Review: Thought provoking novella
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 28, 2013
It's been awhile since I read this story, but I was browsing through the available Kindle titles by Jo Beverly and I noticed that this one had an undeservedly low rating.Jo Beverly writes in the sci-fi/fantasy genre as well as historical romance and this is a sci-fi novella.  With the novella format, we aren't given a huge amount of description of the world where this occurs, but I felt that the setting was sufficiently described.  The plot was logical and there was enough angst that I truly cared what happened to the protagonists by the end of the book.  In my opinion, Jo does a decent job of exploring the human psyche and how we react, both as the person going to war and seeing and participating in horrible atrocities that tear at our souls and as the people back home who have been the beneficiaries of the sacrifices the warrior has made.  It's not always comfortable, thinking about "how would I react in this situation?" and this is not any easy or comfortable read and is certainly not light entertainment.  However, the questions raised are relevant to our society today, particularly with the thousands of veterans who have come home recently from war and are trying to find jobs and once again fit in with the rest of our society.