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Essa should be dead. But despite the god Lukshi's efforts, she is still alive. The gods enslaved humanity in the distant past. Essa lives on a planet several thousand light years from Earth, except no one knows about Earth anymore. The study of history has been banned by the gods. Essa's father was killed in a heretic bombing. Essa's mother was worked to death on the orders of Lukshi, their planet's god. Not that the god knew she existed, for the entire population of the planet is being worked to death, except for the elites. The priests never seem to suffer. Essa was ordered to the temple brothel for her family's debts. She ran away instead. Abused, hunted, she found a device from ancient times, from when humanity stood against the gods. A suit of flexarmor had been kept safe inside its stasis container, waiting for someone to put it on. Intelligent, self-aware, constructed with the same technology that enables the gods, it has bound itself to Essa. With it as her companion, she will seek vengeance upon the gods and their servants. Only one group stands in her way, the premiere warriors of the era, the ones the gods themselves turn to when violent problems need a the Hana. Their name means "spear point" in one of the ancient languages, not that anyone other than the Hana would know that. They have served as mercenaries to the gods for two thousand years. They are very good at what they do. The rage in Essa's heart will be answered with the cool professionalism of the Hana. By their battles, nothing on Essa's world will ever be the same again.
198 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 21, 2013
3 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
R.P. Bird
23 books14 followersProfessional writer since 1989. He is the author of the In The Realm Of The Gods science fiction series (Essa, Book 1: Causality, and Book 2: Contravallation), the crime novel Suzie's Technical Support, the science fiction romance novel Rewire, the novella Perfect Children, the anthology The Heart-Shaped Topologies of Spacetime and innumerable short stories. Crazy, but highly reliable. Can fix about anything. Send him fan mail or annoy him on Twitter: @rpbirdwriter
Annoy him even more on Facebook: facebook.com/rpbirdwriter
Annoy him even more on Facebook: facebook.com/rpbirdwriter
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 23, 2013
Essa takes place in a time fame of less than six months on a horrible, dictatorial planet. The groups of players in the story are the pre-teen Essa, mercenaries from off world called Hana, the planetary functionaries and police, and the gods who control the planets. The story told is what happens to Essa following severe trama – how she copes and fights back. The book has continuous action, that advances the story – not just busywork action. Essa becomes a bad ass girl – but she is still a little girl. What do you do with that dangerous girl? Keep reading! My summary is a weak little shadow of the story, which is really great.
The book introduces two of the underlying mysteries of the series – the Hana and the gods. Essa is a stand alone novel – no cliff hangers. Just hints of new directions to be explored.
Mr. Bird creates organic growth for his characters, revealed through situation relevant dialogue and reactions. There were no long internal diatribes or philosophizing, which is a plus for the pace and flow of the story. This is not a children's story. There are hard plots and circumstances dealt with by his characters.
The characters are revealed through the real time progress of the plot. There is not a lot of foreshadowing of good guy/bad guy, although some definitely end up on one camp, many are far more ambiguous.
The cover art – which I like – made me think the book might be a teenager book and have lots of snarky teenage dialogue. That is not the case. Although I like the art, I think the prejudices of some older readers (like me) might cause them to skip over the description of the book because it looks juvenile to us, which is too bad. I'm not into marketing. I don't have a solution to offer for that – maybe alternative covers? Is that allowed?
I don't know that my review really communicates how much I enjoyed the book and also the next book in the series, Causality.
I understand that Mr. Bird does not have proof readers and editors. He has done an amazingly perfect and professional job in that regard. Kudos to him. Essa takes place in a time fame of less than six months on a horrible, dictatorial planet. The groups of players in the story are the pre-teen Essa, mercenaries from off world called Hana, the planetary functionaries and police, and the gods who control the planets. The story told is what happens to Essa following severe trama – how she copes and fights back. The book has continuous action, that advances the story – not just busywork action. Essa becomes a bad ass girl – but she is still a little girl. What do you do with that dangerous girl? Keep reading! My summary is a weak little shadow of the story, which is really great.
The book introduces two of the underlying mysteries of the series – the Hana and the gods. Essa is a stand alone novel – no cliff hangers. Just hints of new directions to be explored.
Mr. Bird creates organic growth for his characters, revealed through situation relevant dialogue and reactions. There were no long internal diatribes or philosophizing, which is a plus for the pace and flow of the story. This is not a children's story. There are hard plots and circumstances dealt with by his characters.
The characters are revealed through the real time progress of the plot. There is not a lot of foreshadowing of good guy/bad guy, although some definitely end up on one camp, many are far more ambiguous.
The cover art – which I like – made me think the book might be a teenager book and have lots of snarky teenage dialogue. That is not the case. Although I like the art, I think the prejudices of some older readers (like me) might cause them to skip over the description of the book because it looks juvenile to us, which is too bad. I'm not into marketing. I don't have a solution to offer for that – maybe alternative covers? Is that allowed?
I don't know that my review really communicates how much I enjoyed the book and also the next book in the series, Causality.
I understand that Mr. Bird does not have proof readers and editors. He has done an amazingly perfect and professional job in that regard. Kudos to him.
The book introduces two of the underlying mysteries of the series – the Hana and the gods. Essa is a stand alone novel – no cliff hangers. Just hints of new directions to be explored.
Mr. Bird creates organic growth for his characters, revealed through situation relevant dialogue and reactions. There were no long internal diatribes or philosophizing, which is a plus for the pace and flow of the story. This is not a children's story. There are hard plots and circumstances dealt with by his characters.
The characters are revealed through the real time progress of the plot. There is not a lot of foreshadowing of good guy/bad guy, although some definitely end up on one camp, many are far more ambiguous.
The cover art – which I like – made me think the book might be a teenager book and have lots of snarky teenage dialogue. That is not the case. Although I like the art, I think the prejudices of some older readers (like me) might cause them to skip over the description of the book because it looks juvenile to us, which is too bad. I'm not into marketing. I don't have a solution to offer for that – maybe alternative covers? Is that allowed?
I don't know that my review really communicates how much I enjoyed the book and also the next book in the series, Causality.
I understand that Mr. Bird does not have proof readers and editors. He has done an amazingly perfect and professional job in that regard. Kudos to him. Essa takes place in a time fame of less than six months on a horrible, dictatorial planet. The groups of players in the story are the pre-teen Essa, mercenaries from off world called Hana, the planetary functionaries and police, and the gods who control the planets. The story told is what happens to Essa following severe trama – how she copes and fights back. The book has continuous action, that advances the story – not just busywork action. Essa becomes a bad ass girl – but she is still a little girl. What do you do with that dangerous girl? Keep reading! My summary is a weak little shadow of the story, which is really great.
The book introduces two of the underlying mysteries of the series – the Hana and the gods. Essa is a stand alone novel – no cliff hangers. Just hints of new directions to be explored.
Mr. Bird creates organic growth for his characters, revealed through situation relevant dialogue and reactions. There were no long internal diatribes or philosophizing, which is a plus for the pace and flow of the story. This is not a children's story. There are hard plots and circumstances dealt with by his characters.
The characters are revealed through the real time progress of the plot. There is not a lot of foreshadowing of good guy/bad guy, although some definitely end up on one camp, many are far more ambiguous.
The cover art – which I like – made me think the book might be a teenager book and have lots of snarky teenage dialogue. That is not the case. Although I like the art, I think the prejudices of some older readers (like me) might cause them to skip over the description of the book because it looks juvenile to us, which is too bad. I'm not into marketing. I don't have a solution to offer for that – maybe alternative covers? Is that allowed?
I don't know that my review really communicates how much I enjoyed the book and also the next book in the series, Causality.
I understand that Mr. Bird does not have proof readers and editors. He has done an amazingly perfect and professional job in that regard. Kudos to him.
December 26, 2014
Excellent (and yes it is stand alone)
I'm not someone who writes reviews but this novella deserves one. I'm not going to go into the story line as the kindle summary does it well enough. Just say that if you like David Weber, Robert Heinlein with a bit of James Clavell mixed in you will enjoy this story. I got it free via FreeBooksy. Now it's enticed me enough that I'm going to have to purchase the related novels (though as noted in my header this is indeed a totally stand alone work).
I'm not someone who writes reviews but this novella deserves one. I'm not going to go into the story line as the kindle summary does it well enough. Just say that if you like David Weber, Robert Heinlein with a bit of James Clavell mixed in you will enjoy this story. I got it free via FreeBooksy. Now it's enticed me enough that I'm going to have to purchase the related novels (though as noted in my header this is indeed a totally stand alone work).
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews