Ben Jeapes

Jeapes has written a book that will require a genre footnote; I don’t know that we have an historical science fiction category! It is 1645. Oliver Cromwell is on the rise. King Charles I is embroiled in a civil war. John Donder (pronounced Dhon Do in his native Holekhor) is a general and with the discovery of a new portal, he has returned to annex England for his Lord the Domon’el of Golekh.

Dhon Do has machine guns and he commands the fleet of airships that will annihilate the English. show more Cromwell has his wits and the help of Mistress Connolly who hates the Golekhi with a passion for the crimes visited upon her people in the Holekhor world. Wild cards include Dhon Do’s miraculous son (no one believed the Golekhi and the English could produce children) and the Wise whose abilities are centered in the geophysical alignment of the lines of power.

Despite the seeming anachronisms and improbabilities in this short summary, the events described feel historical and we get swept into believing that King Charles or Cromwell could very well have spoken and acted as presented; Jeapes places us firmly in the mid sixteen hundreds with language that will challenge and not discourage teen readers! Jeapes includes a postscript explaining (and inventing) the mix of history and fiction. You have to read this one to believe it. It is a significant literary accomplishment. show less

This book had a good beginning & resolution but it had problems. I️ liked how it addressed misunderstandings & assumptions by the different aliens, a nice analogy to diversity issues. But it got preachy at the end. There were no section dividers within chapters in the E-book. So no idea there was a switch in locale & characters from one paragraph to the next, maybe a prob with kindle version. Finally, lots of jargon with little explanation.

Michael Gilmore is made captain of a ship that will take the UK-1's (a gigantic space station) representative to the convocation to which a mysterious technologically advanced alien race has invited human beings - saying they want to share their planet with human beings after a selection process. Gilmore is a man passed over in his career and he feels he has finally made the grade - this is very illustrious position and he will be carrying the Prince (of the now defunct UK kingdom). Gilmore show more finds that there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than he expects for a supposed peaceful delegation - like there are weapons fitted on his spaces ship and all other delegate's ships. The aliens, the First Breed - also known as Rusties, since they are reddish and always flaking, put representatives on each delegate's ship in order to interview the ships' crews and understand humans further. Gilmore is suspicious of their motives, as well as the delegates intentions, but he also haunted by the spectre of failure - making him doubt his own decisions. What follows fulfulls his greatest fears and he has to make risky decisions that imperil his crew and the delegations. In the meantime, the aliens are paying strict attention to the human's dangerous intrigues. Technology is lightly touched upon, but you get a close-up view of living in cramped space ships and how frail they really are. Anyone who likes conspiracies, intrigue and boxes within boxes will enjoy this book. show less

Opening Sentence: '…Joel Gilmore's life was saved by a faulty component module, the vagaries of SkySpy's maintenance roster and a called in favour…’

I found this to be a fairly complicated story. Often getting lost, trying to figure out the intricate connections between the various characters.

Lieutenant Joel Gilmore and his partner Boon Round (a member of four-footed hairy alien species nicknamed Rusties) are working on maintenance duty when their spaceship is attacked by XCs. Only Joel show more and Boon survive. The spaceship is spying on the XC world aka World 4. XC is short for Xenociders - so called because they were observed totally annihilating the nearby World 5, which is now called the Dead planet.

However the XCs didn't kill Joel and Boon and they are kept prisoners and unharmed. The two groups can't communicate to each other, but the author switches the story between Joel and Boon and to the main XC character - a female (Oomoing) - so we can see what is going on from their point of view. They are merely observing Joel and Boom. Oomoing is assisted by a young male called Fleet. After seeing the treatment of World 5, Joel and Boon are convinced the XC want to kill them and then go on to earth and destroy that. They plan on escape in the last lifeboat left in the space station. They can't believe their luck when they are taken to the lifeboat, because of the communication difficulties they don't realise the XCs are letting them go. In ther kerfuffle, Oomoing and Fleet are trapped in the lifeboat.

Joel and Boom decide to hide in orbit behind the dead planet (World 5) but more drama's make them land on the planet instead. They get out and are attacked by beings that look like XC - which surprise them as nothing is suppose to be living.

The story gets increasingly bloodthirsty as the events unfold, told from human, First Breed, and alien points of view. It does explain to the reader what is going on and provides an interesting picture of completely different mindsets and cultures. But.....

It is too complicated, I got lost so many times and found myslef flicking back often to try and remember who was who, where they were and what they were doing and why. Other than that it had everything else going for it - action, adventure, wonderful technology and believable characters. show less