Guardians of Paradise

Hidden Empire #3

by Jaine Fenn

Most people believe the Sidhe are long dead, exterminated centuries ago when the males of the race rose up and fought alongside the humans subjugated and enslaved by the female Sidhe. But Jarek Reen knows better: he's discovered, the painful way, that the Sidhe are alive and well, and still screwing over humanity. They've already killed his sister, so he's not surprised when he discovers an old friend and her partner are next on the Sidhe's hitlist. He helps not only to foil the assassination attempt, but also to muddy the scene of the crime, leaving the Angels Nual and Taro sanMalia presumed dead - and free to join his crusade to expose the insidious influence of the Sidhe, and their evil plans to enslave the human race again.


Their mission takes them across human-space, from utilitarian hub-points to rich, exotic planets - where they discover that a brilliant vacation spot hides some of the darkest secrets of all. And that's when they discover how easy it is for the hunters to become the hunted...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

356 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 9, 2010

About the author

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it's also far harder to track down. Jaine Fenn has had numerous short stories professionally published, some of which appear in the collection 'Downside Girls' and has won the British Science Fiction Association Short Fiction award. Her Hidden Empire space opera sequence, published by Gollancz, starts with the novel 'Principles of Angels'. Her Shadowlands science fantasy duology is published by Angry Robot.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is thought that the Sidhe are ancient history, wiped out a millennia ago. Jake's sister has just been murdered by the Sidhe, and they are now after a old friend of his and her partner. Foiling the attempt on their lives, he helps them escape.

The Sidhe think that they are dead and they join Jarek in his crusade in fighting back against the desire of the Sidhe to enslave the human race again. As they traverse space, the discover a dark secret hidden in the most unlikely of places.

With chapters from her previous books, Fenn has taken them well out of their comfort zones and pitched them into a race for survival. The plot is not as strong in this one, as this is primarily about character development of the Jarek and the two Angels Nual and Taro, and the way that they deal with the perilous situation she has placed them in. They are all flawed in one way or another, which adds to the richness of the story too.

Great stuff. Next one soon.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought I'd reread a favourite Space Opera on my holidays this year.
Things I'd remembered. That this where the protagonists from the two books join forces. Corporate espionage as a fact of life on a Polynesian landscape.
Things I'd forgotten. The scale of the world building in this series. We're still getting revelations that explain the set-up, cast things in a new light, and set up more problems. Quite how annoying the teenage boy's point of view is (It's supposed to be. I just wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him!)

[Lel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was ok, it tied in with the first two books nicely and made it more of a series than just a set of books set in the same universe. Some of the concepts were really interesting in a horrifying way but, for me, the book was spoiled with a lot of relationship angst that I always resent in books.

[TeaDrinker · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a trilogy, works well enough. Would read further in the series. Probably 3.5 stars each book.

[Ove · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Jaine Fenn. Her characters and intriguing world building is superb. She is one of my favorite authors and Guardians of Paradise is one of my most anticipated books this year. Let me start by telling you a bit background.

The Hidden Empire series is about the Sidhe, a race  with overwhelming mental powers and beauty that has been screwing with the human race in secret for a long time. Centuries ago their Protectorate ruled the human race. But their tyranny was so great that the males of their own race joined the subjugated humans in an uprising believed to have killed all of them and freeing the human race. But now a few humans learn that they are still around.

One good thing with Jaine is that her books are self contained and can be stand by themselves. That is especially true for the previous two books that can be read independently.

Principles of Angels is about a conspiracy that could destroy a floating city to kill Nual, a renegade Sidhe. This is where Taro and Nual meet and become what they are now.

The second book Consorts of Heaven is about a secret colony where the Sidhe breed a special kind of talent only to lure them with fake religion and put them in stasis to send them off planet to use their tortured brains as jump-cores. This is where Jarek Reen regains his memories among the local barbarians and helps them overthrow the Sidhe and escapes with the secret.

Guardians of Paradise brings together the characters and plots from the previous books. Nual and Taro are now both certified Angel assassins hiding in the house Nual inherited from Elarn Reen. Jarek arrives at his dead sister's house in time to foil an assassination attempt on them and they decide to join Jarek in his crusade against the Sidhe.

The hunt takes them trough hard personal dilemmas, arduous jumps, elusive allies and equally elusive enemies. Nual and Taro goes ahead to the vacation planet that was the destination of the Consorts of Heaven to try to find the operation there while Jarek goes to a trading hub to find a hacker competent enough to hack the Sidhe datacore he stole from their ship.

The story is well paced, captivating and thrilling. I especially enjoyed the artificially induced love between Taro and Nual. The Sidhe power of healing induces love and she saved his life at the end of Principles of Angels. He is a 17 year old kid, a bit more mature than most in some respect since he grew up in the Undertow but very much his age in others and she is an alien with different ways of thinking brought up as she was in a hive-mind-like community. It has many surprising twists and turns. And every good story should have a love interest in it. The captures and escapes kept it thrilling too. And the overall journey of discovery has some big surprises at the end.

The world building is one of Jaine Fenn's strengths. This world is well thought out with its history and different political solutions. The seemingly rural vacation planet with hidden high tech corporations at war with each other while maintaining a tabu against killing is well executed and made believable.

The characters are easy to love and root for. Jaine makes them sympathetic, lifelike and believable like 'ordinary people' with special circumstances. They are human and they make mistakes maybe thats what makes the threats to them so gripping. The powers they have are not superpowers that take them out of any bind, rather the opposite it is their ingenuity that saves the day unless their friends have to come and help them. The multiple main characters hold together well and the plot doesn't diverge much.

Another great thing is that I finally get to know about how Nual became a Sidhe rebel and how she as a child was rescued by Jarek. That explained a whole lot but it also opened a can of worms that I am sure the reader will enjoy in books to come.

I got this random thought. Interesting the way you thinks about female alien villains. It doesn't feel like a gender issue here but what would I think if a male writer had the same female villains? I would probably never think about it at all if they were male...

I love journeys of discovery like the one here. Guardians of Paradise is an action adventure that puts two Angel assassin and a Free trader against sinister alien conspiracies. Jaine proves again she is a master at doling out revelations and pacing the story that keeps me captivated from beginning to end. This is enjoyable science fiction with a spice of fantasy. This book is less standalone than the previous two and I would recommend that you read them first. I don't know how long you can keep calling someone a promising new author, Jain Fenn is one of the most promising authors of this century and I am sure you would enjoy her books too.

The ending keeps me thinking and speculating on where this is going but we will have to wait until July 2011 for Bringer of Light.

[Liviu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This continued a long string of ok'ish but disappointing 2010 Gollancz novels for which i had the highest expectations; I am not sure that it is due to me just getting saturated of the relatively light and mindless sf-adventure Guardians of Paradise represents or that the book is considerably weaker than the first two, so I will take a look at the next installment but not sure if i continue the series.

There were flashes when the book was exciting or interesting and I found myself turning pages eagerly to see what's next - the scenes with Marua were great and most of Nual's pagetime, but Taro was just annoying, boring and I wish he got lost on the vacation planet - he was interesting in Khesh but out of his depth he is just a huge drag on the series in the wider universe, while Jarek was in turns boring and annoying and another miscast type completely outside of his depth.

I also saw a large amount of typos or at best questionable author's choices of words, surprisingly so for a supposedly edited book - and these are things i tend not to notice with all the arcs and indies I read, but here somehow they stuck out; the plot verged on ridiculous on more than on one occasion too and I would drop the series not for Nual who keeps being an interesting character I want to see what happens too.

The story is told in the blurb, but to summarize: after two related books - Principles of Angels featuring Nual and Taro on the Orbital City of Khesh - great debut of the series - and Consorts of Heaven featuring Jarek on an obscure planet which was another superb book but due to the local characters first and foremost, the three meet in the wider universe and go looking for proof about the nefarious Sidhe that were supposedly overthrown a long time ago, but influence humanity in secret; Nual is actually one of them, so they are more-or-less humans with extra-powers and a nasty gender-split for reasons that are slowly revealed in the 3 books

More stuff is introduced here and some back story that is interesting, but Taro and Jarek drag the book down to much

[Martin Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is another in a series of S.F. books by Jaine Fenn, although I don't think you need to have read the previous books to enjoy this one.
I loved meeting up with characters from the previous books again, but also some new characters who have been dragged into the quest to find evidence of the continued existance of a powerful alien race thought to be extinct.
The plot is fast paced and unexpected but also sexy, dark and left me keen to read the next in the sequence.

[Adrian Leaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another really fun novel in Jaine Fenn's Hidden Empire series. This time it is an all out space opera continuing the story set up in the first two novels. Really good characterisation as always is backed up by some morally grey storytelling and difficult choices for the characters to ponder. The universe gets bigger, deeper and more interesting.

[Matti Tornio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty mediocre read. Jaine Fenn writes interesting female characters and Nual is definitely the highlight of the book. Unfortunately way too much time is spent with Taro and Jarek, neither of whom is particularly compelling or likable.

I quite enjoyed the worldbuilding in the first two books in the series. Unfortunately the vacation planet on display here is not nearly as interesting.

[Fred Langridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still really enjoying the Hidden Empire series. Each book has been quite different; they're all good books and I like the way the bigger picture's being built up.

Jaine Fenn is a great writer of character and of story, and her universe feels neither contrived nor too derivative.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another epic book from Jaine Fenn. Can't wait for the fourth instalment!

[Adam Whitehead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taro and Nual are Angels, formidable assassins who have discovered that the Sidhe - the long-defeated former slavemasters of humanity - have secretly returned and are undertaking clandestine operations against human interests. Their attempts to expose the truth to the rest of human society lead them into a meeting with Jarek Reen, a space trader who has had his own run-in with the Sidhe, and the formation of an alliance to bring the Sidhe down.

Guardians of Paradise is the third (of, currently, five) novels in the Hidden Empire sequence. The first two books in the sequence featured completely different characters operating on different worlds, whilst this third book brings them together and sees them pool resources to defeat the Sidhe. You can read either Principles of Angels or Consorts of Heaven first, but you need to have read both to fully appreciated Guardians of Paradise.

Like its two predecessors, Guardians of Paradise is entertainingly-written and is an easy read. Unfortunately, it lacks the dash of New Weird that made Principles of Angels so promising and threatens to languish at the same 'nice but unexciting' level as Consorts of Heaven for much of its length. The bulk of the book takes place on Kama Nui, an exotic water world which serves much of human space as a resort planet. Its inhabitants are restrained from killing (even during wars and political intrigue) by severe social customs, which reduces the level of tension to our characters (lessened even more by Nual's formidable powers) but does increase the plausibility that they could survive the situations they encounter on the planet (especially Taro, who is still green as grass in his role as an assassin).

Characterisation of the central trio of characters is adequate, but also a bit perfunctory. Other characters flitter in at the edges of the story (especially the Sidhe), but a major problem with the book is that there is little feeling of a bigger culture or society beyond what is going on in the plot. The worldbuilding is highly concentrated on the areas around our characters, but our knowledge of the wider human society beyond that is almost non-existent. Whilst this is efficient and certainly keeps the page count down, it also harms immersion in the story.

That said, an uninspiring first half takes a dramatic upward swing once our characters move into a position to confront the Sidhe directly. A rather unexpected element of horror enters the story at this point, with the revelation that there may be more threats out there than just the Sidhe, and suddenly the story and the writing kick more decisively into gear. The final section of the book is more enjoyable than what came before, with the characters and storyline clicking more decisively, and things end on a ambiguous, disturbing note.

Guardians of Paradise (***½) recovers from a stodgy first half to become a decent, compelling SF novel. It's still a bit lightweight compared to the bigger names in the genre, but certainly there are signs of Fenn developing into a more interesting and talented author.