Scat (Scat Universe) - Where nobody has gone before

Scat (Book 1: Scat Universe series)

Jim Graham

October 2012

Available at Smashwords in multiple formats 

Trained in the Marines special forces, and really, really good at his job, Sebastian Scatkiewicz is not given to deep thinking about either the missions he is sent on or the politics behind them, and that's gotten him into trouble when he's chosen to take matters into his own hands to get the job done.  

He's already once been disciplined and demoted to babysitting geologists.  In Scat's world, the Marines are sent to help find resources, to get in and get out after discovering deposits that countries aren't aware they have, and while a job is a job, the moral bankruptcy underpinning Earth's billions fighting over resources at any cost has insulted his sense of fair play, and when he takes matters into his own hands, another line of work is strongly recommended.

We find Scat on Prebos, working at a mining operation run by Lynthax, pulling out a rare mineral used to keep climate change at bay on Earth, a very poorly paid and dirty job.  When the miners from Trevan discover their planet has voted for independence, the corporation not only sends in troops to make sure their interests are protected should the miners join the rebellion, but because of his past work in special forces, Scat is asked to go to Trevan with the insurrectionists being shipped home, to become one of the rebels, but secretly to work undercover for Petroff,  Lynthax's unscrupulous security chief. 

What Scat doesn't know, is that Lynthax has also gotten their hands on an alien technology that Lynthax plans to use to corner the market on space exploration.  Governments in the West have long since given up on space, as overpopulation sapped their resources, and political unrest took up all of their attention, leaving the corporations free to explore and expand out into the galaxy.  But Lynthax's discovery is a game changer, likely to give them complete control over all the other resource companies and governments. 

What Petroff hasn't factored into his plans is Scat's strong sense of justice, and the fact that the artifact his R & D people have been playing with was designed for a completely different purpose.  Also, he doesn't notice that, as it is used, its power grows, nor does he realize, in his zeal to maximize Lynthax's profits, that its real owners have plans of their own.

Scat finds himself leading an entirely new band of "soldiers" fighting for independence, and also exploring completely new worlds, using devices based on "the thing" on Prebos, which seems to be trying to tell Scat something important.  He's never been one for soul-searching.  He'd rather have a well-defined mission with known bad buys worth taking out, but this struggle for independence turns out to be for far more than just upending the Western bloc's incompetence and fighting for freedom from corporate hegemony, and Scat's going to need every skill he has to pull off the biggest and most unexpected rescue mission in history.

I really enjoyed this book, and look forward to reading the sequel, currently in preparation, titled "Army of Souls."  The character of Scat is well drawn, and while the plot is exceedingly complex, with a huge scope and lots of moving parts, the author seems able to keep us from getting confused, although if you put the book down for more than a week or two (as I did when life interfered with reading time), it can be difficult to recall all the twists and turns without backing up a bit.

The corporate empire theme pervades Scat's Universe, but some folks are already unsure that might not be a prescient view of our future, so it's a theme worth thinking about, even for those of us who feel, as Scat does, that politics is for "the politicos," and the rest of us have real work to do.

The workings of the alien device rely on an postulation of a power source we've rarely understood or even imagined, and the "game changer" for the reader is switching into a context that rarely shows up in sci-fi -- but that's a spoiler I won't give away.  Suffice it to say that you probably won't see it coming.  I enjoyed this book a great deal and hope you will as well.