Lucas Bale

This short story will give you a real flavour of Lucas Bale's writing. He does adventure with a capital A.

Chukotka

Amazon.com

My review - 

This is a stirring conspiracy-theory story concerning the HAARP project (High Frequency Active Aural Research Program). Scott is a sailor and surfer and the Bering Strait offers risk and excitement to him. It’s dangerously close to Russian waters, though. He and a friend get a reasonable forecast for the straits off the Chukotka Peninsula and set off, he for the surfing and his friend to make a delivery. Their GPS loses signal, the compass spins and the weather breaks. Not good. Umqy, an aged hunter, sets off on his final polar bear hunt. He is one of the last to cling to traditional ways.

They meet but are unable to understand one another. The resulting story and its relationship to the secrecy of the HAARP project is both thrilling, exciting and thoroughly thought-provoking. Young and old, modern and dying cultures meet. It’s a substantial enough short story to give a full thriller/adventure experience. A great example of the author’s style and skill.

Lucas Bale

Lucas Bale's Beyond the Wall series is addictive. I liked the first, I loved the second and I hardly know where to put myself with the third!

A Shroud of Night and Tears

Amazon.com

My review -

This third volume in the Beyond the Wall series brings characters from the preceding two together and gives the reader a bigger picture. This is a longer book than its predecessors and a really exciting and meaty read. Lucas Bale doesn’t merely tell you about his settings, he has the ability to take you there. We have followed several groups of people, been let into the politics of the group and their repressive ‘Republic’ and we’ve felt the desire they have to be free. They are all fitted with implants and heavily monitored by security cameras and gunships. It’s all a bit grim.

There are several brilliant revelatory moments in this book. I felt as if I’d been gazing at my navel then suddenly looked up. The author has the ability to change your view of his world in a sentence or two and it happens here more than once. I soon tire of the kind of science fiction which is just one relentless war after another but this is all driven by people. It’s like studying something at a cellular level and I’m left wanting to know what’s going to happen now. This is intelligently conceived and elegantly written science fiction and I’ve found this series getting better with each book.

I received an advance copy for review.

Lucas Bale

I recently read the first in this series - Heretic - which I enjoyed a great deal. This is Book 2 which I think surpasses it. It's a corker.

Defiance

Amazon.com Defiance

My review - 

This is the second book in Lucas Bale’s Beyond the Wall series. I enjoyed the first a great deal, although it necessarily had the feeling of a precursor. It had to set up the premise for the story arc which follows. In this book, we are straight into the action with a different group of protagonists and yet we come to see a connection with the finale of the first book, Heretic. There’s a huge amount of action in this book and some very exciting passages when we begin to realise what’s happening to some of our characters. This is no one-thread book. It’s a testament to the writing that when I was carried away in one scene, I was almost upset to be dragged away to another, much though I hadn’t wanted to leave that one behind on a previous chapter end.

I’d find it hard to define this series. It’s sci-fi, it’s speculative fiction but it’s also thriller, adventure story and a great deal more. The tension and the body count are ratcheted up as the book progresses and I finished the second half in a single, concentrated session. I find Lucas Bale’s writing style to be rich and evocative and I’m very glad it’s not going to be long before the next book is the series is available. Highly recommended.