UnArcana Stars (Starship’s Mage, #6).
By Glynn Stewart.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.
A humanitarian mission into unfriendly stars
A training cruise under the watch of a fortified fleet base
The closing jaws of a trap years in the makingIt has been over a year since the UnArcana Worlds of the Protectorate of the Mage-King of Mars seceded, shattering the unity of the human race. The new Republic of Faith and Reason has raised new banners in defiance of the power of the Protectorate’s Mage aristocracy.
Now, Hand Damien Montgomery commands a relief mission to a Republic world ravaged by famine. His humanitarian mission collides with a newborn military beginning to flex its muscles–and a newborn nation prepared to accept no violations of its sovereignty, regardless of their needs.
Elsewhere, disaster strikes the Nia Kriti Fleet Base as an earthquake shatters their only communication with the rest of the Protectorate. Officer-in-training Roslyn Chambers is in the middle of the recovery effort when she realizes Nia Kriti is under attack.
The Republic is done with peace. They are coming for the Protectorate–and they will see the fleets of Mars break!
When I read the first book in the series I was indeed a bit hesitant since I was worried that the mix of science fiction and fantasy (magic) would not really work very well. In my experience it rarely does. However, I found the first book, after which the series is named, really good. Since then the series has continued getting four star ratings from me, without exceptions so far.
In this book the series goes off in a direction that I quite like. It moves from Damien traveling from planet to planet investigating, kicking ass and dealing with bad guys to full out war. A war with fleets of space ships duking it out. My favorite kind of science fiction.
The Protectorate are caught with the pants down and has to scramble to defend itself against the fanatical pseudo-religious anti-magic asswipes. I have to say that now I have rather high expectations on next book hoping that Damien and the Protectorate will take the fight to the Republic. Preferably with some of those new Dreadnaughts they keep mentioning.
I really like Damien and his bad guy ass-kicking. Unfortunately the author decided to write in a plot twist in a previous book where Damien got severely injured and lost some of his powers. I really dislike that rubbish. It was so cool when he wiped the floor with any asshat that thought they could take him on. He kind of still does that but not as spectacularly and he keeps moaning about the missing power “tattoos”. This twist feels like the type of unnecessary drama that some lazy-ass Hollywood hack would throw into their TV-show scripts.
I really hope he will heal and get those powers back. This book might have gotten five stars if not for that rubbish.
Anyway, it is still a solid four star book and obviously this series stays on my will-definitely-read shelf.
PG's Ramblings 