another parallel story in that famous universe. Politics in a future galaxy leading to a war. Two descendents of genetically engineered soldiers establish themselves with friends in the conflict in a position to survive. Still no descriptive sex. Lust yes. Love perhaps. Mayhap even a future amid the scheming and conniving.
Size: 2436 KB (432,571 words)
Genre: Science Fiction
Sex Contents: No Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, Fiction, Science Fiction, non-anthro, Military
Review by NC-Retired [other reviews by NC-Retired]
Reviewed:
Opinions will vary, but TJ & Morg by GreenDragon is in my top 10 pure Space Opera science fiction stories that are available on SOL.
GreenDragon only has three stories published in 2009 & 2010 here on SOL, but each in its own way is a masterwork. All are interrelated and should be read as a universe setting so that the nuance in each can be appreciated.
So many stories require a HUGE suspension of disbelief - they've got some alien coming to rescue mankind from itself. Nothing like that here in TJ & Morg. Just 800 to 1,000 years in the future we still have humans being assholes to each other - so there is nothing that requires disbelief. Well, okay, some scientific and engineering mumbo-jumbo that does not fit current 21st century scientific knowledge - we've got to accept the standard SciFi ideas of worm holes and Hyperspace, but hey, new 'stuff' is being discovered all the time, so... maybe in a few hundred years these stories will be seen a prescient instead of pure fiction.
GreenDragon has built a universe populated by characters that we today could easily relate to. And that's the brilliance of this 3 story universe. Those of us that spend a few moments in thought, examining the events of humankind's days against the context of 'the big picture' will find that GreenDragon has captured the essence of man, both good and bad, in these three stories. All our foibles and failings. All our nobleness and sacrifice of self for the greater good of the community. It's all here in GreenDragon's writing.
Frankly I am envious of GreenDragon's ability to envision this universe in his mind and then have the ability to get it into the hundreds of thousands of words these three stories entail.
For me, (your desires may be different) I'd love to be able to live an interesting life as I space about the galaxy on adventure quests. Would I want to be any of the main characters? Probably not ... they're too 'superman-ish' to be totally relatable. But I can easily see myself as a supporting character like the engineers or any of the 'lower deck' folks. And no, these auxiliary characters are not like the proverbial red shirted characters in the various Star Trek episodes that are just cannon fodder. So they are relatable, damn straight, I could do that.
I DO NOT know this for a fact, but the amount of similarities between these three stories and the Honor Harrington stories of David Weber are flat eerie. Either GD is DW or there's some been some strong borrowing going on between the series. But that's OK for us readers as both series/universes are full of good reads. Remember, Google is your best friend.
TJ & Morg is a long story - here and in the universe - as it covers more than 20-30 years in the character's lives and therefore I rate this story at 8-8-10 because of the difficulty keeping all the various characters straight and GD's constant use of abbreviations and acronyms provide lots of 'WTF are they talking about' moments. But this story and its companions are a great read! Enjoy!
