"No Worse Enemy" - Christopher Nuttall

[GlenBarrington]

The first book in the series ("The Empire's Corps") drew parallels between ancient Britain and the Roman empire, and how it must have felt to the Britons, who by then must have felt pretty much Roman, when Rome began abandoning the too far to defend boundaries of that empire. The second book in the series ("No Worse Enemy") really deals how the residents of Avalon (The colonial planet abandoned by the Earth Empire) must come to terms with being an independent nation state and how it isn't treason when the nation you were taught to love and to rely on, suddenly decides you aren't one of "them".

This is accomplished by "The Admiral", a bad guy intent on creating a new empire by force and piracy. It is through Avalon's efforts to defend itself from The Admiral that the idea of nation state status starts to grow. This is an action book and series to be sure, it isn't one of those "Thinky/Talky" books, but I didn't notice any logical gaps in the character's thinking in developing their ideas of statehood. The reader is given enough information to prevent him or her from going, "HUH? Where did THAT come from?". It is a very satisfying read from that perspective (as is the first book)

There are two story threads in this book, one is with the company of the Empire's marines stranded on Avalon after the withdrawal, who make up the bulk of Avalon's effective defense force. The other story thread is about a girl from the first book who is taken prisoner by the Admiral and forced to either work as an engineer on his flagship or become a sex slave for the crew. Her actions are key to the successful conclusion to this story.

The humiliation and degradation of sex slaves are dealt with in an interesting and totally acceptable manner. While the text dealt with their plight in a realistic manner and gave the reader an honest glimpse at the cruelty and degradation that became their lives; at no time did I think the story became exploitative or pornographic in nature. (Though by no means is it central to the story except as a reason to avoid falling into the hands of The Admiral's forces)

The universe that Nuttall has created is very interesting. All sorts of supporting stories could be developed in it and Nuttall could spend the rest of his writing career working in just that universe if he wanted to. It is big enough, I think, to explore any concept most writers could come up with.

I think the first book should be read before this one. While the second book is complete and stands on its own as a story, it is clearly designed to carry a larger story arc forward. Much of the fun of a series like this is wondering what happens next. Highly recommended

[GlenBarrington]

I've just started the 3rd book in the series, and the thought has occurred to me that the Marine culture described in these books seems to have evolved from the US Marine Corps culture.

I don't think that an empire with an "honest to God" emperor as its head of state would have used that particular tradition for any part of its military as it is antithetical to the whole royals thing. The US military tradition is to swear loyalty to the US Constitution, and not to individuals, or philosophies, or even groups of people. And much of the American military tradition evolved from that infrastructure.

I understand that this might be a convenient tradition to use for the story arc, and might make it more marketable in some ways, but I'm not sure it fits into the "Empire" as described by Nuttall.

Still, I'm enjoying the heck out of the series. . .