The Superlative Stream, by Kerry Nietz (Marcher Lord Press, 2010)

If you haven’t read book 1 in the DarkTrench Saga yet please click to this review first: A Star Curiously Singing. If that sounds like your sort of novel, you’ll want to read it before diving into The Superlative Stream (book 2). And my review of book 2 will be a bit of a spoiler for book 1.

Still here? Okay, here we go.

In a dystopian future Earth, Sandfly and HardCandy are—were—debuggers. Tech support, equipped with brain implants to allow them to access a wireless data stream that makes our internet look primitive. Debuggers have no rights. They’re the property of the masters, and are kept in line by the same implants that let them touch the stream.

Earth has fallen under the control of a corrupted form of Islam. How will the true God make Himself known again? In A Star Curiously Singing, God’s message comes from a distant star and changes Sandfly’s life.

Sandfly is used to the ordinary data stream. What is this superlative stream that freed him from his master’s control and led him away on a mission on the spaceship DarkTrench? When he and HardCandy arrive at the source, there’s no singing star. Instead they meet an advanced race of people who may be too good to be true.

Now Sandfly wonders if he heard right in the first place. All he hears is occasional random sayings that make no sense to him. And he’s seeing things no one else sees.

The DarkTrench novels are written in the present tense from Sandfly’s point of view, except for excerpts of HardCandy’s past. Sandfly has a distinctive voice that I enjoy. He’s funny, direct and honest about his shortcomings. He occasionally speaks to the reader, adding to the conversational feel of his narrative.

I’ve enjoyed the first two novels in the series, and am looking forward to book 3, Freeheads. All three books in the DarkTrench series have been finalists in the EPIC eBook Awards Competition in the Science Fiction category. You can visit the author’s website to learn more about Kerry Nietz and his books.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

A Star Curiously Singing, by Kerry Nietz (Marcher Lord Press, 2009)

In a dystopian future of Earth with advanced technology and a repressive global regime, to be a tech geek is to be a slave. Anyone (usually male) chosen for this role at age 10 is implanted with a chip that allows him to wirelessly connect to machines, computers and serv-bots—to “stream” to them—and to perform necessary repairs.

These people are called debuggers, and Sandfly is a good one. He does what his master orders, and rarely gets “tweaked” for disobedient or dangerous thoughts, although his wry observances of life under the masters—the Abduls (Servants)—skate pretty close to the edge at times.

Sandfly’s world is ruled by a form of Islam that’s all rules and no faith. Absolute power seems to have corrupted absolutely, and Sandfly wonders if there are any good masters left.

A top-secret assignment lands him on a space station (he’s afraid of heights) where he’s introduced to the prototype space ship, Dark Trench. Dark Trench is a technological marvel, but its crew can’t be cleared to go home until Sandfly finds out what caused their only bot to destroy itself part-way through the mission.

There’s a lot more to the story than that, but you need to read it yourself. Part of the fun is being dropped into this unusual world and figuring out what’s going on as you read Sandfly’s narration. He’ll call you “freehead” and occasionally explain details, but most of the time you’re just along for the ride, learning on the fly (if you’ll pardon the pun).

A Star Curiously Singing is a fast read, with twists, turns, humour, faith and danger. It’s a good story, and Sandfly really makes the novel for me. He’s an engaging character with a distinctive voice. I look forward to reading the other two books in the Dark Trench series: The Surperlative Stream and Freeheads.

A Star Curiously Singing won a Reader’s Favourite Gold Medal Award, and was a finalist on a few other awards lists. You can learn more about Kerry Nietz at his website, and read a sample of A Star Curiously Singing on the Marcher Lord Press site. And you can read an interview with Kerry Nietz, and a bit about his newest book, Freeheads, at A Christian Writer’s World. The draw is now over, and I won! Kerry very kindly substituted A Star Curiously Singing for Freeheads, rather than drop me into the series at the end.