Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace (The Bern Saga Book 4) by Hugh Howey
I've said it before and I'll say it again I love the Molly Fyde series. The books just keep getting better. They also keep demanding more attention to the details. We've been watching Molly Fyde grow throughout the series. We're learning more about her family-some we seem to be left to guess at, If I have one complaint about this the fourth book, it would be that there were a lot of things I'd have liked to know that there just wasn't time for
This time the format is done somewhat differently- we have the story developing with interspersed backstory. I think that some people found this to be a difficult book because of that. There have been some suggestions that they were unnecessary. I didn't feel that way and I'll tell you why.
The first three novels contain a lot of very good world building. Up to this point the worlds have been used as the means to establish part of each character's motivations. This time we dig deeper into the lives of some of these characters so that we can better decide if we should empathize with them or be happy to leave them to their fate. This results in making this a long novel and where some might suggest it should be shorter with less backstory I beg to differ because I can think of at least one more backstory I'd love to have heard and I can't think of any that I'd give up to hear it.
I have to say that I was disappointed that there was no backstory for Cat. Cat is such a complex multifaceted character that I would have loved to see deeper into her inner motivation to understand what makes her work and made her decide the path she took. As I've mentioned I wouldn't give up any of the space used for the other characters so I'll have to be happy with what we have.
When we left the characters in book three Cole was trying to save Molly's father, Molly was planning a multilayer invasion plan to steal ships for her small mixed force. Anlyn and Edison have inadvertently joined the Hyperspace team that are overtaking the Bern ships one by one. Walter is making secret deals for untold fortune not realizing that he's jeopardizing everyone and the entire combat plan.
Anlyn is going to have to spearhead the space conflict. Walter is going to have to make several critical decisions that are going to be fatal for someone. Cat is going to come through in heroic fashion despite herself.
Nothing goes quite as planned. Dr Ryke and Molly's mother-the ship- must attempt to return to the rift inside of Hyperspace and try to undo what was done so long ago. The Wadi once again plays a major part. Most importantly there's a lot of previously unknown threads and revelations that come out of the backstory that explain much of what has happened that its vitally important to read it all carefully, No scanning allowed.
We even get to find out who the Bern Seer is but you are going to have to read this to find this all out.
Once again I recommend this to all those people who love Military SF Tense Thrillers Sci-Fi Fantasy Speculative Science notions.
Thank Hugh Howey for a world full of entertainment and a job well done.
J.L. Dobias