A non-canon story in the Swarm Cycle universe. Passing familiarity with that universe would be helpful, but not necessary. This is character driven sci fi. Having immigrated to a Confederacy planet as a child, Niall Cho rejects becoming either a sponsor or concubine and joins the planetary militia on his fourteenth birthday. He rises through the militia and challenges some of the Confederacy's basic principles and its planetary AI. All on his way to becoming The Assassin.
Size: 680 KB (125,280 words)
Genre: Science Fiction
Sex Contents: Minimal Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, mt/ft, Consensual, Heterosexual, Fiction, Science Fiction, Aliens, Space, Polygamy/Polyamory, Interracial
Review by gmbusman [other reviews by gmbusman]
Reviewed:
Around a decade and a half ago, author Thinking Horndog created a story about an interplanetary war of survival. His tale of worlds and warriors, sentient beings and Artificial Intelligences, and the conflicts they wrought in established human society became the genesis of the “Swarm Cycle” universe here in SOL. Over the years, that universe has grown to over 300 stories contributed by a wide ranging group of authors, most of whom score well above average in their reader reviews for creativity, construction, and appeal. These stories have solidified, expanded and codified all aspects of this universe.
Any author wanting to contribute to this storyline pretty much has to digest all the words from all the approved authors which came before, or risk the censure and ire of dedicated fans for writing something blatantly “non-canon.”
Aroslav already proved he could “create canon continuity” with his earlier novel, “Pussy Pirates.” And yet now with “The Assassin” he’s ventured dangerously into non-canonical territory. It should set Swarm Cycle purists squarely on edge. They should be blasting his words with pulse rifles and feeding their remains to the interplanetary dickhead enemy. But that simply hasn’t happened. Frankly, the storyline of The Assassin is so darned good, so enjoyable, so mesmerizing nobody really even cares! They just keep reading as SOL chapters are released, or lose patience and buy the whole work from Bookapy. (It’s well worth the $5 price of admission!)
SOL installment readers have griped that from early on, the story of a dependent farm boy who rises to lead much his whole out-of-the-way planet without ever becoming a sponsor, seems to have been totally mis-titled. His position within a growing planetary militia becomes increasingly intolerable to Confederacy AIs who plot to eliminate him. Yet the growing imbalance between war-depleted sponsors, vs. surviving concubines and dependents, (an obvious issue seldom addressed by other Swarm authors,) takes on a greater and greater priority for our hero, ultimately leading to the story’s gripping (and aptly titled) conclusion.
Whether canon or not, Aroslav has again hit this story out of the ballpark. Or maybe we should just say he shot it out of the “canon.”
