Sullivan’s War 1: The Story

Rick Sullivan is an idealist, bent on ending a corrupt government’s strangle hold on his home planet of Edaline.  Sullivan is the bad-guy and not above killing people to accomplish his goal.

Frank Allen is an investigator in the equivalent of a galaxy-spanning FBI.  Someone killed a planetary assemblyman, Frank is part of the team sent to investigate.  This quickly pits him against Sullivan in a planet hopping game of hide and seek that comes to involve an assembly of colorful and often loathsome characters.  There is little regard for The Law among the fringe planets and Allen and his team meet with opposition even from among their own side.

The Mechanics

This is a brief book at around 33,000 words, but it tells a good story that steps right along because it’s not bogged down with blocks of filler and fluff.

I found the characterization to be fair.  I never developed a real bond with either of the main characters, but did understand their motivations clearly.  Dialogue was good.  It was very natural, with some humor but not trite.  I like what Rose leaves out of the characterization.  In one case we have a tense situation but rather than stating the scene he uses clues like:

“Will do.” Brain took another drag of his cigarette.  His cheek twitched slightly as he exhaled.

A good example of the show-me-don’t-tell-me school of writing.  He does a lot of this and it is quite effective.

The manuscript could have used one last edit before clicking ‘Publish’ as there were several places where a word was missing or the wrong word was used – obviously from changing a tense or viewpoint.  There were only three or four of these, but this sort of thing annoys me when it’s encountered in an otherwise great story.

Stand-out Stuff

What I liked best about Rose’s writing style was the fact that he could take a scene that others would have made blood-spatteringly gory or overly sexual and presented it in a way that did not offend my delicate sensibilities.  He retained the emotion of a scene without forcing disgustingly visual detail upon me.  There is a fair bit of murder and mayhem, and a little sex, in this book but it is all presented in a way that it is clear and understandable without being over-blown for the sake of sensationalism.  It is a part of the story, not the focus.  I like that a lot.

The relationship that develops between our two main characters is interesting too – but I’ll not spoil that for you.

Summary

Sullivan’s War: All Good Men Serve the Devil By Michael K Rose is a tight action story that takes you on a romp around the galaxy to mostly uncivilized worlds populated by bad people.  Lawman Allen is smart and resourceful in his pursuit of the terrorist, Sullivan. It is a well written story with a good plot and fair characters.  I enjoyed the book and will be looking into the second book, a prologue Sergent Riley’s Account.