To be a Name Among the Stars is to bear the burden of Honor and Duty.
Zara is struggling with the demands of being the new Duchess Aguirre-Tremayne of Kernow when the sudden arrival of a Terran naval cruiser tears her life apart. The Terran Council have ignored warnings about the Hajnal conspiracy. Zara's former home world of Newyan will be lost, and the route to the Inner Worlds laid open. The future of humanity is in the balance. Honor and Duty. Honor forces her to make an unimaginable sacrifice in her personal life. Duty requires her to confront the Hajnal, whatever the cost.
I was born in Africa and left out in the sun too often.
After being persuaded that I wasn't going to be able to be a cowboy if I grew up, I got interested in philosophy and psychology. Tending bars proved to me they weren't as much fun as they sounded. While trying to enroll in a class to read Science Fiction full time, I ended up taking an electronic engineering degree which splendidly qualified me to move into marketing. That in turn spawned a late onset career in creative writing.
When not writing, I fly a microlight aircraft, or get muddy on a mountain bike.
I love reading obviously. Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Thrillers, History, Crime, Art, oh nearly everything.
More evil manipulative political plots. More family drama. More weird aliens intervening in human societies. More future guns. More suspense and redemption.
If you want a dose of extremely clever, with political intrigue, interplanetary covert war games and characters so real they jump off the page then this is the book for you. Mark Henwick is one of those authors that I have to concentrate to read, and not in a bad way at all, he makes me think, not only about the following the plot of the book but about the big questions in life. Here we have the follow up to A Name Among the Stars, events that happen too many years to count after humans have colonised other planets and space technology became a thing of wonder. Everything was so thought out, so well explained that it was utterly believable in every respect.
Zara is now a Duchess of Kernow, her new home planet, however the planet of her birth is in big trouble, from a more covert plan by the Hajnal (who tried to take down Kernow), so long reaching that no other authorities are willing to believe that anyone is in danger at all. In actuality the entire planetary systems as they know it are in grave danger and Zara and her allies, strange and non human allies as well as those from the Hian Hegemony Kingdoms, a powerful group who control much of trade in the systems, along with their SAEs (self actualised entities, AI to you and I) who have become Zara's strongest friends. The battles and manoeuvres had me literally on the edge of my seat for most of the book and just to put the cherry on top, the ending was extremely satisfying. I really hope we get more of Zara and her worlds.
Unlike the first one, the author did not model the story on Jane Austen style books. The story is much blander because of it, and it becomes a run-of-the-mill scifi novel, though the very serious subject matter might have been hard to reconcile with the style of these classical novels. The later additions to the story are interesting, but provide a strong "deus ex machina", with characters receiving too much aid from an unlikely source.
The discussions on Economics were quite interesting, and resemble real world examples of crony distribution of confiscated property leading to economic contraction. I am less sold on the logic of the worlds, with some Accords that somehow give power to oligarchies of planets with populations in the hundreds of thousands and millions, while demographic explosions are hinted at for core worlds. The author handwaves it away with talk of a Fourth Expansion, so he at least saw the issue, though I am at a loss regarding how the Names don't get expropriated anyway.
A very good sequel and quite competently written. I look forward to future entries and a more fleshed out universe.
Having read all the Amber Farrell books and spin-offs, I turned to Name Among the Stars series. I am not disappointed. Lots of action and strong characters have left me wishing there were more books. I’m looking at you, Mark. Well done.
Mark Henwick has created a story that thrills my heart and leaves me gasping for breath. I feel like I participated in this revolution as it awakened old memories of earlier lifetimes. This incredible story is an inspiration to any reader.