Monday, August 7, 2017

Injustice Book Review: The Golden Horde by Chris Kennedy

Cower not, fierce reader! This day we look at the latest book of the Revelations cycle, or the Four Horsemen universe. I can hear someone say, "But that came out last week!" .  What can I say? I fell behind in my reading. Anyway, enough about my slacking. To the review!

After his first entry, Asbaran Solutions, I had thought that perhaps Chris was the weaker writer of the pair, though still quite competent. This book proves that he just needed to find his ground. With this, he most definitely does. Perhaps it was the characters of the first book that kept me more distant, but this drew me in.

One treat with this story is that it isn't just centered on one character, we see a return from one featured in the anthology as well. And while you don't need to have read that story for this one, it's a nice treat to see some aftermath from a determined and tough character.

That's not to say there isn't plenty to like about the characters created for this book. There's an interesting dynamic, of family, redemption of sorts, and paranoia. The Enkh family runs and makes up a large portion of the Horde, based in Uzbekistan. They make a big deal about having and using information faster and better than anyone else. To kill aliens on strange planets.

We even see a return of our favorite failed logistics officer, Sommerkorn. This time, well, let's say he stays employed and even redeems himself for his mistakes.  A bit of a tragic character this, and in this volume, there's no comedy.

Oh, you want to know about the book's crimes? Right. It encourages paranoia, more than suggests government complicity in undermining its people, decisions of great import made without approval of authorities, and well, would be characterized as xenophobic by the SocJus crowd. But I don't believe in making friends with Tortantulas and MinSha for the most part, that's just a bad idea. As Nick Cole and Jason Anspach have written, KTF.

8 of 10 fell deeds.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

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