Book Review: Star Core: Wild Space
STAR CORE: WILD SPACE by Matthew Olney is a book that seems to take from Mass Effect, The Expanse, and Halo. As such, it's pretty much exactly up my alley. I enjoyed his fantasy novels, the Sundered Crown books, but the English author brings something much closer to what I love here. I'm a huge space opera fan and it's always good to find literature that aligns with my tastes. People looking for a morally gray story of the aftereffects of war, the questionable ethics of resistance, and also just a bunch of hot Space Marines of both sexes will love this one.
Earth has recently managed to win a war against its own space colonies on Luna, Mars, and Ganymede. This isn't something that reflects well for Carter Matthews as he was a mooner pilot in the resistance. Carter Matthews fell in with a rough bunch after the war, though, and ended up sentenced to life in prison. Thankfully, he's basically a pilot version of Rambo and his old commanding officer is willing to give him a second chance by going after those who want to end the peace. It reminds me a bit of the Universal Century Gundam series or Star Wars Legends stories where a warlord was always trying to restart the war.
I really like this set up as it is a very strong political arrangement. All of the nations are restricted to the solar system as well, which allows the story to have a very easy to memorize set of "borders." You are also inclined to sympathize with the underdog even though we don't know the reasons behind the revolt. The lack of details regarding the politics actually is a point to the credit as most people were serving their nation without specific insight into the larger goals of the wars. A man hates mooners because they killed his brother, not because of disputes over taxation policy.
I really like the character of Carter Matthews as he's an individual who did have a lot of nationalist fervor for his side but events have slowly burned that out of him. The war was lost and fighting it again is not going to do anything but get people killed. On the other hand, his attitude has been so bad against Earthers that it has gotten him way too much criminal experience. That, ironically, is what really gets him out of jail as they need an expert on how the Underworld intersects with the terrorists.
Equally enjoyable is Captain Elena Valdez who was the hottest pilot (in both ways if the description is accurate) of the Earth starfighters. She's a lot more laid back about things since her side won the war. She is happy to let bygones be bygones but this attitude doesn't win her a lot of approval with either side. Even so, she is prevented from pursuing anything with Carter because of their pasts and the issues of rank once he comes into Star Core.
There is a lot of good action in this book, cool ideas, and the twist at the end is one that sets up the rest of the series well. I like the characters, the world-building, and the way the plot shakes out. Do I have some complaints? Maybe a few. I hate the name of the robot and I do think we could have gotten a little more detail on why the wars happened as well as what the colonies' grievances were. Still, only small issues.
Overall, I'm very impressed with this book and would love to read the next one coming out in October.
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