To Dream of Chaos

Traveller: The New Era #2

by Paul Brunette

"An infamous Reformation Coalition criminal has discovered a cache of super-weapons that could provide the power of life and death over humanity's fragile rebirth. But this stockpile sits on the doorstep of the oppressive Empire of Solee. If the Solee obtain these weapons, the dream of a free human civilization will die aborning. "When the call comes, only tiny RCS Hornet is available, her crew scattered to new assignments following the completion of their last mission. Hornet is hastily dispatched to find the weapons, and ensure that they do not fall into the wrong hands. But when they arrive, they find a world locked in civil war, and stalked by impervious 'nightjacks': angels or demons who come in the darkness to pluck away the locals -- and Hornet crewmembers. "However, deep beneath a mountain fortress, surrounded by weapons of staggering power, there sleeps one who is described as a saint. It is said that he will return at the time of his world's greatest need to save his people. But only he knows that while he has slept away the years, he has dared... To Dream of Chaos."

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very slow read. And a very picaresque plot without enough focus.

[Peter Juzyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A more complete novel with a better story than the first boom of the trilogy. Many of the Traveller: The New Era concepts (TEDs, a Groundhog, and Virus-infected computers) were incorporated.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Usually, game related fiction resides in two camps...unreadable palaver that one wants their money back, but you read it anyway because it's advancing the storyline, or stuff that makes you wonder why this guy isn't doing this more often.

This book is the later. While it starts off slow, and the exposition of the characters could have been a mite shorter (yeah, it's assuming you didn't read the previous book, but seriously people!). the ending is what makes the book, yes, the ending..it asks the question "If you live long enough, do you lose everything?" It asks that question, as well as others that don't usually get asked in RPG sci-fi. Our main character has, but she has gained a lot too. But she's weary, tired of every time she goes out, the list she's toasting "Absent Freinds" to gets longer and longer. But she does it anyway, because she is who she is, and she's incapable of being anyone else. I like characters with that kind of honesty. Something to be said for that.