Interstellar travel is an arcane art and only vaguely understood. Attempts to terraform planets are sometimes abandoned halfway through, leaving unstable climates and settlements exposed to the ravages of space. There’s a notion that the elite have a conscious plan of allowing the worst of humanity to die out in the name of civilisation. This is not an optimistic science fiction future in which all of our problems are solved - if anything, humanity faces more and bigger problems than at any other point in history, with a deeply stratified society causing misery and poverty for millions. The pervading sense of danger and chaos is communicated very well and the tone is unrelentingly dark, gritty, and realistic. The first volume felt like a prelude to a series of grand scope and in the second we see that series flower and unfold. While The Heretic was an excellent introduction to the fictional universe of Lucas Bale, Defiance goes deeper. The world of Beyond the Wall comes of age You can pre-order Defiance here: or Amazon UK. I was fortunate enough to be invited to read a pre-release version. Lucas Bale has been busy and has already made the second instalment in the series available for pre-order on Amazon. In my original review I wrote: “The author paints an uncomfortable and frequently bleak vision of a future in which humanity has spread beyond the ruins of an Earth destroyed by climate change and conflict.” The Heretic plunged the reader into a frightening and chaotic universe. Earlier in the year I reviewed the debut novel of science fiction writer Lucas Bale.
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