Review: Fresh Start, by Johnny Wortham

Description

A ship, a gun, and a nice teal robe to find one killer on a planet of
criminals: will Qays Mendoza get the answers he is looking for?
Qays Mendoza get the answers he is looking for?

On the edges of mankind’s domain there is a penal planet called Fresh Start
where a sentence is at best exile to five generations, but more likely death
in its harsh unforgiving wastes. It is to this planet the empire sends the
worst of the worst and it is on this planet that Qays Mendoza searches for
his old captain.

The galactic empire is falling, civilization contracts. Fresh Start is
abandoned. Without oversight, the planet is wild, without guards; the
Oubliette, the supermax prison on the supermax planet, lies open, and the
Butcher of Raznak, a killer worse than the one Qays seeks, is on the loose.
With the help of a street waif called Patience, Qays seeks answers. His soul
is stained with guilt and his spirit broken by complicity. Religion did not
have the answer; duty did not explain it. Birthright and station were not
enough. His answers lie somewhere on Fresh Start.

My Review

Thanks to Anne of Random Things Tours for organising this tour and to the team at Flame Tree for sending me a copy of this novel.

Qays Mendoza has a past and he’s come to Fresh Start to confront it, in the person of Elaine Wallen. Things on Fresh Start have got strange – the Empire has withdrawn and a murderer known as the Butcher of Reznik is on the loose. Qays travels with his new friend Patience across the planet to find Elaine, and in the process gets a bit of a reputation. Finding his quarry doesn’t lead to resolution, leading him back to where he started, and a siege.

Qays develops as a character across the course of his adventures on Fresh Start, facing his past and forming a new, real, relationship. It is a place where he gets his fresh start (because puns!) and restarts his life after putting it on hold for several years.

Patience is an interesting character and her backstory is slowly revealed, although there is much more that we don’t learn. She is clever and wily. Loving and kind.

The setting is interesting; a dry planet that has pockets of life. A river full of rocks, great, snowy mountains, fertile farmlands, and some really nasty looking creatures. It was quite imaginative. The landscape seems obviously inspired by Utah.

The communities of Fresh Start are criminals and the descendants of criminals. Some were deposited there relatively recently, within a decade, and some were third or forth generation, who had no idea what their ancestors had done. The presence of very dangerous and violent criminals is the main threat to most communities. The loss of security on the planet, a knock on effect of the Empire falling apart. The cause of the Empire’s destruction is believed to be lax morals, being ‘too woke’ essentially.

The ’empire’ is reminiscent of the last 100 years or so of the Western Roman Empire in the 400 – 500 CE period. Outlying areas lost imperial protection and taxation, the colony population settled into a transition period, and then unprotected areas were attacked. Commentors at the time (and to be honest for several hundred years before, because everything was always better in the past to some people) Rome was a mess, degenerate and weak, and they blamed the ‘fall’ of Rome (invasion by the Goths) on ‘immoral’ behaviour and lack of respect.

Yes, I can see the parallels, and the author’s Classics education in the setting.

It was a fun read and I got through it in a few hours on a hot Sunday evening.

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Johnny Worthen

Johnny Worthen is an award-winning, multiple-genre,
tie-dye-wearing author, voyager, and damn fine human
being! Trained in literary criticism and cultural studies, he writes upmarket fiction, long and short, mentors others where he can and teaches at the University of Utah.

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Flame Tree

FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing independent Flame
Tree Publishing, dedicated to excelent original writing in horror, science
fiction and fantasy. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the
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