The Fortress in Orion
Dead Enders Book I
Mike Resnick
Pyr Books
Trade Paper $18.00, 300 p.
Ebook $11.99 Kindle Nook
Audiobook $19.95
audio clip (15 min.)
Mike Resnick is one of the most prolific and honored people in the science fiction and fantasy field. It’s easy to understand why. The man’s work is innovative, engaging, and one heck of a good story.
Probably his most significant body of work is the Birthright Universe, which first saw light in the 1970s in Birthright: The Book of Man. This was an outline of roughly 18,000 years, culminating in mankind’s extinction. That’s a lot of room to play in. Not surprisingly, most of Resnick’s novels and many of his short stories are set in this universe.
The Birthright Universe is divided into five periods, based on the political structure of the time: Republic, Democracy, Oligarchy, Monarchy, and Anarchy. The Fortress in Orion is set during the Democracy. It’s the start of what promises to be a solid series.
Colonel Nathan Pretorious is the kind of special forces operative you turn to when it’s already too late. He’s tasked with putting together a team to try and infiltrate the Traanskei Coalition, specifically a particular fortress in Orion. Once there, he and his team are to replace the leader, General Michkag, with a clone. If they can get out, they bring the original with them. If not, they kill the original Michkag and leave the clone in his place. The clone has been thoroughly trained to take over and will end the war within a year.
How Pretorious and his team are supposed to accomplish this is entirely up to Pretorious. He’s a master of making things up as he goes along improvising. So along with a killer cyborg, an empath, a contortionist thief, a computer expert, and an alien who can project an image of just about anything in place of itself, he sets off. Just another day’s work for Pretorious and the Dead Enders.
Like most of Resnick’s work in this universe, there’s a great deal of dialogue. The book moves quickly, and every couple of chapters Resnick throws a complication in to keep things lively. Everything Pretorious does has a reason behind it. He doesn’t tell his team much because he doesn’t want them to worry or get fixated on a particular plan. He wants them to be prepared for anything.
Resnick makes Pretorious’ plans fairly believable, and there’s solid logic behind everything the team does to get into the fortress. Any coincidences that aid the team are offset by things that work against them.
The Fortress in Orion goes on sale tomorrow (December 2). It’s a fun adventure like you used to see all the time in science fiction but is all too rare these days. Check it out.
This time I didn’t get the review copy from Pyr. John O’Neill passed it along to me, so I’d like to thank John for doing so. The Fortress in Orion was a fun book and just what I was in the mood for.
Update: I’d like to thank Esther Bochner for the audio clip. I put it at the top of the page, but here it is again for your convenience. It’s a 15 minute clip, so you get a good feel of the tone of the book, the character of Pretorius, and the plot setup. Christopher Rummel has a deep, gritty voice that’s perfect for the story. The audiobook is 7 hours and 32 minutes in length.