Sandra Barret

This is the first book I’ve read by this author, though I have previously read a short story. That short story had been inside an anthology titled Spread the Love. Other than DeLancey, who I’d read before reading the short story in the volume of short stories, Barret is the first author among the six previously unread authors in that collection for me to read.

I liked that short story (rating it 4.72 out of 5 stars), despite it’s rather graphic nature, and had immediately added the first book in the Terran-Novan series because of it. What with that short story being set in the same universe as the series. But enough babbling.

‘Face of the Enemy’ is about two young women, both of whom, at times, act rather immature – but then they are in a stressful situation. Almost constantly. Both are attending a Terran military academy that is training them to be both pilots and officers.

Helena ‘Dray’ Draybeck is the daughter of a General (father) and a Lt Commander (mother). The mother was the commander during the Turien battle, one where many people died. Dray is, somewhat, suffering under two vaguely counter-intuitive burdens. The burden of having a mother who was a great fighter pilot . . . and the burden of being the daughter of someone, again her mother, who caused the death of many people during a large battle. To add to that, there are even rumors that her mother was a traitor. All of that, both the praise and damnation of the mother, occurred before Dray was even four. And, just to top things off, that General father dude is rather a distant kind of guy. Oh, and Dray deeply hates Novans because ‘they killed her mother’.

Jordan ‘no nickname’ Bowers is the daughter of an ambassador (mother), and a dead pacifist philosopher (father). The mother is ambassador to a planet that has, at least so far, remained neutral during the on-again-off-again war between the Terrans and Novans. Unknown to many (most?), while the mother is obvious and overtly a Terran, the father (and this is the unknown to most part) is/was a Novan. Making Jordan half-Novan. It’s basically illegal for her to exist. Heh, no, it’s more that if her nature were known, she would be dishonorably discharged from the military academy during peacetime and face trial as a traitor/spy if her nature was found out during war time.

A little back story. Both Terrans and Novans are from a planet known as ‘Earth’ (though neither Dray nor Jordan are from this planet; this isn’t like Asimov’s Foundation series – Earth is both known and still inhabited, it’s just that both Jordan and Dray live on worlds that were colonized by Earth people). Terrans believe in advancing themselves, augmenting themselves through technology (implants); while Novans believe in advancing/augmenting themselves through genetic modification. I do not know if Novans find technology icky, but Terrans find genetic modification to be really gross. It has been a while now since the two groups split, to the point that Novans are actually a different (sub)species now, one where it is actually pretty damn hard for Terrans and Novans to have ‘natural’ offspring (offspring from natural means, as opposed to . . . whatever ‘f-k procedure’ might be, though I assume some artificial test tube like system is used (Jordan is one of the few ‘natural’ offspring of the two species mating). Novans are classified as Homo Sapiens Novans. I do not know what the Terran’s are classified as, though I assume they are Homo Sapiens Sapiens (or, possibly, because of the heavy use of technology, they have moved on to being a different subspecies; by the way, Neanderthals are also possibly Homo Sapiens, sometimes referred to as Homo Neanderthalensis, or as homo sapiens neanderthalensis depending on the scientist you speak with – depending on whether that scientist sees them as a separate species or as a subspecies of homo sapiens; which I mention because subspecies can have viable offspring – and there is Neanderthal DNA in modern humans; which is directly important to this book here because Jordan exists because Novans are a subspecies of homo sapiens and not a completely different species).

Right. So. I do not know more than that. One uses technology to advance themselves, other use genetics. They occasionally fight each other.

As mentioned, Dray and Jordan are in a military school. The book follows them as they advance, get directly involved in the off-again-on-again war, then continue to advance again. The book is mostly a military academy (in space) kind, with occasional moments of extreme violence, as opposed to a war book. And the next book in the series involves a completely different character (though at least one of the characters popped up in this book), though I am uncertain how close or how far apart the two books are since I have not read the second one yet.

Overall, this was a rather entertaining book. To a certain extent I liked the action/training aspect a lot more than the romance aspect. Though I’m not going to claim that part was thin or something like that, it’s just that it is set against the background of a military situation. And it’s damn difficult to have a romance in such a situation (though, obviously, such things happen in real life – otherwise I myself wouldn’t exist, but let’s not pull myself into this discussion).

I enjoyed the book. A good solid 4 star book. I might even see my way to increasing the rating at some point, though likely only in terms of moving it to 4.5 or something (basically, it would change the shelf it sat on, not the rating on the screen). Good enough that I’ve already acquired the second book in the series (then noticed it involved a different lead character).

Oh right, one last point: yes there is graphic sex in this book.

June 23 2016… (mehr)