The Directorate

by Berthold Gambrel

The year is 2223. Under The Directorate, established after the Great War of Unification, there has been stability, tranquility, and prosperity for all the citizens of the Triad. One of the keystones of the society is the equality of all the peoples of Earth, Luna, and Mars. Lt. Theresa Gannon and her cohorts in the IDS are committed to preserving the peace throughout all the worlds of the Triad. But Gannon has seen fissures begin to appear when a group of daring Earth-Firsters seek to assert their rights as descendants of humanity's first homeworld.

Follow Lt. Gannon as she is drawn into the machinations of these rebels and as she seeks the fame and glory that drew her to seek to follow in the footsteps of Admiral Kannengieser, who military cunning is matched only by his sense of justice and mercy.

Genres: Science Fiction

308 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 18, 2018

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE DIRECTORATE is the most enjoyable science fiction book I’ve read in years. The author, Berthold Gambrel, has set his novel in a universe that seems like a linear offshoot of our own present world; the technologies are advanced yet recognizable, there have been no world-ending catastrophes, and magical aliens haven’t appeared to conquer or correct humankind. We’re on our own, it seems, making our way out into the solar system colony by colony. I had a persistent feeling of optimism as I read the novel.

I also appreciated Mr. Gambrel’s deft handling of human societies’ mitigations of current risky technologies like artificial intelligence and constantly-on information devices (smartphones).

I don’t make this comparison lightly, given my very high esteem for Robert A. Heinlein’s work, but I found myself comparing Mr. Gambrel’s novel to such Heinlein classics as SPACE CADET, FARMER IN THE SKY, “The Green Hills of Earth” and even STARSHIP TROOPERS. I’m very hopeful this book will have a sequel and, in any case, look forward to reading much more of his work in the future.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the future, a peaceful coexistence between the citizens of Earth, Luna, and Mars is shattered when a rebel group attacks. Lt. Theresa Gannon, an intelligent and dutiful soldier who wonders what it would be like to be in battle soon has her question answered. What she doesn't get answered at first, however, is what she's battling against, and it's this mystery that gives the book a page-turning quality.

Given I'm not normally a sci-fi reader, I need good description to ground me in the story. This book had it. I could visualize the planets, the equipment, the advanced technology--kudos to the author for creating these vivid images in my mind. Furthermore, I loved the main character. Gannon is humble, moral, and duty-bound, and the reader roots for her from the start. And she is not the only strong female character in this book, so another five stars to the author for that.

An engrossing read written with intelligence and heart. I thoroughly enjoyed the story.

[Noah Goats · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Directorate deserves to be widely read by lovers of science fiction. It’s very well plotted, weaving together story threads involving terrorist conspiracies, threats of alien invasion, and oppression by the menacingly named “Directorate” itself. It is a lean and well paced novel and Gambrel skillfully teases mysteries and possible dangers, building the suspense until unleashing crackling action sequences. There isn’t a moment of boredom in these pages.

The novel’s ending, while satisfying, also leaves a lot of room for a sequel or a whole series. I’ll jump on any follow ups as they come out.

The one irritating thing about reading The Directorate is the knowledge that novels that aren’t nearly as good have sold many more copies. This book is much, much better than recent bestsellers like Artemis and Armada (though, to be fair, the first novels of the men who wrote those books were both fantastic). It would be great if this could somehow climb out of obscurity and become a hit.

[Phillip McCollum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Space opera with some gusto!

When Berthold Gambrel announced the publication of his second novel, The Directorate, I grinned from ear to ear. It was difficult to recall the last time I had dug into a good military space opera. There was a youthful summer when it was all I read, but it's since been one of many genres that I cycle through.

Let me tell you, The Directorate was a wonderful way to get back into the swing of things. The ethos of Heinlein mingles with shades of Star Wars, providing an exciting cornucopia of huge starships and vast conspiracies. With a bloody history, Mars, Luna, and Earth are having a hard time maintaining their alliance and no side can claim the high ground. In the middle of it all, our protagonist, Lt. Theresa Gannon, proves that heroes are forged under fire when she's forced to make life-changing decisions at every turn.

Berthold does a fine job of keeping the reader hooked from one chapter to the next. I never felt bored as he moves things along at a rapid pace. The variety of setting and characters truly spiced up the narrative.

Having finished The Directorate, I was happy to see he's hard at work on another book. I'd ride a motorcycle across Mars just to get a copy! ;)

Keep 'em comin', Berthold!

[C. Litka · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Directorate, by Berthold Gambrel is a well written military SF story set in our solar system, 68 years after the end of war between Earth and its Lunar and Marian colonies. The colonies won. After imposing a generous peace treaty they set up the Directorate to unite the three, equal, worlds under one government. Nevertheless, there were still dissidents who believe that Earth should be the center of the solar system’s civilization, and still others who believe each of the planets should be independent. And though there was no longer a need for warships and armies, the Directorate continued to built more warships and maintained a large military force. It seems that idle warships and soldiers, like idle hands, are the devil’s workshop. The dissidents could, and did, find uses for these idle ships and soldiers.

The Directorate tells the story through the eyes of Lt. Teresa Gannon who, time and time again, finds herself in the wrong place at the right time. As a result, she is drawn ever deeper into the conflict between the Directorate which she serves, and the dissidents who would pull it down. And even as she defends the Directorate, she discovers that it, too, has its dark secrets.

The Directorate is a thoughtful exploration of the rationales of the various factions, and the pros and cons of security vs freedom. It is set in a sweeping vision of the a solar system wide civilization, and driven by a series of deadly battles that leave real scars. Science fiction with a classic feel to it.

[H.R.R. Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW. If you're looking for a quick read with a lot of feeling, this is a really good book to enter. The universe is as deep as space, and the plot(s) are compelling, but what really drives this book is the characterization.

Let me delve into the plot caveat right quick, and then I'll get back to why the characters were so great.

In this book, there were essentially two plotlines: one in the first half of the book, and the other in the second half of the book. At first I was skeptical of this because it felt like the first half could have been stand alone as a novelette. There were two entirely separate plot structures to the halves, and each had a similar ending in how the main character's situation had changed. And, after finishing the book, the two halves probably could have been sold separately, but they work better together. I believe the two halves were meant to be compared and contrasted.

Theresa Gannon is the mentee of Captain Hartman. This relationship is much deeper and better than most relationships between officers you see on TV (and way better than what you'd see in, say Star Trek). There's a very platonic mentor-mentee relationship, and yet you can feel the tight connection and love between them. Hartman and Gannon speak to each other like real people, and yet what can drive them apart is exactly what brought them together in the first place: military order.

After the events of the first half, Captain Hartman goes away physically, but she remains a psychological force for Gannon. Gannon thinks about Captain Hartman often when she interacts with Conley, a lieutenant under her, and with Nathalie, a young student at the Nightingale Station Academy. At this point, holy crap do the foils set in. It's a fantastic, rich comparison of characters and relationships. Dig back into your high school English knowledge, my friends, because we're about to get into the spoilers with gusto.


Captain Hartman had been an excellent mentor to Gannon. The Hartman in the first half serves as a great foil for Gannon in the second half, and not just because Gannon tries to emulate her. Hartman's trust, which Gannon mistreated accidentally in the first half by following the orders of charismatic Colonel Adams, shows up in the second half as Gannon's trust of her new mentees.

Conley, who was placed as a Lieutenant under the newly promoted Captain Gannon, should be in a position to receive Gannon's training. Gannon herself sees this similarity between herself and the plucky Conley, and she tries to be a good mentor. She's patient with Conley as she teaches things she's learned through experience, and she very carefully tries to not lash out despite being on edge after the battle on Mars. Gannon also finds a mentee in the form of Nathalie, a 15 year old student at the academy who tries to break through Gannon's security team and measure for what I like to call "funsies." She tries to nurture Nathalie through a potential spot of trouble and encourage her to use her incredible intelligence for good. They form a relationship somewhere between mentor-mentee and parent-child, which was interesting and good.

Nathalie and Conley, however, are foils to the Gannon of the first half of the book as well as foils to each other. Whereas Gannon herself was split on how to handle Colonel Adams and his false warnings about Hartman's loyalty, Conley and Nathalie have no inner conflicts. Conley represents the half of Gannon that had followed Adams, and Nathalie represents the half of Gannon that wanted to stay with Hartman. The way Conley becomes cruel and traitorous represents what Gannon hates within herself, the actions that Gannon feels guilty about, and Gannon's trapping Conley out of the elevator and out of the elevator was (at least somewhat) a sign of her moving on. It was a symbol that Gannon was finally breaking away from the half of herself that followed Adams and selecting who she would be.

Conley's betrayal also had implications for the way the chain of command was played by Adams to get what he wanted. Just like he'd done with Gannon, Adams had convinced Conley to play her superior officer. Conley brought the story of the first half of the book full circle to the second half. While Gannon saved Mars by her quick thinking in part 1 and Nightingale Station in part 2, her change of position from mentee to mentor and from inferior to superior officer keeps Hartman's influence alive throughout the whole book.

Nathalie, who was young and impressionable, continued to follow Gannon through to the end of the book. She represented the relationship Gannon wished she'd maintained with Hartman. By choosing this relationship over Conley's, I believe Gannon successfully repudiates her "betrayal" of Hartman. By choosing to stick with her mentee despite it all, Gannon shows that she took the lessons of Hartman and that Hartman had always seen that spark and goodness within her.



Well, there you have it. A lot to write about a little book.

[Peter Martuneac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sci-fi isn't usually my preferred genre, but this one was really good! In the 23rd century humans have not only colonized Mars and the Moon but built thriving civilizations. As one may predict, the peoples from each planet start to get a little nationalistic in their pride for their homeworld. A war breaks out, the conclusion of which spawns an overarching government called The Directorate. They oversee the goings-on of Mars, Earth, and the Moon and, in an effort to avoid future wars between the planets, push an agenda of sameness between the worlds. And that holds up for a while...

Until one extremist with a bomb decides to make a statement...

This story is told in 3rd person and follows Lt. Theresa Gannon, a low-level officer in the Directorate's military/law enforcement branch. While on the Moon, she is witness to a terrorist attack on a famous library and this sets her on a collision course with destiny.

I really want to talk more about the plot but I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll bite my tongue. I will say that the story is fairly predictable, even for a guy like me who is easily bamboozled in books and movies, but that's not a knock on the story at all. I've written before in my blog about predictability and how it's not necessarily a bad thing. To me, reading is about the journey, not the destination. And if the journey is beautiful and pleasant and delightful, well who the hell cares if you end up exactly where you expected to be?

The dialogue was good, never clunky. Gannon was a believable, relatable character. A military woman trying to do her duty while battling an underlying premonition that not everything she's seeing is on the up and up. She has to make some hard choices, and it's not always the best choice.

For a military character, she was really well done. As a military man myself, it is SO easy for authors to get this completely wrong and you end up with a cheesy caricature. Not Gannon. I felt like I could relate to her struggles, to her thought processes and the way she dealt with trauma.

The only thing about her character that disappointed me was that, when she finally kills someone in combat, the moment is just glossed over. In previous chapters she'd made a point to mention how she'd never yet been in direct combat and so wasn't sure if she'd be able to handle it; after all, merely seeing the aftermath of combat had left her shaken.

I knew a 'first kill' would be coming and I thought it might have some profound meaning to Gannon, but it seemed to be just business as usual for her. I didn't want time to stop as she reflected on the gravity of the act of killing, because that's one of those cheesy cliches I hate. But I would have liked some reflection in the eerie calm that follows combat. Even a passing mention, now that the danger has passed and her mind can relax, that she had ended a life would have been, I thought, appropriate.

And then the ending was a little too abrupt/untidy for my taste. A lot is left undecided in the aftermath of the plot's resolution. Again, without spoiling anything, I would have liked to get at least some inkling of the Directorate's next move or Gannon's role in the military, all events considered. But that's just a personal preference.

I wanted to give this 5-stars. It was a real page turner and I read nearly the entire thing in two days. But it lacked that extra-oomph a 5-star read needs. I was very pleased with the story, but not thoroughly blown away. 4 or 4.5 stars is what I'll give it, and a STRONG recommendation to fans of sci-fi.

[Lorinda Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A measure of independence” was given to the worlds, said Kannengieser

This is a book in the mold of earlier science fiction, where the emphasis is on technological advancement and exciting adventure rather than on character (although Gannon, the principal character, is well developed). It’s laid in 2223, after Luna and Mars have been terraformed, given atmospheres, and populated by humans. This precipitated warfare, with Earth trying to take over its smaller neighbors – wars that were ended by the heroic Admiral Kannengieser who united the three worlds and established the Directorate. The premise is that everyone on these worlds is equal. But humans will never see life that way and now certain elements are trying to populate the worlds with cloned humans who can be educated in science and technology, with no knowledge of history or the humanities in general, and so be more controllable. In the end, this fails – even genetically engineered individuals can develop basic human characteristics like altruism and compassion.
There are some descriptions I really liked. Here is one example, a view of Nightingale Station from space: “Across the surface little points of light flickered through the windows, making the huge sphere glitter like a snowball on a sunny winter day.”
Certain aspects of this book made suspension of disbelief difficult for me. First off, I doubt Earth technology will have advanced anywhere near that far by 2223. I’ve always been skeptical of terraforming, anyway. Also, a clone is an exact copy, by most definitions, and the clones in this book don’t seem to be exact copies. Possibly, embryos were produced instead by genetically controlled in-vitro fertilization, then matured in jars.
This book has interesting concepts and lots of action and excitement, but I have one final quibble: it has absolutely no humor. Humor is such a basic part of the human psyche, and I prefer science fiction that makes use of this. Humor is a huge part of what made StarTrek so successful. But I did find the book very readable, with ideas worthy of consideration.

[Audrey Driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

The big picture of this novel is the world of the 23rd century, in which the people of three different worlds live under a government established after war, by principles laid down by a hero of that war. The reader focuses on this world through one person -- Lt. Theresa Gannon, a "daughter of Mars" and member of the interplanetary armed services, who sees the beginning of disintegration and rebellion in the form of an "Earth First" movement.
The governing structure and norms of this future world are well thought out and succinctly described. Nanotechnology plays an important part in making the moon and Mars habitable for humans, with their engineered atmospheres and even artificial gravity. Spaceships and weapons are plausibly described, as is the research station linked to Ceres by a giant elevator.
That the main character, as well as a couple of supporting ones, are women gives this novel a different tone than other "hard" science fiction. Gannon is a sympathetic character, with a family background and interests that sound familiar to a 21st century Earth person. Her personal loyalties are tested as the events of the story unfold, taking her out of her intended career into a surprising new situation. I have to admit, I found the last quarter of the book somewhat rushed. After a really satisfying slow buildup, things happen really fast. Gannon is able to gain access to important people and restricted places more easily than I would have expected for one of relatively low rank, even after events earlier in the book turn her into something of a celebrity. The ending, although satisfying, left me feeling a bit shortchanged. Having creating a really interesting world, Gambrel left me wanting more, both about Theresa Gannon and her world. Perhaps he intends to write a sequel.

[Eileen Iciek · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Directorate is a science fiction thriller taking place in the late 22nd century, when humans have colonized Luna, Mars, and a few other spots in space. Our protagonist, Theresa Gannon, is in the military and in the right place at a number of wrong times when revolutionaries/terrorists are attempting to seize control. Her military training stands her in good stead when faced with bombs, traitors, and the moral choices that come with realizing neither side is without faults.

Gannon is a completely believable character in vividly depicted locales on Luna, Mars, and a space station. The story's evolution is fun and compelling - a real page turner that I didn't want to put down.

[Geoffrey Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not usually a reader of science fiction, but The Directorate was an unexpected treat. Set some 200 years in the future with humans inhabiting Mars and the moon as well as Earth, it has interesting but recognizable technologies and all too familiar politics. Lt. Theresa Gannon is a great character--a dedicated and loyal soldier. But where her loyalty deserves to lie is a mystery that makes this a page turner. A fast-paced and entertaining read.

[Gladys Johnsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Science with humans.

This humans in this book were living in 2020. They traveled to Mars, the moon, Luna and sometimes to the Earth. There were a couple of wars, and the young Captain made was responsible to get her group from one place or the other. Loyalty and trust were necessary in order to figure out strategies for survival.