Mr Drew Wagar

"To be happy, that's what we all really want. Some of us ... we think this is money or power, or riches. But this is not true. What we want is to be content. This is all. See a dream come true, yes?" (Luko, trader vessel pilot in "Reclamation")

Years ago, I read the first Oolite E-Book stories created by Drew Wagar. He was the first one creating a coherent pentology within the Elite universe. (For those being no fans: the roots of this Space epic game reach back to 1984.) And he has created a worthy successor.

This book from 2013, forming the start of a new storyline ahead from Drew's former works, caught me with its very first pages as it starts with a boom. The quickly developing story of "Reclamation" about classical themes like family ties, duties, revenge, betrayal, power, warfare, economy and honour put into a 33th century environment, caught me almost instantly. Compared to his former works, it contains significantly more cruelty, but the main qualities of Drew's skillful writing are still clearly perceptable, even the book if nothing for the faint-hearted. A very dense, well developed plot as well as a series of backreferences for fans (even reaching back to the original computer game) fascinates not only hardcore members of the Elite community, but also the occasional reader having no deal with Elite or even with computer gaming at all. Tension is kept up to the very end due to several delicately designed action turns. But not only the polarizing and mostly dark sides of humanity are illuminated, in several threads, nobleness and even philosophical backgrounds pops out of this masterpiece of writing. One of the characters jumping into existence a little deus ex machina like on the first hand, developed to my most favourite one some pages ahead due to its inner wisdom being exposed just at the right time.

Technically, this book is a Createspace result. Beyond the scifi-typical, nice and appealing cover being laminated with a gum-like coat, the layout is basic, nevertheless good to be read. There is no hyphenation used, which means, to eliminate orphan lines, sometimes the dealing with letter gaps appears thus a little excessive, nevertheless this does not prevent fluent reading. By contrast with a common paperback, the printed version is large and comparatively heavy, making use of very bright white paper.

Now I look forward to reading part 2 of the saga, being called "Premonition". Thanks to Drew for starting another great saga in the Elite universe and the superior idea of allowing the community taking influence on the further plot!