Captain! Engine room room reports that they have restored power to ship’s systems from the secondary reactor, the Chief says we he can’t promise full thrust, but we can make way.
Very good. Helm, make for the jump limit and work up jump calcs for the next fleet rally point. Somehow we are still alive, won’t they be surprised? Sparks! Give us a proper Spacey-fleet song!
In the Year of Our Lord 3001, the space pirate Red Eyes brings his pirate fleet to bear against Galactic Christendom. He aims to steal one of its greatest treasures, Countess Gabriela Robin, to fulfill his warlord ambitions. Dispatched against him is one of the Star Knights of the Solar Guard, Lord Roland, with the mission to protect the Countess at all costs. With his man Sibley and his page Creton at his side, Lord Roland faces off against the would-be warlord in the Dire March of the galaxy and begin a conflict that all the galaxy cannot ignore.
Sometimes dear reader you read something that you have been sleeping on, you’ve owned it and it has been lying there in your To-Be-Read pile for some time, yet passed over for one reason or another that seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time. And then you read that one that you passed over, dear reader, and you think, well shoot, that there was what I really wanted, what took me so long? This one, is one of those.
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How would I describe the conceit on display here? Hmmm… Chanson de geste with super robots and angels, but without the whining and angsty teenagers. Wait, that’s modern Japan not medieval France… Anyway, while there is in fact a young lad, while no one is irresponsibly putting him in a giant war-machine with zero training. No, this lad is a page training to become a squire and has no weird pomo nihilistic issues or fear of abandonment and would never quiver or quail to ‘get in the robot’ if asked. No, he would leap to do it, both because he is a man in seed form and robots are freaking awesome!
Sir Ramsey Hennepin, bearer of the mantle of Roland, bearer of Durendal is one of the Paladins of Christendom’s Solar Guard, a militant order of giant robot piloting knights who answer to the Church and ultimately the Pope. Sibley Hall is Sir Ramsey’s sergeant-at-arms, and Creton Hall is both Sibley’s son and Sir Ramsey’s page (military apprentice). Together this team of fighting men are presently charged with a mission to investigate and track down a growing menace on the distant rim of Christian settlement, the Red Eyes pirates.
Countess Gabriela Robin is the treasure coveted by degenerate space pirates and fallen angels, for entirely different ends but also for the same base reasons, hers is a face to launch a thousand (space)ships. As an aside I’m pretty sure Herodotus got took for a ride by those Egyptians, a holographic Helen impostor taking her place with Paris ? Pphhhht. Anyway, faithless demigoddesses aside, Gabriela is the chaste and loyal maiden Helen wishes she was, and a singer too. In fact it was the song of Gabriela that pulled me fully into the conceited phantasm spun by our Author, Master Walker. I shan’t bother describing it, see for yourself, and be amazed;
"Tonight, I tell a tale of old, a tale first told in song, the tale of a fighting man and the princess he went to war for. Come with me back across the ages, to a time before the Cataclysm, to a tale of a knight-errant of Old Earth and a princess of a Mars as red and dusty as she who reigned over it." Lord Conte, on the guitar, struck a dramatic chord. Lady Olga harmonized with Conte's accompaniment. With eyes on Ramsey, Gabriela began to sing. She took up the role of the Martian princess, and she sang a long lament of her kingdom's decline. She sang of treacherous nobles and their intrigues with her enemies. As Her Martian Majesty, Gabriela sang the tale of a lady that suffered until she came to her wits' end and cried out for deliverance. Conte, taking up the Knight's role, sang of despair at defeat in a war against a cruel empire. He went west in search of a cause as worthy as that he fought for, and as he seemed to find his fate at the hands of foul savages he found deliverance in a cave.
Walker, Bradford. Reavers of the Void (Star Knight Saga Book 1) (p. 30). Kindle Edition.
Yes! The conceited vision offered is an archeofuturistic space medievalism where the present day Kali-Yugic Atlantean Empire of Lies is but a bad memory, a discarded foot-note on the midden-heap of history. This story concerns itself not with critiquing the ugliness we are surrounded by, and for the better. There is nothing worth saying to those small souled blob-fish that see nothing wrong with the present world, that have no disgust for it’s ugliness, lies, and injustice. Cast not pearls before swine-fish.
Instead the real work of the artist of true vision and sensitivity is to present a positive vision of what we should be building toward. There are real debates to be had, daring and brave conversations, visions of the good to be tested against each other, prophecies to put to the test. As for me, I say to you, all that is old shall be new again, there is nothing new under the sun, after winter, comes summer. This has all happened before and will happen again, because people don’t change, people never change. All we can do is face our fates with sword in hand and prayer on our lips. So I share the vision and conceit of Master Walker, and commend it to you, dear reader. This is the faith I have been searching for.
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I should note that I have a certain amount of sympathy for the cause of our wanna be Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, Christendom as presented to us does want for an Emperor. As the various schemes and machinations play out, we only really see an Imperial Diet or Reichstag of Estates, who it seems have recourse to petition the Holy See for certain acts, such as the declaration of Crusade, but no Emperor as such. But the black-cloaked, black-masqued villain goes further, his ambitions stretch not just to taking the purple and establishing social and martial harmony, but the creation of Heaven on Earth by unifying peoples and language by state diktat. Because that sort of thing has always gone well.
The copy I had my hands, the kindle e-book version had some minor editing issues; underlining instead of italics in places, both in at least once instance, a dropped word here, a misspelling there, but nothing egregious. I was more taken aback that the denizens of the thirty-first century refer to their mecha as… well ‘mecha’. Surely they would have their own name for such weaponized space construction equipment? Combat Frames? Wanzers? Panzerkampfmarchen? Cyberchargers? Knightmares?
But that is a small matter, the cast of characters is larger than life and the plotting tight and quickly paced. Once engaged with the text I could not put it down. I do find myself questioning how Master Walker will advance the tale in the next promised volume. Our Songbird of Second Salisbury knows who it was that shot the Lord of Roland in the back, and this knowledge is dangerous to the schemer of two worlds who seeks to rebuild the Tower of Babel. The first battle is over and the Lion of France has found his Lioness, but the war, the war has just begun.
![Reavers of the Void (Star Knight Saga Book 1) by [Bradford Walker]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fda98c738-5114-46f3-ad43-23857ee2308e_323x500.jpeg "Reavers of the Void (Star Knight Saga Book 1) by [Bradford Walker]")
Can't put it into words better myself.