A review by Adam D.A. Manning. Please note, spoilers ahead!
Author Ray Adams’ debut science fiction novel is a powerhouse of excitement. A cinematic opening, right in the middle of the action, leads into a blaze of storytelling that doesn’t stop. This is glorious space fantasy, redolent of the classics, with an emphasis on strong, quickly grasped characters and plotting that satisfies as it captures the imagination.
I went all out and bought the paperback edition and am hoping one day to have a signed copy. The original setting soon gives way to something rather disquieting; there is a chilling conspiracy at work behind the scenes which threatens not just the heroes with whom we have grown to become friends, but the freedoms and individuality that everyone in the galaxy thinks of as their own natural birth right. The vividness of the story’s foreground only heightens the obscure sinisterism of the oncoming and seemingly irresistible threat.
As our heroes fall to their denouement, this hidden face finally steps out onto the stage in an ending which had been lead up to so engrossingly, I have, on thinking about it afterwards, felt as if I were there myself, on that far away world, in the grounds of that house.
With such a racing narrative, the abrupt, shocking ending throws the reader off kilter with a jolt, exactly as it should.
The Forcek Assignment is a faultless and highly enjoyable debut for Adams, and I am looking forward to reading the following volumes of the Roo Raka trilogy, The Jollet Procedure and The Last Sanctuary.
Find his works here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ray-Adams/e/B08GGY3K85?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3&qid=1624053973&sr=8-3
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