Here's a rather sweet review of my
Blake's 7 novel
Archangel which a lovely reader (and
B7 fan) in Australia called D. Worsley posted recently, after buying the Kindle release on Amazon.
"The Federation is an evil, despicable organisation and Blake is right to fight
it. Goes without saying really, for anyone who's seen even just the first
episode of the excellent TV serial, but what it's done in
Archangel may
actually outdo even what they did to Blake (repeat brainwashing, torture,
framing him as a paedophile...).
I won't spoil WHAT the Federation's
sanctioned in
Archangel, but it's all done - the experiments, the torture, the
brainwashing, the slow degradation of a man's soul all to create a pilot for a
new type of spaceship - one even faster than Liberator.
It's a
characterful novel, showing Blake's slow descent into being a man for whom the
ends justify the means someone actively fighting against the events of his past
and the people who he's betrayed through inattention and being a pawn of the
Federation. Blake was broken by Gan's death in the TV episode
Pressure Point,
and here he sets out to prevent another man dying because of his zeal. The other
crew members of the Liberator are equally in character, Vila depressed by Gan's
recent death desperately looking for some safety, Avon playing all angles in
order to preserve his skin, Cally and Jenna loyal to Blake but even their
loyalty is starting to become tarnished by the shadows of the past. In my review
of the previous novel
The Forgotten I lamented Vila (who was always
entertaining on TV) was given nothing to do, here that isn't a problem, he's as
active in the plot as Avon or Blake, even Cally and Jenna (both somewhat
redundant on TV, sadly) play a role their specific skills being used in order to
keep the crew safe and alive. Slithering into the story is Servelan, and we get
to see what she was doing before becoming Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces,
and if anything it makes her even more of a monster than Space Commander "the
Butcher of Zercaster" Travis.
There are a few nice sequences we would
never have gotten on TV - including a thrilling sequence of Liberator screaming
through a planet's atmosphere a la the
Battlestar Galactica during the
liberation of New Caprica and another space battle, this time told from a wider
perspective full of clever ship rolls and sweeping vistas rather than
The
Forgotten's homage to the TV series showing the battle from the perspective of
the Liberator's control room.
All told, I enjoyed it - I can't wait for
the next in the series which is set just after
Star One, showing Liberator's
sole stand defending the galaxy against the invaders from Andromeda.
4 / 5 Stars."
