UNRECONCILED by W. Michael Gear

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Unreconciled by W. Michael Gear
Series: Donovan Trilogy #4
on May 12 2020
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Pages: 496
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Goodreads

The nitty-gritty: Gear does it again with another thrilling entry into his wonderful Donovan series.

I love writers who are able to sustain long series by improving upon each book they write. Such is the case with W. Michael Gear’s Donovan series, I’m happy to report. Unreconciled, the latest edition in Gear’s action-packed science fiction saga, is probably one of my favorite books so far, which proves that Gear has what it takes to keep his books fresh and exciting. If you love SF stories about colonizing new planets and all the drama and politics that goes along with a bunch of people trying to survive on a hostile planet, then you really should read these books. But my recommendation is to start at the beginning. Even though each book can be enjoyed as a self contained story, you’ll miss out on the character development, which is just as important as the action.

When the story opens, the citizens of Donovan are looking forward to the arrival of the long-lost ship Ashanti, which has been missing for the past seven years. Ashanti, you see, had some technical difficulties during the process of inverting symmetry and ended up stuck in an odd time warp-like existence with no way to escape. What should have been a two-to-three-year mission to the planet of Donovan took ten years, and during that time the entire crew nearly died of starvation. To make matters worse, a self-proclaimed messiah on board the ship named Batuhan has recruited a large group of followers he calls the Unreconciled, and they’ve begun killing and eating their dead. With rations running low, Batuhan turned to cannibalism, believing that by absorbing the dead, he and his followers would become immortal. Now that the Ashanti is about to finally land on the planet, Captain Galluzzi is worried that he’ll be arrested and condemned for his act of cruelty: giving the order to lock Batuhan and his followers on Deck Three to fend for themselves.

But Galluzzi and the rest of the crew have no idea what awaits them on Donovan. Expecting a civilized outpost with clear leadership and rules, he’s shocked to find rundown buildings and gun-toting citizens, not to mention a high fence that separates the town from the wild, untamed vistas of the planet. After learning about the Unreconciled, Supervisor Kalico Aguila knows that they must keep Donovan safe from the unstable Batuhan, and so they decide to install them in a remote, abandoned outpost called Tyson’s Station.

Batuhan is convinced that Kalico stands in the way of his ultimate goal—to purify humanity by killing and eating them—and so he devises a plan to lure Kalico and her contingent out to Tyson’s Station to get rid of them for good. But Batuhan and the rest of the Ashanti passengers are completely unprepared for the dangers on Donovan…

Cannibals. Killer plants. A deranged messiah. A guilt-ridden ship’s captain. All these elements and many more make up Unreconciled, and boy did I have fun with this book! There is a lot going on in this story and quite a few characters to keep track of, but I thought Gear did a great job of switching among all the various story lines to keep things interesting. His short, punchy chapters also helped with the pacing—I’ll admit I’m a big fan of short chapters—and talk about ramping up the tension! I love the way he sometimes leaves the reader hanging at the end of these chapters which only made me want to read faster to find out what happened.

That being said, there is quite a bit of set-up in the first half of the book, and then the action really takes off and doesn’t slow down at all. Gear establishes his players, including old favorites from the previous books like Dan Wirth, Allison Chomko, Mark Talbot and Kylee, and then introduces a host of new characters as well: Captain Miguel Galluzzi, who is trying to make sense of his place in the world after the horrifying events on the Ashanti; Derek Taglioni, a member of one of the richest and most powerful families in Solar System who has completely changed his outlook on life after ten years of barely surviving the trip to Donovan; Varten Omanian, a security tech on Ashanti who is one of Batuhan’s Unreconciled but who finds his faith in Batuhan wavering; and Batuhan himself, a cult leader who sits on a throne made of human bones and believes he can purify humanity by absorbing it. And of course, it wouldn’t be a Donovan story without Kalico Aguila, Talina Perez and Shig Mosadek, and all three play important parts in this story.

Donovan is a dangerous planet, and if you’ve been following this series then you know all about quetzals, nightmares and slugs, to name just a few of Donovan’s deadly creatures. Now that we’re four books in, Gear introduces some native species that we haven’t seen before, which made the stakes higher than ever for our characters. For one thing, because the Unreconciled are staying at Tyson’s Station, Gear has the opportunity to show us an area of the planet that hasn’t been explored yet, and of course there are some nasty creatures lying in wait for our characters. We also get a ship full of “fresh meat” in this story, the crew and passengers aboard the Ashanti who are in no way prepared for what awaits them on the planet. If you’re at all squeamish, you might want to think twice about reading these books, fair warning. Gear delights in describing such things as the way a slug burrows into the skin of your foot and works its way through your body, or how a nightmare snags its victims with its long tentacles and absorbs them slowly (an awful way to die, I imagine). Gear is only restricted by his imagination, so I fully expect to discover more horrible creatures like these in future books!

Gear’s background in anthropology really shows in this story, as he explores the motivations and meanings behind the cannibalistic cult. In one scene, Shig—the resident philosopher—takes Galluzzi up to the Freelander, the abandoned ghost ship that features in several past books in the series, and forces him to face his demons—literally. I really enjoyed their story line, even though it wasn’t the main focus.

The only parts of Unreconciled that didn’t work that well for me were Batuhan’s chapters where he rambles on and on (and on and on) about his beliefs. Spending time in his head was terrifying at first, but later became repetitive and boring. I get it, he’s a crazed psycho cult leader! What I found much more interesting was the struggle that Varten went through, a man who has eaten human flesh (one would hope because he had to in order to survive) but who is slowly realizing that yes, Batuhan is indeed crazy. I also loved the scientific reason behind the cult’s actions, which made their story much more grounded.

Will there be more books in this series? I believe there will be many more, if Gear has anything to say about it. No news on future books up on Goodreads yet, but Unreconciled ends with several small, unsolved mysteries. These give me hope that Gear is hard at work on his next installment, and with so much untapped story potential, I can happily see the world of Donovan expanding into a much longer series in the future. Fingers crossed, and trust me when I say I’ll be first in line to read the next book.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

Check out my reviews for the rest of the series:

Outpost | Abandoned | Pariah