Over three thousand years ago, humans reached out from a dying Earth to the stars through a vast technological leap known as Casimir gates... gates
that still control the flow of information and commerce throughout the galaxy, still held in the iron grip of the Prime protectorate. Many may chafe
under their control, but with absolute power comes absolute authority. Until the Icarions rebelled against the Keepers of the Ada Prime gate - a skirmish
with potentially galaxy-wide repercussions.
Sanda has always been the protector of her kid brother Biren, even well into adulthood; she even joined the Ada Prime military to protect him and their
fathers while "Little B" pursued an education, with an eye toward the exclusive Keepers. But while he navigates the shark-infested waters of the Keeper
elite, she finds herself facing down a rebel enemy that destroys her gunship. Sanda wakes up alone aboard an empty Icarion vessel, the Light of
Berossus, which delivers devastating news: two hundred years have passed, and the entire system - Ada and Icarion and the gate itself - has been
destroyed by a devastating new weapon... a weapon that may still be out there, a threat to the future of humanity itself. But there are pieces that
don't quite add up, and a danger that may make the Icarion threat look insignificant.
Review
I can't always explain my choice of reading material through strict logic, or more specifically, how I pick which title to read next; some books linger
in the pile for years, while others leap ahead. This book, a recent acquisition, jumped the line on perhaps the most subjective of all premises, even given
my history of subjective premises: I liked what the author had to say in an online video when asked about the name of a group of dragons, a pure gut
reaction that disregarded the fact that Velocity Weapon is science fiction and has no dragons in it. It may seem like a pointless thing to mention
in a review, but I figured I'd get it out of the way... and also, tangentially, it brings up the importance of listening to gut reactions. They don't always
pan out, but in instances like this, they strike gold.
The book starts at high velocity (as I suppose one might expect from the name), thrusting heroine Sanda into the strange and terrifying situation of waking
up on an unknown vessel after an unknown length of time, and missing part of a leg to boot. Meanwhile, Biren, back on Ada, finds his graduation and rise to
the status of Keeper marred by fallout from the very battle that destroyed Sanda's ship. Both have little time to catch their breath before the story rips
ahead, though never too fast to keep up with. Each must navigate mazes of tricky situations and possible deceptions and whip-fast alterations in trajectory
with each new plot revelation. On a seemingly-unrelated side story, a street rat in another system sets out to score a stolen crate of drugs and stumbles
onto a conspiracy with roots deep in the galactic power structure, and other interlude chapters chart the origins of the gates and the Prime supremacy; while
individually interesting, these two arcs don't tie into the events near Ada until much later, involving the greater Protectorate series more than this
installment. (Yes, this is another Book 1 of a longer series of unknown length. It's almost a given these days.) Characters are generally intelligent and
strong, able to keep up with the rapidly evolving events, if not without the odd misstep or slip, leaving things at a point of high tension for Book 2. The
whole story crackles with wit and energy, making its five hundred pages fly by. I'm already looking forward to the next installment.
(In the meantime, if O'Keefe wants to write a fantasy with dragons, I, for one, would most definitely be interested...)
The prototype AI vessel Light of Berossus is gone, fleeing the system rather than being used as a devastating weapon in the ongoing conflict between
Ada Prime - loyal subject of the star-spanning Prime civilization - and the breakaway faction on Icarion, which rejects the stifling rules of the Prime Keepers
and their terrifyingly effective guardcore enforcers. Major Sanda Greeve of Ada has been returned to her family, alive and well (if sans one leg)... but a
fugitive, framed for the death of rogue Keeper Laveaux. During her time in captivity, someone stuck a Keeper chip into her head containing coordinates that
Laveaux was desperate to obtain. Now, those coordinates are her only clue to the vast conspiracy she inadvertently unearthed, but to reach them she'll need a
ship and an unorthodox crew. Fortunately, one of her fathers still has contacts in some very out-of-the-way places, and she still has the trust and support of
her Keeper brother Biran. Unfortunately, the danger she discovered will spare no one, and the truth she finds will upend everything she ever thought she knew
about Prime and the Casimir Gates that connect humanity across the stars.
Review
The second installment of the Protectorate (probable) trilogy starts almost right where the first one left off, with Sanda and Biran still up to their necks,
or rather well over their heads, in danger. O'Keefe does not bother to recap, but jumps right back into the action; given that it's been a while since I read
Velocity Weapon, it took me some time to get back up to speed, but the writing is fun and characters distinctive enough to keep me turning pages even
when I was still scrounging the gray matter for memories of who was who and what was what. There are almost no lulls in the plot as Sanda, Biran, and the other
core characters race to uncover a long-lost secret, scramble to determine friend from foe, and try to stop a disaster in the making, all while facing an
essentially immortal enemy with many faces (or many versions of the same face) and who has had centuries to study humanity and plot its destruction. There are
few backslides in character intelligence, and while characters do make mistakes, they're mistakes made honestly and not because of an author deliberately
turning their brains to gelatin for the sake of extending a plot. Most find their sense of morality pushed from sharp black and white into increasingly dark
shades of gray, forced to weigh options where there is no pure or bloodless or oath-honoring solution, some being pushed to extremes they never imagined.
Throughout it all, there's a nice sense of humanity underlying the character interactions, making the devastation all the more stark. The ending sets up a third
book that looks like an even bigger thrill ride... one which I don't intend to wait quite so long to read, once it's released this summer. (I will be fully
vaccinated by then, and am already plotting a major bookstore binge to honor the occasion... future global or national disasters permitting, of course.)
Since waking alone on the empty ship of her enemies, Commander Sanda Greeve has had her world turned upside-down and inside-out. The interstellar government
to which she swore her life turns out to have been founded on a lie, its technology stolen from an ancient alien race and weaponized to prevent that race from
returning to snatch its toys back. The artificial intelligence of the enemy ship, Bero, achieved sentience and turned on its makers. And the man who helped her
escape and whom she fell in love with turned out to be part of a secretive ring of spies with unusual tech of their own, to the point where it's arguable
whether Tomas is even human. Meanwhile, her brother Biran has undergone his own journey and rude awakenings, rising to the role of Speaker of the elite
Protectorate only to discover the rot and lies within. Now Rainier, the legacy artificial intelligence originally tasked with guarding the alien tech, has gone
insane, ready to culminate a generations-long plan to exterminate the upstart primates for the travesty they made of her creator's gifts. Sanda and Biran
scramble to save their species from threats within and without, but their enemy has studied humanity for centuries and infiltrated every nook and cranny of
civilization. Even as they race toward the final confrontation, they may already have lost.
Review
The final installment of the (probable) trilogy maintains the high-octane pace of the series, shot through with firefights, betrayals, twists, and turns,
with some spots of humor and character interplay along the way. Sanda and Biran and their companions must confront the sins of their species and Prime's
founders, who built their entire spacefaring society on lies and bloodshed and greed and fear; even as they work to stop Rainier, they see just why the
artificial intelligence has grown so enraged with the crimes of the species. Former Grotta thief Jules Valentine, meanwhile, continues on the dark path that
led her to infect a large population with the corrupted "ascension" agent that helped her transcend her human limits (but which has devastating results on
over ninety percent of its victims), finding it increasingly hard to justify her extreme means even in the name of saving the only person in the universe she
has ever cared about. Things start at a high level of tension and only ratchet up from there, at times reaching near overwhelming levels, before a climactic
conclusion that alters the trajectory of Prime and humanity's future, with the door cracked open just enough for sequel potential. It narrowly lost itself a
half-star due to that sense of being a little overwhelmed and overloaded at times, plus some of the side characters and storylines felt a bit lost in the
shuffle by the end, but the whole still makes for excellent, action-filled space opera that never forgets the flawed individuality of the characters
involved.
