, it seems that hundreds of years ago, a bunch of anti-re-life, anti-augmenting, anti-genesplicing, anti-alteration purist bigots tried to kill off all “mutants and cyborgs” (their words, not mine). They almost pulled it off but apparently a stunning victory by the liberal (they don’t call it that, but it sure feels that way) elements of the galaxy kicked their asses and sent them into headlong flight into interstellar space. Yay, us!

But this didn’t solve all our problems. Even with the big bad fascists on the run, humans (even altered humans) are going to be humans. In this one area of space, there are ruthless corporations running workhouses, monarchs crushing the serfs, organized crime, all the grim elements of human society. And in our book, there are several main characters – a lieutenant pipped aboard a destroyer. An aged archeologist picking at one of the fascist crash sites, a princess, a band of laughable space pirates, and even a code-based consciousness that is on death row, about to be deleted. That’s a lot of characters for one book.

So the Sturm (as the space-KKK are called) pull a perfect Pearl Harbor. As backwards as Klingons, they manage to release malware that makes anyone who receives it turn into a blood-thirsty raving zombie. The entire area of space is suddenly stripped of all command and control. And into this void, the Sturm come boiling, taking over planets and habitats, going person by person and pulling the heads off anyone with any augmentation or visible gene-splicing.

I have to wonder – this book came out in 2020, and sorta, in its way, mirrors our own politics (and look what they’ve grown into!). But more importantly, as I read, I checked over the covers to see if this was going to be resolved in one book, or be some part of a cycle. I didn’t see any indication of a series yet you never know. But I didn’t mind reading it. Author John Birmingham writes nearly as gritty and laugh-out-loudable as L.M. Sagas (whom I recently reviewed with Cascade Failure, which I loved for much the same reasons. The action was fun, the situations interesting, and the scenery porn wonderful to imagine in the mind’s eye. In the end, we got a nice conclusion, all written up as neat as a bow.

Well, except for a final fly in our soup.

And checking, yes, there IS a second book. Still, you can read this one and enjoy it – the ending is solid enough. Or you can be like me and order the next one. I’m looking forward to the followup. Should be fun!

Anyway, just another great space opera novel, the best to read when you want entertainment AND amazement.

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