Velocity Weapon
The Protectorate series, Book 1
Megan O'Keefe
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: 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...)
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