Bitter Angels

Sarah Zettel
Bitter Angels Cover

Bitter Angels

justifiedsinner
3/23/2013
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An action based hard-SF with a difference. The difference being that the main protagonist a Guardian called Terese Drajeske can't kill anyone not even in self defense.

Guardians are the field agents of the Pax Solaris, the united government of Earth and the solar system. They try to right wrongs and do good deeds in a selfless way. The sexist part of my brain keeps thinking that Gandhi and Matin Luther King may have lived it but only a woman could write. It is certainly unique in all the SF actioners I have read.

The pace is slow to begin with. There is a lot of character development, hand wringing emotinal stakes to begin with then it gets down to the plot. The plot is cleverly done but we rather lose track of all the character development that was initiated. This makes what is no doubt meant to be a big emotional payoff at the end of the novel fall rather flat.

Interesting but if this is the start of a series I'm not sure I'm going to invest the time in any subsequent books.