10 June 2014

Book Review: "War To The Knife"

Online Dictionary defines "war to the knife" as "mortal combat; a conflict carried to the last extremity."

Peter Grant (all y'all know him as Bayou Renaissance Man) has drawn on his own combat experience to create this story in the same universe as his first three novels (The Maxwell Saga: Take The Star Road, Ride The Rising Tide, and Adapt and Overcome).

War to the Knife starts out like an episode of Firefly, a familiar-enough setting: small frontier town, rough-and-rugged individuals, on an occupied planet. There are veterans of a recent war, occupying forces, and enough injustice to start the war back up again.


Soon the scope widens as we meet more people, and the reader comes to realize that it's a planet-wide scenario - and the veterans are the backbone of the Resistance.

But there's a problem: the occupying force has nearly exterminated the people of this planet, to take their natural resources. The remnant of survivors in this battle for survival are outnumbered, and out-gunned, and nearly out of options. They decide to fight back with everything they have in one final, decisive battle, knowing that many of them will not survive.

The characters are real, the action fast-paced, and the plot compelling. The phrase "page turner" gets over-used, but you can trust me on this: you won't want to put it down until you find out what comes next.

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