And on a back-water world during an economic crisis a worker called Tibus Heth leads a revolt against the corporation which earns him an unexpected and mysterious ally with astounding influence, and an inclination to aid his revolutionary ideas.
Unlike The Empyrean Age, this work is a much more compatible style of storytelling for the New Eden universe. I don't know if the difference in physical formats of the two books - the other one an almost-pocket-size print, this one a proper one - should've been a giveaway from the start, but Gonzales offers an enjoyable path of more elaborate stories, and less cheap exchanges between the personalities detailed.
It's kind of hard to picture EVE The Game meshing with EVE The Novels, since The Game is known for the "bad behavior" of it's players, while The Novels feature characters who are respectful, even in war. But that's what I enjoy so much about these books: they breath life into a world known only for it's controversies.
I didn't know at first that this was a continuation of The Empyrean Age, because it's been so long since I read that one that I didn't recognize the characters. Like TEA, Templar One was written and released to coincide with a major game update. For TEA, it was Apocrypha and the appearance of "w-space" and the Sleepers. For Templar One, we learn the back story of just how DUST 514 begins to fit into the EVE universe.
I haven't read a sci-fi war story like this one since the early BattleTech …
It's kind of hard to picture EVE The Game meshing with EVE The Novels, since The Game is known for the "bad behavior" of it's players, while The Novels feature characters who are respectful, even in war. But that's what I enjoy so much about these books: they breath life into a world known only for it's controversies.
I didn't know at first that this was a continuation of The Empyrean Age, because it's been so long since I read that one that I didn't recognize the characters. Like TEA, Templar One was written and released to coincide with a major game update. For TEA, it was Apocrypha and the appearance of "w-space" and the Sleepers. For Templar One, we learn the back story of just how DUST 514 begins to fit into the EVE universe.
I haven't read a sci-fi war story like this one since the early BattleTech books, where the characterizations manage to shine through the level of technical name-dropping that's absolutely required for the work to earn it's cred as a tie-in. Gonzales either has an army of EVE lore scholars feeding him authentic sounding intel, or he's a sci-fi tech writing genius, able to mix imagery and technobabble in equal measure without it sounding forced and over-the-top.
It's been quite a while since I've played EVE, and while I recognize many of the organization, ship, and place names, there were a lot more that just went over my head, so I don't think one needs to be a fan of EVE to get something out of this book. Gonzales does a great job of explaining what you need to know in just the right way so even if you can't put a name to a pixel, you still know that seeing a titan warp into the sector is Really Bad News.
