Justified

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Justified (The Saga of the Nano Templar Book 1) by Jon Del Arroz

The accounts of the Christian conquest of Jerusalem usually feature Crusaders approaching the sites sacred to the Prince of Peace by wading through the rivers of blood that reportedly ran in the streets. We moderns have not doubt that the Crusaders must have felt disgusted with their own hypocrisy and repented of their violence as if they could have been made to realize that a multilateral treaty negotiation process was a more workable answer than sieges and battles.

But maybe not. The Crusaders, after all, were fighting to free a city that had been Christian for hundreds of years from an alien power that had violently imposed its novel religion on Christians and their holiest sites.

Jon Del Arroz's Justified begins with scenes that make the Conquest of Jerusalem seem tame. Population centers are nuked as the righteous forces of the God-Man Yezuah descend upon the almost helpless forces of a planet controlled by their hereditary enemies, the Sekarans.

Drin is among the invading forces. He has been born, bred and trained to be a Nano-Templar, able to wield the nanites in his body to form weapons and shields for the glories of Yezuah. Sekaran warriors fall before his superior skills and technology like wheat before a scythe.

After the battle, Drin begins to question the way of war that he has embraced as his life work. Drin goes AWOL and finds a refuge on a backwater Sekaran world. There he learns that the Sekarans truly are the forces of darkness he had been told they were. They are raiding slavers who deny dignity to any who fall below the aristocracy. Drin discovers that Yezuah's message of hope resonates with members of the subordinated population.

He also finds that it is necessary to go to war.

This book is “neo-pulp.” It is action-packed and quite a bit of fun. Action propels the story as Drin finds himself moving from danger to danger, extricating himself by his skill, nanites or luck.

The main characters are sympathetic. Drin, of course, easily overcomes his doubts about the virtues of violence as he tries to do honorable battle and teach mercy to his followers. We also meet Anais, a member of a different species, taken by Sekaran slavers to this planet for their lust, which raises the interesting question of how such different species can share the same standards of beauty. Yezuah only knows. Anais moves in the direction of becoming Drin's love interest in this book and we will have to see how that turns out in later books.

Again, this is a plot-driven story. Del Arroz knows his craft. The writing is economical and effective. There are no substantial gaps in the action. For page-turning fun, I recommend this book without hesitation.