You’ve probably noticed already, but the website has been completely revamped—new colors, new organization, and more. Let me know what you think about it! As for me, someone with a small case of viral perfectionism, I’m generally pleased while already thinking of what tweaks may be necessary.

Here are some quick highlights on how I tried to make the website more convenient and usable:

• I now have a real home page where I can feature ongoing announcements and such
• Website navigation has significantly improved with the addition of a universal header and footer
• The new color scheme is intended to significantly improve visibility and take-in-at-a-glance organization while, hopefully, remaining as calm as things used to be
• I made pretty liberal use of buttons because they are so dang flexible and fun

Also, let me know: would you care if I enabled comments on any pages other than blog posts? I could see that being useful on articles, and maybe people would have fun reading the comments of others on posted sample chapters.

My other big update: Inner Demon has an official publication date of July 2nd… my birthday! I thought it was fun that those two things could coincide. Starting in two days—June 4th—as a lead-up to publication, I‘m going to release sample chapters and character portraits weekly, and I may find one or two other things to generate hype as well. You’re not going to want to miss this—Inner Demon‘s early chapters are fun, and Eve Ludlow did exceptional work on the character portraits. (Kraw, in particular, fills me with delight.)

If you have any interest in pre-ordering the book, click the button below for the Amazon pre-order link—or check out the sample chapters for a taste test! I’ll get the other links up as soon as I can—for all of Amazon’s faults, Kindle Direct Publishing’s indie author interface is the best for getting your books live and setting up pre-orders.

Progress on revising Halfwhisker has stalled once again. The unfortunate reality of indie authorship is that you sometimes need to stop writing in order to do the work necessary to maximize the reach of your writing—or even get it on the market in the first place. Well, it won’t be long before I’ve done enough to get Inner Demon off the ground that I go can full-bore with Halfwhisker edits once more.

And as a final note, Gregory Michael asked me to help get the word out for Lost Colony‘s cover reveal, and I was more than happy to do so. You might have seen that blog post, but if you haven’t, here it is. Given the praise I had for Chloe’s Kingdom, it’s no surprise that I’m excited for the sequel.

Quick Bloggyness Review—Saga of the Forgotten Warrior

I’ve already finished and reviewed all of Larry Correia’s Saga of the Forgotten Warrior books and, to sum up my thoughts:

I recommended the books to my wife and mother and, recently, had the joy of listening to them read the books during some long car trips—since I was driving I had to keep watching them read to a minimum—and most notably I got to be present while my wife finished Heart of the Mountain. I was witness to a literal roller coaster of emotion: laughter, crying, fingers tightening around the edges of the Kindle as she scooted to the edge of her seat, and then putting the Kindle away and staring out the window with a slight smile on her face as she let the completed story sink in and simmer for a few minutes. It was beautiful.

I don’t think you can get a better review than that. Great work, Correia!

This is likely the last I’ll speak of Ashok and his friends, as the series is completed and I don’t have any reason to believe that Correia will return to this world any time soon, if ever. But I may be able to give short, wrap-up reviews from the perspective of someone else again in the future, as my wife and mother have accepted my After Moses recommendation and appear to be on the cusp of getting sucked in. (The first few chapters of the first book are pretty slow, but it’s a sneaky slowness—when the book bites you, you won’t have even realized it had slipped you within its jaws.)

Bloggyness Review—After Moses: Virtus and Sanctum

Virtus and Sanctum are books four and five, respectively, of the After Moses series. These books kind of pull a Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, in that both cover roughly the same period of time and follow different halves of the primary cast of characters; the difference is that I think Kane pulled that endeavor off far more successfully with After Moses than Martin did with A Song of Ice and Fire.

In fact, Virtus is easily my favorite After Moses book, despite almost entirely eschewing the series’ central protagonist (Matthew Cole). Sanctum is no slouch either, despite some major criticisms I have with it. They make a good sister pairing.

I’m going to review both books separately, then tie things together at the end of the overall review. If you want to totally avoid spoilers, I don’t recommend reading further. Suffice to say, I loved Virtus, I liked Sanctum; both were strong additions to the After Moses Series, and both left me excited for the potentially epic scope of the upcoming Evensong. I recommend them!

After Moses: Virtus Review

Virtus begins with the crew of the Sparrow escaping from bounty hunters on the moon Titan. In the process, Abbie damages her power suit in a manner impossible for colonial resources to repair, leaving her concerned that her days as a freelancer are over.

This is the catalyst for the major split between Virtus and Sanctum. Matthew doesn’t want to bring most of his crew with him on whatever adventure will be necessary to repair Abbigail’s power suit; while nothing is explicitly stated, we’re given every reason to believe that mission will be exceptionally deadly. Fortunately, Venus is having a celebration around the same time that Matthew wants to leave and the crew of the Sparrow are close to the imperial family; thus, Davey, Grace, and Yvonne “get” to stay on Venus to celebrate (as representatives for the Guild of Lanterns) while Matthew and Abbie go on a clandestine mission. Virtus follows the former group, with Davey stepping into Matthew’s usual role as the central protagonist.

What follows is an absolutely gripping story of maturity, masculinity, sacrifice, patriotism, agonizing moral choices, and more as Venus descends into a civil war and Davey finds himself central in the conflict between the loyalists and the insurrectionists. As the war escalates—and as certain parties on the side of the insurrectionists become ever more insane—Davey is forced to find answers to impossible moral questions as brothers are pitted against brothers, civilians are killed in violent skirmishes, and the deep divide between sister cities Discordia and Concordia is brought into the harsh light.

Davey’s story deeply touched me, and what Kane accomplishes with him in this book is mightily impressive—and a long time coming. When we first meet Davey in After Moses, he’s an emotionally scarred child, and a slave just trying to get by day by day with little purpose beyond keeping his adopted sister alive. He’s angry, immature, and possesses very few life skills or interpersonal skills, which makes it even harder for him to find a healthy place in the wider world. But, guided by Matthew’s mentorship and an inner strength he didn’t know he had, Davey gradually pulls himself out of that hole and lays a strong foundation for himself; in Virtus, Davey proves that foundation is strong enough to serve as solid footing as he strives his hardest to do what’s right when there are no clear answers.

I want to say this is the capstone of Davey’s development, but the end of Virtus left me excited to see where Davey goes from here! No, if anything, Virtus is a cocoon which Davey entered as a boy, underwent metamorphosis within, and left a man, ready to engage with the wider world on his terms—the terms of a strong man, and a good man.

Another interesting aspect of Virtus is the importance, and difficulty, of secrets—how to maintain them, and the risks of direct lies and lies of omission; tied to this is the moral dilemma of having to choose who gets to live when you can’t save everyone. You see, one of the things at stake in the Venusian civil war is a secret that the imperial family (those in the know) refer to as the Contingency: deep beneath the stone surface of Venus are miles and miles of caverns designed by Moses (the ancient, vanished godlike AI) to be habitable for human life. What’s more, each cavern is a unique biome, inspired by those from Earth, and lush with plant and animal life. Secretly stockpiled with precious metals and other resources by the imperial family over generations, a human colony could survive for centuries within Venus. In the event that livable conditions generally collapsed across the solar system, the Contingency would allow thousands of humans to survive and thrive, giving them a great deal of time to figure out how to make life under Venus permanently viable—and maybe even recolonize the stars.

In short, it’s not just the one of the few answers against extinction that humanity has, but one of the best.

The problem is, there are millions of people in the solar system, and tens of thousands on the Venusian colonies alone, but only the Contingency only has space to save several thousand souls. Designed as a safeguard against human extinction, the imperial family are dedicated to maintaining the Contingency, but doing so requires them to lie to their very people to protect the existence of the Contingency from sabotage and other threats, as well as come up with painful plans on how to get refugees to these underground caverns, as well as design plans on who gets to be saved (in the event of catastrophe). All of this careful planning could be destroyed in an instant by the insurrectionists.

But part of the reason there’s a civil war in the first place is because of the secrets the imperial family keep. Shrewd citizens have discerned that the imperial family (those in the know, anyway) are acting suspiciously; as well, it’s public knowledge that imperial family is taking on alarming debt, which could have devastating repercussions on the Venusian economy. Lacking explanations, these shrewd citizens have reason to believe that the imperial family might not have their best interests at heart. Thus, for many, it’s patriotism that drives them to depose their once-rulers—and making it difficult for the reader to cleanly side with one faction or the other.

I could go on, but I need to leave some secrets for Virtus to reveal—although how everything unwinds is just as interesting as each destination reached along the way. Regardless, you can clearly see how civil war and the fate of humanity—a possible delay for, or solution to, total extinction—raise intensely difficult questions that demand answers. Fortunately, Virtus doesn’t take a moral high ground and make things easy for its readers or characters. No, by the end of the story, all satisfaction I felt came from knowing Davey and the others did the best they could as flawed people in a tremendously messy, difficult situation, and not because I felt the best, or only, solution had been reached. But, then again, that’s always been a major strength of the After Moses books—how the characters are strong enough to carry just about any story.

Virtus is greater than the sum of its parts, but I do need to mention two parts that were weaker than the rest. To temper expectations, if nothing else; I would be loathe to unintentionally sell Virtus as a perfect book and thereby ruin it for anyone who reads it on my recommendation, as even the best of books can be ruined by impossible expectations. No, Virtus is not perfect—and, especially when juxtaposed with Sanctum, it actually has some extremely messy parts, but I’ll go into most of that after discussing Sanctum.

First, Virtus ends by clearly revealing the fate of Matthew and Abbigail in Sanctum. You don’t learn any details, but you learn they are alive, healthy, and successful in their mission. I think bringing some attention to Matthew and Abbigail was a good instinct on Kane’s part, as it takes some of the enthusiastic energy that Virtus finishes with and uses it to drive the reader to the next book—it also directly improves this book most notably in a key scene where Matthew communicates something Davey desperately needed to hear. (It’s one of my favorite moments in Virtus.) But, largely, the application fell flat for me. For one, learning that Matthew and Abbigail are alive, well, and successful in their mission left me really worried that the tension of life-and-death situations in Sanctum would be undercut by that knowledge—which did happen—and for another, this element in its current state distracts somewhat from Virtus‘ climax, as the reader’s attention is pulled away toward the now half-known conclusion of a different story. I think being much more ambiguous about Matthew and Abbigail’s situation at the end of Virtus would have been a stronger move for both stories.

Second, I felt very strongly that Virtus promised a deeper, potentially interplanetary conspiracy early on, which never materializes. There’s something about the way the character Ward is introduced, how his villainy is built up, that left me utterly convinced that he was in league with the cartels or some other group invested in the destabilization of Venus—maybe a splinter group of the Abrogationists that continued carrying the mantle even after the death of their leader in the previous book. Regardless, it’s eventually revealed that the Venusian civil war solely has roots on Venus; other planets are ultimately brought into the conflict, but only as escalations in the warring between the loyalists and the insurrectionists. This left me with moments perhaps two-thirds of the way through the story where I had to struggle with realigning my expectations for Virtus; obviously everything worked out and I still greatly enjoyed the novel, else I wouldn’t have left such a glowing review, but this is an aspect of the story that will always leave me scratching my head on whether Kane made an unintentional promise or whether I just read into things too much and got too excited about my attempts to piece together what was really going on.

Whatever the case, I deeply enjoyed Virtus and can without hesitation declare it my favorite published After Moses book.

After Moses: Sanctum Review

And then we get to Sanctum… Virtus‘ sister novel, taking place at the same time as Virtus but in a completely different location, and following Matthew and Abbigail. I enjoyed this book, but I also found it the most polarizing of the After Moses novels, and the one that leaves me the most nervous about how Evensong will ultimately conclude the series—but not a pessimistic nervousness, I should note. I just think that Sanctum muddies the waters in a way that will be difficult for Evensong to clear up in a satisfying manner. I have faith that Kane will pull it off, though, given how well he’s handled the rest of the series thus far. He’s very, very clearly planned a lot of things far in advance…

But enough of that. What happens in Sanctum? Matthew and Abbigail leave their crew on Venus and head to Ceres to attempt to repair Abbigail’s power suit. As they expect, Abbigail’s usual earthtech “mechanic” is not up to the task, nor does he believe that anyone in the colonies could repair this suit. Which means they need to head off to where Matthew has suspected for quite some time Abbigail is actually from… Earth.

Yes, that Earth. The planet supposedly rendered uninhabitable to human life by nuclear war. The planet supposedly covered in radiation and totally frozen by a nuke-induced ice age. The planet whose fall cut off the rest of the solar system from any hope of retreating to a safe, naturally existing homeland should interstellar life ultimately fail. The cradle of human life. That Earth.

The mere knowledge that Earth is not just habitable, but habitable and still retaining advanced civilization, turns the After Moses series on its head. A major theme in prior books was the battle against entropy—the colonies were falling apart and the result of their seemingly inevitable failure would be human extinction.

There’s nowhere else to go!

This sets a powerful, discordant tone heard in every book… until now. With no safe haven to retreat to, this extinction was seen by most as merely a matter of time, creating a grim background against which the bright light of our protagonists’ heroism shone all the more brightly—even the Venusian Contingency was mostly seen as delaying the inevitable: a distant, distant hope that future humans would be wiser and smarter than the current stock.

I would hardly describe the After Moses series as grimdark (heroism is far too often narratively rewarded), but putting good people in a world that is essentially doomed from the start and having them struggle forward with hope that something would deliver them anyway is powerful.

And all a ruse, apparently. But I get ahead of myself.

Matthew and Abbigail set course for Earth. And there they discover… Jerusalem. Alive and well—arguably better than real-world Jerusalem, considering that Christians, Jews, and Muslims have all put aside their differences, are coexisting peacefully in the holy land, and are creating technological marvels. Meanwhile, the rest of the world’s nations have been pulverized, with only small pockets surviving here and there in various ancient cultural and technological states, ranging from stone-age living to barely breaking into an early industrialized world. As for the planet itself, the vast majority of it is habitable, if cold and dry thanks to the deepening ice age.

It turns out, worldwide nuclear holocaust wasn’t as bad for Earth as the colonies had very carefully been led to believe. Of course, if it weren’t for a Mosaic miracle that protected Jerusalem from the nukes, Jerusalem would have degenerated into a historical state of development just as the rest of the world had (or wiped off the face of the Earth)—there are very good in-world reasons why the world is the way that it is. And about a third of the book is spent in this strangely familiar world, which is unexpectedly peaceful and slow.

Reception for Matthew and Abbigail is surprisingly warm and friendly, despite Abbie’s earlier misgivings about returning to her home planet—well, and an assassination attempt that shows someone isn’t as happy about Matthew’s presence on Earth as most everyone else. Some politicking happens, but the duo are eventually placed on their fueled-up spaceship, Abbie’s armor repaired, and they are allowed to fly off toward home. By this point of the book I had somewhat expected that they would successfully return, that the Earth portions of the book would prove to be a safari of sorts—which would have been disappointing, though I was getting bored of it—and that Matthew and Abby would meet up with the others on Venus.

Then the Sparrow got ripped from the sky in a second assassination attempt against Matthew and Abbigail.

And now we get into the real meat of Sanctum—Abbigail and Matthew stranded in South America, living in hiding among a people with Iron Age–level technology, trying to figure out how to contact one of the few groups they trust among Earth’s various factions.

This portion of the book is excellent. Where Virtus provides such a beautiful spotlight on the boy Davey becoming a man, Sanctum spotlights fatherhood, motherhood, family, and faithful living through powerful, natural example and the strugglings of its characters. Abbigail’s power armor’s charge can only last so long, and then Matthew has to literally carry her for her survival (given that her legs don’t work); then, when they reach a small city, he has to learn how to live among these new people to earn a living and take care of Abbie, at least until winter passes. Not only does Abbigail have to rely on Matthew for sustenance, she also has to rapidly learn how to be an Iron Age mother, thanks to an unexpected baby the two are given charge of by a dying woman. The two eventually, finally voice their love for each other, accept their roles, and get married. Then they have to continue to work together and care for each other to dig themselves out of the hole they are in, all while their little city—which sneakily became home away from home—is under threat from an invading army.

It’s a hopeful, but realistic, microcosm of what real family life can feel like, particularly the early on stages where husband and wife are still figuring out their new dynamic and, for most, resources are tight. (Thankfully, most modern-world families aren’t also dealing with the stress of invading armies.)

Then the conclusion happens. In most stories you know the heroes are going to live and triumph, but this story was spoiled by the ending of Virtus, so you know in-narrative that, no matter how bad things are, Matthew and Abbigail are going to get out fine, with Abbigail’s reparied power armor, and a spaceship (despite the destruction of the Sparrow). It made suspension of disbelief difficult, but I still had moments that kept my eyes unblinking until they were dry and hurting. Matthew and Abbigail defeat the force attempting to assassinate them, as well as save their temporary home and people. They supply up and leave Earth. And… a little more that wasn’t indirectly spoiled by Virtus, which I won’t spoil here.

Let me reverse what I did with Virtus: I started that book with praise and then tempered that praise with criticisms. Well, the other side of the coin, Sanctum is still a good book and worth reading, but I most want to talk about the criticisms I have with that book, some of which I already mentioned. I’ll begin there, and then temper them with praise, because I don’t believe this book deserves to have its well poisoned.

As I mentioned before, the ending of Virtus damaged by ability to suspend disbelief in Sanctum. Whether Matthew was standing up to an army, alone, or being chucked off of a spaceship, I knew that not only was he going to be fine, but he was not going to be injured in any permanent way. The same goes for all other characters in this story that were introduced in prior stories. Making Matthew’s and Abbigail’s general fate obvious at the end of Virtus greatly weakened the tension this book could have had, at least for me. Knowing that a protagonist is probably going to pull through because he’s the protagonist is very different from being told, in-narrative:

And before you ask, while I liked many of the new characters in this story, none of them were placed in the kind of life-threatening situations that might have made up for my total lack of concern for Matthew’s and Abbigail’s wellbeing—none of the ones I was particularly attached to, anyway. (In fact, the story goes out of its way to keep certain characters, like baby Luciana, well out of harm’s way.)

I didn’t like the specific scene where Matthew and Abbigail declared their love for each other. Never once did I read from Matthew the feelings he verbally expressed in that scene, and we spend a lot of time (in prior novels and in Sanctum) in his head. While I accept that Matthew loved Abbigail and may have suppressed it, it was always Abbie pining for Matthew narratively. Never the other way around. She should have been the one to broach the topic. Well, not just that—a major part of Abbie’s growth is learning how to overcome her inner walls. Having Matthew circumvent said walls for her isn’t as satisfying.

On that note, Matthew often comes across as a little too perfect in Sanctum. A little too capable. A little too understanding. A little too perceptive. He’s rarely wrong; I can’t think of an actual major mistake he made in Sanctum—not off the top of my head, and there’s nothing in my notes. If Sanctum had come before Virtus I, perhaps, might have not felt this way; I do think juxtaposing Davey growing into a man with Matthew already being a man emphasizes Matthew’s lack of flaws.

Finally, Earth… did not sit very well for me. It completely changed the paradigm of the After Moses universe. As I mentioned before, the specter of entropy loomed over everything in prior novels, regularly reinforced by the chapter intros (each of which was some statement by some character, often pessimistic, followed by the character’s year of death—grim, purposefully so), conversations about the future, the knowledge that failure now will hasten the death of the interstellar colonies—everything. Even the best, most uplifting, most hopeful elements of After Moses (such as the Guild of Lanterns) lived in direct relation to this entropy, as efforts to counter it, or at least stall it. Knowledge of inevitable defeat, coupled with hope that something could overcome (most likely through the Anemoi), or coupled with simple raw stubbornness that defeat isn’t here yet so it damn well can still be stopped, defined After Moses. It flavored defeats and evils with bitter melancholy (Of course things are bad, that’s how life is.) and victories and goods with sweet euphoria (But we don’t have to give up and accept it it!)—that’s what After Moses was.

At least, for me.

Did Earth being habitable, hidden in plain sight this entire time, easily accessible to the entire solar system, unable to stop a mass migration to Earth once the colonies discover its existence, take away After Moses’ defining, bittersweet edge?

I don’t know yet. Not entirely, anyway,

It is certainly true that a lot of previous events have been recontextualized by this knowledge. Most of the Venusians working on the Contingency believed they were preventing humanity’s extinction—but it turns out humanity would have continued just fine whether they succeeded or not.

The Venusian imperial family, those that knew of both the Contingency and Earth’s habitability, are recontextualized to be more villainous—unintentionally so, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. After all, they intentionally managed trade law specifically to loot their people for wealth so they could prepare the Contingency and counter human extinction. Except they weren’t countering human extinction, and they knew it it, because they knew that Earth easily had enough space to take the entire population of Venus and then some.

This also takes the edge off of some of Virtus‘ hard questions, such as, “Who do we choose to save when we can’t save everyone?” Actually, you might be able to—send the majority to Earth. (Yes, it’s still true that, in the event the interstellar colonies failed at large, not everyone could be saved; yes, mass migration to Earth would have its own share of problems and horrors. The point is still that the imperial family knows things are not as dire as they seem, knows the cradle of humanity is still whole and viable.)

The entire effort of the Abrogationists, and their near success in destroying the grav plate factories, is downgraded from a literal existential threat to mere genocide—yes, genocide is bad, but in context of human extinction it’s a much, much smaller bad.

Nearly blowing up Ceres with a nuclear bomb can almost be seen as a good thing, given that it would wipe out the three most powerful cartels in the solar system. Obviously in actuality it would be a terrible thing; again, when the previous stakes were total annihilation, the threat doesn’t feel as bad.

I worry knowledge of Earth will negatively impact future rereads of After Moses and its sequels.

Yet, I still really enjoyed Sanctum. And I still really, really enjoyed Virtus. And I’m confident enough in the series as a whole that I am still wholeheartedly recommending the entire series to my friends and family. Yes, I think Sanctum cuts down the overall stakes of the series late in the game, but the stakes are still very serious—and there’s still time for Evensong to re-escalate things.

And, despite my conscious concerns, some instinct that I can’t put to words yet isn’t convinced that my worries will prove ultimately accurate.

It all comes down to Evensong, though—if Evensong can pull off a strong landing and satisfying conclusion for the After Moses series, then all the risks and revelations in Sanctum will have been worth it, and all my concerns needless worrying.

And I really do believe Kane is going to pull it off.

So… What worked about Sanctum?

Matthew and Abbigail living together in a one-room hut with a goat, slowly growing together as a family while taking care of each other. Matthew connecting with local leaders and becoming an important member of the community. Abbigail building an identity as Abbigail—not the Shield Maiden of Mars—and as a wife and mother. Heartbreaking moments, such as Matthew and Abbigail finding the injured woman on the road and rescuing her baby. Moments of triumph, such as Whittaker rescuing Abbigail. Moments of heroism, including every sacrifice the Fjorans made to protect their homes and families against the Mendosans. The “whodunnit?” story surrounding the attempted assassinations against Matthew. Bishop Elias in general. Whittaker’s semi-grudging efforts to rescue Matthew and Abbigail. Matthew’s clear love for, and trust in, Davey. And much, much more.

There’s a lot of really excellent stuff in Sanctum. More than enough to make it worth it to eat around the raisins. There’s hope. There’s faith. There’s family. There’s voluntary sacrifice. There’s good triumphing over evil. There’s complicated motivations. There’s good people in a hard world.

Which are all more complicated ways of saying “There’s still damn good storytelling here.”

Sanctum is not going to be my favorite After Moses book. I doubt it’ll even crack the top three. But if if a series is only as strong as its weakest link, After Moses still holds a lot of weight—and any concerns I have may easily be put to rest by Evensong, when it comes out. And I have every reason to believe they will be, not only because Sanctum does lay some strong groundwork for where Evensong will go, particularly in its final chapters.

Wrapping It Up

Fire and ice are opposites because they exist in relation and contrast to each other. One involves an excess of energy, while the other an absence. Other opposites function similarly: life and death are both states of being, roughness and smoothness are both textures, men and women are the two sides of human existence, and so forth. Opposites are not made out of unrelated things, such as dogs (alive, animate, Earth-native, etc) and meteorites (never lived, inanimate, space-native, etc).

For me, Virtus and Sanctum are opposites, but complementary. Both contain much of the lifeblood that is After Moses: strong character work, hard decisions with no clear right answers, exciting sci-fi, and more. One feels like a culmination of the common themes and elements and struggles of After Moses as a whole, while the other feels almost like a subversion. They conflict with each other, in some ways rub poorly with each other, and yet are connected pieces in a greater whole. In that way, they must be put in context with each other for both to be at their strongest.

I think these books will occupy my thoughts for quite some time.

---

That’s all I got. Consider subscribing so you never miss a review or writing update!