One’s Evil Desire ( A Saga of Dogs of War-A Story of Mercenaries 4) by M. Short-Review & Guest Post
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date October 27, 2020
One’s Evil Desire THE FOURTH BOOK IN THE SCI-FI SERIES: A SAGA OF DOGS OF WAR-A STORY OF MERCENARIES.
XTECH and The Corporate Alliance collaborated to create The Earth Space Alliance to start the exploration of space outside of the Earth’s Solar System. But others were not happy with the alliance between XTECH and The Corporate Alliance. With only two of the original Big Six Corporations still unaligned, one’s evil desire conceived a plot to take over the remaining two unaligned corporations. After years of plotting and planning, surgeries and the implantation of a voice synthesizer the doppelganger was ready to infiltrate the SME Corporation with the killing of its CEO.
Stone and Zhivago soon caught wind of the plot. While Stone and Zhivago were trying to reveal the doppelganger plot, The Earth Space Alliance built their first Starship to explore beyond the Earth’s Solar System. As they sped towards the outer limits of the Solar System at the speed of light, they were confronted by Senior Emanuel’s Starship from the Confederation of Planets. Will Stone and Zhivago be successful in their efforts to reveal the doppelganger? Will the Confederation of Planets be a friend or a foe?
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REVIEW:ONE’S EVIL DESIRE is the fourth instalment in M. Short’s A SAGA OF DOGS OF WAR-A STORY OF MERCENARIES science fiction series set in a futuristic twenty-third century. I recommend reading the series in order for back story, history and cohesion as ONE’S EVIL DESIRE picks up shortly after the events of the previous story line.
SOME BACKGROUND: Approximately one hundred years earlier Earth suffered a cataclysm, and close to half of the Earth’s population escaped to Mars and its’ surrounding moons. Fast forward a century, and the governing Corporations are now resettling Earth with the people on Mars. Four regulating Corporations formed the Corporate Alliance, while the remaining two were driven from Earth because of their tyrannical rule.
Told from third person perspective following several intersecting pathways, ONE’S EVIL DESIRE covers approximately a twenty year span wherein the newly formed Confederation of Planets discovers the existence of a race of people who call themselves the Kapacaras, an early descendant of the people of Earth but all is not well as the Kapacara’s enemies, the Trajan and the Cnut, are readying for war in an effort to claim more of valuable space, and targeting the Confederation of Planets along with the Kapacarians. Forming their own alliance, the Confederation of Planets and the Kapacarians prepare for war, amassing a large fleet of spaceships and technology in defence of their area of space. War ensues several times, with new combatants at each battle but in the end the Confederation of Planets is victorious, once again.
ONE’S EVIL DESIRE reads like a serialized or episodic television program akin to Star Wars ™ and the numerous Star Trek ™ franchises with all of the familiar jargon from Earth’s twentieth and twenty-first century science-fiction/ speculative fiction movies and shows-the characters reference several of these programs and movies, including important battle strategies of WWII. There are a number of time-jumps throughout the story line from days to weeks, months and years, in an effort to explain how the Confederation was able to prepare for a war, years in the making.
I had a few issues that I want to address: From the outset, the reader is thrust into the story line without any preamble or introductory build up. There was more telling rather than showing, and in this the story reads like a script for a television series. The numerous characters and references to previous plotlines was a little confusing therefore I recommend reading the series in order. ONE’S EVIL DESIRE is awash in repetitive and redundant text whereby the characters often recapitulate instructions, directives, stories and scenarios when new visitors arrive without prior information. The individual characters, most of whom were introduced in the previous story lines, are identifiable via too many names, nicknames and aliases for the same character, often leading to confusion wherein I had to go back and forth several times throughout the story to ensure that I didn’t miss the introduction of someone new. There was also no marked delineation between different points of view-often, each successive paragraph would address or concern a different scenario, a different character, and a different timeline, all within a few sentences of one another.
ONE’S EVIL DESIRE is an interesting and entertaining story similar in presence and style to the Star Trek™ franchise. As I read, I imagined watching Star Trek Voyager or Deep Space Nine, in an effort to place myself into the story line action.
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Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Sandy
Young Women, the next generation’s readers of Science Fiction.
I started writing my science fiction series, A Saga of Dogs of War-A Story of Mercenaries, in the fall of 2019. Everything I read about writing a book always said you should write about what you know best, first. My first book was based on experiences as a combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam at the ripe old age of 19 and my passion for science fiction. I wanted to write my books from a military point of view, but stay away from the horrors of war. I wanted to emphasis the honor of serving your country and the strong relationships developed in combat. That was the predominate theme in my first book Cry Havoc.
One day my daughter pointed out to me that there were no strong female roles in the book. She told me that if I want women to read my books, I needed to incorporate strong women role models. Young women do not want to read the old James T. Kirk style science fiction books. Young women want to read about strong women role models in science fiction now.
So, with my daughter’s advice in mind, my next book in the series The GRiM Clan introduced three strong women Carrie, Marge, and Madeline. These three characters, one a strong influencer in her family, the second a strong woman ascending to Territorial Governor and the third that rose up to lead a large Corporation where the first strong women role models in the series.
In my third book The Vendetta Against Vendetta a fourth strong woman role model, Elizbeth joined Carrie, Marge and Madeline. Elizabeth grew in the book to control another large corporation.
In my fourth book One’s Evil Desire Mia a Kapacarian and Senior Coritha a Corilian joined as the next generation of strong women role models. Mia would be the first woman of the Confederation of Planets to head their new Military Intelligence Department and Senior Coritha one of the first women to achieve Senior (Captain) on a battle class Starship.
In my fifth, not yet released, book Frontier Space Chronicles, the strong women characters increase with the introduction of Senior Cynthia an Earthling commanding one of the biggest Starships ever built, the Explorer Class Starship, Captain Alala of the Amazon Warrior Class and last but not least Queen Adria, Queen of the Helenistic Kingdoms. As the numbers on my book list increase so does the number of strong women role models.
I wanted to convey in my books that while women are different in many ways, they have the same mental ability as men. In some way women are even stronger than men.
This next generation of young women are seeing more and more strong women roles in science fiction movies which has seemed to draw their attention. If we want to bring these young women to join the readership of science fiction books, we need those strong women roles in our books.
My grandson, 13, reads my books and likes strong women roles as well. He says they remind him of his Grandmother and his Mom.
~~Michael Short~~
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As a 19 year old CW2 helicopter combat pilot, M. Short served as an aircraft commander being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star and eleven Combat Air Medals while serving the U.S. Army in the Vietnam war. His passion for Science Fiction and his experiences in combat as a pilot gave him his inspiration for the series -A Saga of Dogs of War. A Mercenaries Story.
The series started with him first writing forty nine short stories that were later combined into his first book Cry Havoc. From those first short stories he was encouraged to continue his writing, which now consists of three books with many more on the horizon.
James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager series—Faithless Elector (2016), Dark Network (2017), and Emergency Powers (Oct. 1, 2020)—“taut” and “gripping” political thrillers about a stolen presidency. His short story “Numbers Don’t Lie” was also included in the anthology Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 2, published this summer.
Much of my trilogy is set in a fictionalized version of historic Ellicott City, Maryland. Very conveniently, the Library of Congress has photos of its picturesque Main Street and homes, so I could see what it looked like decades ago. (Many of the photos are copyright free. Very useful for, you know,
I read a lot, too, of course, but I didn’t find out the craziest part of the women’s suffrage story until just recently — after I’d already finished writing the series. The 19th Amendment, the one that gave women the vote, was almost undone after the last required state approved it. As this
