Extremist

[theradicalchild]

Extremist by Craig Martelle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The third installment of Craig Martelle and Brad R. Torgersen’s science-fiction Zenophobia series, which they describe as a cross between H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau and Indiana Jones in Outer Space, opens with the main antagonists, headed by the female Tigroid Arbai, yearning to stop Sankar, another Tigroid declared as a heretic for seeking the true origins of his kind and other space roaming animal races, from accomplishing his goal. The main chapters begin with Sankar conferring with his companions, the Ursoids Breon and Akoni, the Wolfoid Bayane, Gwarzo the Goroid, and fellow Tigroid Junak, all visiting an unknown planet and civilization.

On the said planet, a soldier named Evaria acts as Defense Minister of the Golongal Peoples Revolution, recalling her past, with her and her people’s exact species and appearances deliberately left initially undescribed due to twists later in the story. Another soldier of the same race, Coak, receives significant attention during the chapters occurring on the planet. Sankar eventually takes the Four-Claw from the larger vessel Bilkinmore and lands on the world, noticing combat among these less-advanced aliens. On first contact, Sankar attempts communication with Evaria. Meanwhile, Arbai’s vessel, the Direwolf sets down elsewhere on the planet.

Sankar traverses the planet and ultimately meets a mystic called the Abbot, who reveals their race’s backstory and that of the zenos, with the Four-Claw and Arbai’s Blood Moon engaging during their departure. The story concludes with the Abbot beginning to relay his knowledge to a war college of zenos. Overall, while it has some of the same issues as its precursors, such as the difficulty at times of keeping track of the species of the various characters (although reading its predecessors somewhat cemented their races in my mind), the third book does have some good revelations and action, and I will continue reading the series.

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