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Into The Fire (Varta’s Peace book 2) by Elizabeth Moon (book review).

Oddly, I started reading ‘Into The Fire’ thinking I was up to date. ‘Cold Welcome’ is the first book of the new series of books, ‘Varta’s Peace’, about Kylara Varta although this book looks like it can be read alone. She’s now at home on Slotter Key, discovering three of her own company have escaped prison and seek sanctuary with her. As things start to unravel, another four are discovered in hospital but heavily drugged and the officer investigating finds her own office is bugged. Ky Varta and her friends find their citizenship being revoked for all sorts of reasons.

This then ends up being the core and rescue part of the story as seen from different members of the Varta family, more so as Ky Varta is confined to her house for a time. Stella Varta is head of the Varta Corporation and the much older Rector Gracie Varta involved in government. Each has their own parts to play.

In the aftermath, Ky is appointed intern commandant of the military academy after its predecessor does a runner realising he is about to be found out and author Elizabeth Moon’s knowledge of military procedure tends to take place. Ky has to discover the conspirators and what they’ve been up to. Seems nothing changes much in the future in that regard.

The real problem from that point is the conspirators don’t seem to do much in the mop-up, more so when so much of their own enterprise is at stake. You would have thought with all the planning they’d done that they wouldn’t be like rabbits in the headlights at the end. The finale is still classified but there is a big battle. There does seem to be some peace at rthe emd but whether that will last depends on a third book.

In many respects, spreading the action across three different characters makes sense, simply because one person cannot be everywhere. Oddly, Ky Varta becomes a secondary character for a large section of the book. Reading details behind the story, Elizabeth Moon has said that she rarely comes across older characters being used in fiction. I think she might be surprised at British TV but she has a point about fiction on paper.

Considering how the current generations of sixty years are looking like fifty years, maybe that will change as well. Makes note to check on the ages of my adult characters and then realised I’ve never actually given them ages.

GF Willmetts

February 2018

(pub: Del Rey/Random House. 459 page hardback. Price: $28.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-10188734-9

pub: Orbit. 462 page small enlarged paperback). Price: £ 8.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-0-50630-2)

check out websites: www.delreybooks.com, www.orbitbooks.net and www.elizabethmoon.com

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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