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The Latelian Cycle #1
Foreign Devil
Who is Garth ‘Nickels’ N’Chalez?
Don’t ask him, because he’s not entirely certain himself. Beyond a few basic facts, he is, in a universe of mysteries, one of the greatest mysteries of all. He has amnesia of the worst sort, leaving him clueless about pretty much everything that anyone would find interesting.
Why is one man such a mystery?
Well, for starters, he's thirty thousand years old. Granted, most of that time was spent in suspended animation, but next to the Trinity AI, he is the oldest thing in the known universe. Outside of two others, he is also the only living thing who knows anything about fast food, pop music, and other useless stuff like rock and roll and bad science fiction movies.
What else makes him so unique, when by all rights, after thirty thousand years, he should be just another average Joe?
Found alongside fourteen other men and women in a vessel defying explanation, Garth Nickels can’t explain why it is powered in ways that seem to violate the laws of physics, constructed out of metals that cannot be identified, and shielded from scanners able to measure the distance between subatomic particles. None of them could, and following an escape that very nearly saw fourteen of the fifteen enigmatic men and women free and clear of Trinity’s influence, Garth ‘Nickels’ N’Chalez remained the only one answerable for the destruction.
Shanghaied into Special Services –an unofficial arm of the Trinity AI’s might military machine- as punishment for his ignorance, amnesia, redoubtable martial prowess and the absurd damages caused to their … holding facility…, Garth spent ten long years fighting in wars and on planets far beyond his capacity to imagine, and for reasons the Trinity AI never bothered to explain beyond the enigmatic caveat ‘Mankind must be in every corner of the Universe’. During these increasingly difficult, violent and oftentimes bloody engagements across a thousand worlds, Garth learned a secret he could share with no one: something inside him, some part of him, was allowing him to grow stronger, faster, more agile.
When you’re in Special Services under Trinity command, you have no choice but to push forward, hoping you either die or live long enough to win free. Garth accepted these mysterious changes as what they seemed to be; part of the mysterious heritage that allowed him to sleep for thirty thousand years. Each new mission wrought further changes, pushing him down darker paths to glory, changing him from the man he wanted to be into a man who frightened himself.
That’s past history, though.
Now? Now he's finally free of his 'debt to society' and is looking for answers to the nightmare that's plagued him from the very beginning; who is he? More importantly, what is he? How can he do the things he does with such ease? What mechanism exists to explain an adaptive morphology that seems to hold no upper limits? What possible reason existed to explain fifteen men and women entombed in a vessel that defied explanation after thirty thousand years of scientific advances? Can he find his way back to the man he remembered being upon first opening his eyes?
The answers possibly lie in a dream, a dream of a ship, a sister-ship to the one he and the others had been found in. It’s out there, somewhere, and Garth knows two things; he knows without doubt that the coordinates from his dream are almost certainly inaccurate after so long and he knows that, come hell or high water, he’s going to find it and learn the truth of his existence.
Saddled with a badly hacked artificial intelligence nicknamed Huey, Garth sets off on a course that takes him to Latelyspace, home to the Latelian Regime and last of the sovereign systems this side of The Cordon.
His actions, driven by a reckless need for answers, will irrevocably make him a 'Foreign Devil'.
Don’t ask him, because he’s not entirely certain himself. Beyond a few basic facts, he is, in a universe of mysteries, one of the greatest mysteries of all. He has amnesia of the worst sort, leaving him clueless about pretty much everything that anyone would find interesting.
Why is one man such a mystery?
Well, for starters, he's thirty thousand years old. Granted, most of that time was spent in suspended animation, but next to the Trinity AI, he is the oldest thing in the known universe. Outside of two others, he is also the only living thing who knows anything about fast food, pop music, and other useless stuff like rock and roll and bad science fiction movies.
What else makes him so unique, when by all rights, after thirty thousand years, he should be just another average Joe?
Found alongside fourteen other men and women in a vessel defying explanation, Garth Nickels can’t explain why it is powered in ways that seem to violate the laws of physics, constructed out of metals that cannot be identified, and shielded from scanners able to measure the distance between subatomic particles. None of them could, and following an escape that very nearly saw fourteen of the fifteen enigmatic men and women free and clear of Trinity’s influence, Garth ‘Nickels’ N’Chalez remained the only one answerable for the destruction.
Shanghaied into Special Services –an unofficial arm of the Trinity AI’s might military machine- as punishment for his ignorance, amnesia, redoubtable martial prowess and the absurd damages caused to their … holding facility…, Garth spent ten long years fighting in wars and on planets far beyond his capacity to imagine, and for reasons the Trinity AI never bothered to explain beyond the enigmatic caveat ‘Mankind must be in every corner of the Universe’. During these increasingly difficult, violent and oftentimes bloody engagements across a thousand worlds, Garth learned a secret he could share with no one: something inside him, some part of him, was allowing him to grow stronger, faster, more agile.
When you’re in Special Services under Trinity command, you have no choice but to push forward, hoping you either die or live long enough to win free. Garth accepted these mysterious changes as what they seemed to be; part of the mysterious heritage that allowed him to sleep for thirty thousand years. Each new mission wrought further changes, pushing him down darker paths to glory, changing him from the man he wanted to be into a man who frightened himself.
That’s past history, though.
Now? Now he's finally free of his 'debt to society' and is looking for answers to the nightmare that's plagued him from the very beginning; who is he? More importantly, what is he? How can he do the things he does with such ease? What mechanism exists to explain an adaptive morphology that seems to hold no upper limits? What possible reason existed to explain fifteen men and women entombed in a vessel that defied explanation after thirty thousand years of scientific advances? Can he find his way back to the man he remembered being upon first opening his eyes?
The answers possibly lie in a dream, a dream of a ship, a sister-ship to the one he and the others had been found in. It’s out there, somewhere, and Garth knows two things; he knows without doubt that the coordinates from his dream are almost certainly inaccurate after so long and he knows that, come hell or high water, he’s going to find it and learn the truth of his existence.
Saddled with a badly hacked artificial intelligence nicknamed Huey, Garth sets off on a course that takes him to Latelyspace, home to the Latelian Regime and last of the sovereign systems this side of The Cordon.
His actions, driven by a reckless need for answers, will irrevocably make him a 'Foreign Devil'.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 22, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 3, 2013
I've been reading mostly self published stuff for the last 6 months and I would have said this was one of the best I've read so far by some margin.
I've been extremely frustrated with reviews for self published work, particularly on amazon but also here; I can only assume that the bulk are written by friends and family, or paid for, because they bear little correlation to the quality of the work. I've decided that this book (and book 2) deserve enough of my time to help offset this unfortunate trend. I'm not going to go into any detail about the book other than to say I enjoyed it immensely. To make this a little more concrete, I finished this book while sat on the docks in the sunshine and, luckily for me, with cell reception. Two minutes later I was onto the next. I am now eagerly awaiting the third.
Addressing the comment about an invincible hero, well it depends on your perspective really. Personally I can think of only one or two books out of the thousands I've read where the main character actually dies prior to the end of the series. If there's a well populated cast of main characters then maybe, rarely, one of those will bite the bullet. Essentially all main characters are invincible, some simply spend more time than others resolving conflict situations. The invincible hero comment addresses what I'd call the tactical level, whereas I derive enjoyment from the archeology/discovery aspects and the strategic level of the plot and actively enjoy the fact that the tactical portions move fast.
I've been extremely frustrated with reviews for self published work, particularly on amazon but also here; I can only assume that the bulk are written by friends and family, or paid for, because they bear little correlation to the quality of the work. I've decided that this book (and book 2) deserve enough of my time to help offset this unfortunate trend. I'm not going to go into any detail about the book other than to say I enjoyed it immensely. To make this a little more concrete, I finished this book while sat on the docks in the sunshine and, luckily for me, with cell reception. Two minutes later I was onto the next. I am now eagerly awaiting the third.
Addressing the comment about an invincible hero, well it depends on your perspective really. Personally I can think of only one or two books out of the thousands I've read where the main character actually dies prior to the end of the series. If there's a well populated cast of main characters then maybe, rarely, one of those will bite the bullet. Essentially all main characters are invincible, some simply spend more time than others resolving conflict situations. The invincible hero comment addresses what I'd call the tactical level, whereas I derive enjoyment from the archeology/discovery aspects and the strategic level of the plot and actively enjoy the fact that the tactical portions move fast.
August 26, 2011
The author demonstrated in this novel a firm command of the English language. The few grammatical and structural errors I found seemed to be related to incomplete proofreading and editing. With some greater amount of attention to the rubrics of good storytelling, I have no doubt that future works could make an interesting read.
For the complete review: http://www.siftreviews.com/2011/06/fo...
Review by: Pearson of Sift Book Reviews
Sift Book Reviews received a free copy for review from the author. This has, in no way, affected the reviewer's opinion.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews