Insurgents by Allen Stroud

Publisher - Flame Tree Press

Published - out now

Price - £2.49 ebook

Catastrophe strikes. One engineer must save the ship and crew.

Set in the aftermath of the events described in the Fractal series novel, Vigilance. The Fleet patrol vessel Nandin struggles to recover from a complete power outage, caused by the sudden explosive acceleration and departure of the alien ship. Chief Engineer, Luis Ontaraes, battles to repair the stricken ship and to save other vessels caught in the blast, all the while knowing there is a saboteur onboard. Number Seven in The Fractal Series Episodes.

Nb - this is part of a wider Fractals series but can be read as a standalone or also an entry point to the series.

The typical thriller often has an unknown culprit to unmask. That’s is often quite satisfying as reader and hero put together clues, work out the red herrings and eventually find out who is behind it all. A different type of thriller mean we know who the player on the other side is. One of my favourite versions of this is Columbo where we get a battle of wits and it’s more how will the be caught that becomes the drama. Now imagine the added jeopardy of a spaceship dangerously adrift in space and we have a new thriller to enjoy in the form of the science fiction novella Insurgents by Allen Stroud which for fans of the series to date starts a new cycle of tales but also stands on its own two feet as a very intriguing thriller in its own right.

The fleet vessel Nandin has been through a series of strange events. A Martian space station has had a catastrophic disaster, an unknown spacecraft has arrived from what appears to be outside the solar system and there has been a battle of various ships including fleet vessels turning enemy. Just when things appear settled the abandon suffers a major power failure and in space that can be deadly in many ways as they are blind and defenceless. Chief Engineer Luis Ontares goes to investigate but finds clear evidence there is a saboteur within the crew and a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins.

You can start this new series here as the crew of the Nandin are new to the plot and totally unaware of the bigger machinations that have been unfolding in the series. They’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time and have to make sense of things. Stroud just creates a tense situation where if your ship could run out of air or you can accidentally drift into an object in space there will be a disaster. Rather than go overboard with purple prose this is actually done subtly via the use of Ontares being an engineer someone who is that quite old school of science fiction characters a good solid problem solver and then Stroud makes hi realise the issue is not simply mechanics but betrayal. It pushes him a little out of his comfort zone and he has to now work out who he actually trusts who bid harder than rewiring a nuclear engineer! To make things even more interesting Stroud contrasts these chapters with the saboteur themselves.

I’m not going to reveal their identity it’s a novella have some fun working it out! However what I found interesting was Stroud humanises them and uses their side of the story to explain who the other side in this conflict are, how they work and gives us a feeling that this future version of Earth isn’t quite as perfect as you’d like. You don’t always expect to feel sorry for a saboteur but I found myself at least understanding how they got into this mess.

Ontares and our other character circle around each other and then other threats and reveals start to internet story which means it gets much harder to work out where things are heading. We move from problem solving to detection to action sequences and as this is a totally new shop and crew to the reader we don’t know who we can trust either. It’s a very neatly plotted set of set pieces and kept me engaged throughout. Long time readers of the series will recognise where and when this story is taking place but for new readers you should now hopefully be intrigued enough to find out more.

I always enjoy Stroud’s stories in this series and this delivers a really good reintroduction as to their skills for SF thrillers and what the wider series explores. Highly recommended and I’m looking forward to the rest of the episodes being released over the next few months.