Written In The Stars

Written in the Stars, the first book in Victoria Zagar’s Culture War series, is set well in the future. We enter the story while a war rages on between the Moral League and the Freedom Alliance. These factions resemble the religious conservatives and the equal rights groups today. While this is a story it is disturbing that even 200+ years in the future the same battle rages on. The Moral League believes in worshiping God to an extreme going to unthinkable measures to remove gays from society, while the Freedom Alliance fights to protect human rights.

The main characters Samuel Walden and Major Tom Averay are a heartwarming couple. Sam has entered the Alliance Space Force where he meets his commanding officer Major Tom. These two fall for each other immediately. The speed at which their relationship builds is somewhat unbelievable but you can help fall for the guys. The supporting characters assist the author with creating a believable world rich with love, friendship, and rivals.

I really enjoyed this story and the depictions of war in space. The practices of the Moral League raised the same feelings of sorrow in me that that the individuals against equal rights do today. The ending was rather quick with the introduction of Teeresi forces and then we are jumped to a year later in the epilog. What we have here is a well-developed sci-fi adventure with some angst and true love between these two that leaves you with a happy ending.

The year is 2243 and while mankind has space capability, the Earth is embroiled in a civil war. It is much the same war that mankind has been fighting for over a thousand years with culture and religion at its center. On one side we have the Moral League, a fairly well funded group determined to set up a theocracy as the world government and bring man’s thinking back into the dark ages. The challenger is the Freedom Alliance, a loosely held together group of countries who want to move man past the conservative ideals and into a future where the world government is open minded and liberal in its thinking. Sam is a young man rejected by his family for being gay who joins the Alliance Space Force. He is stationed on the Northampton, the fleet’s flag ship because of his outstanding flying ability and is soon placed on a flight team. He soon meets Major Tom, the ship’s crew officer and neither man’s life is ever the same again. I found this story to be a study in extremes from the Alliance and the League to the military’s regulations and our two lovers to the by the book Tom and the rebellious Sam who follows his own ideals. There is quite a bit of tension and conflict throughout the story because of the my way or no way type of thinking. The only real centrist in the story is the very outspoken and wonderful character, Gracie. She has the ability to cut through the conflicts and bring everyone from the admiral to Sam out of their own set way of thinking and to finding a compromise. Unfortunately, Gracie cannot do this in her own life and becomes an abuse victim. Ms Zagar did a wonderful job of weaving so many of today’s social problems through this character driven story. I liked the characters Sam, Tom and Gracie who the story really revolved around. There was a good amount of angst between Tom and Sam which held the story together when the story line got thin in some places. I found the Admiral to be very stuffy and close minded to be the leader of the Alliance forces but perhaps he had to be that stiff as a military man. The ending was resolved a little too quickly in my opinion by bringing in the Teeresi forces. I don’t normally say anything about book covers but I have to say that the cover makes the book look like a m/f book which it definitely is not. This was another good sci-fi story built around human rights and how far we have yet to go.