If science-fiction is your bag Simon Dell is your man, and The Outpost at Tal Ghrna should be your next read. The story is a riveting switchback ride packed with unexpected twists and turns and nail-biting cliffhangers, each one more dizzying than the last. They’ll never get out of this one, thinks the reader, even though there are many pages to go. And yet the characters do escape each perilous predicament in wholly unpredictable and ingenious ways.
After years of exploitation by officers of the Dominion the natives of Tal Ghrna, a godforsaken mining outpost on the Outer Rim, begin to revolt under the leadership of the megalomanic Sal Fel. The officers are led by Lucas Dorn whose malcontent crew are cattily at odds with each other. The atmosphere is contaminated further by Coris, the killjoy Dominion auditor, whose critical attitude poisons everything.
Faced with this uprising Dorn must pull together his ragged, poorly quipped, and disaffected crew in a bid to escape the planet. They are massively outnumbered and the Ghrnese who are motivated by festering revenge are a fearsome threat. They are also foully ugly, malodorous, massive, and brawny. Klingons are cuddly by comparison.
Part of the book’s appeal is the ghastly, unforgiving terrain of Tal Ghrna itself. Despite the planet’s two suns it is always bleak and inhospitable and the very air is toxic. The book’s excellent cover gives a very good idea of the landscape with the Dominion’s control tower reflecting a bilious gleam in the murk.
Dell’s cast of characters is well-conceived and the tensions between them well-realised. There are a couple of aliens, one large and amorphous and a minuscule engineer, who would not be out of place in the Star Wars bar. Each has his or her moment of glory in seeking to effect the escape, even the sententious Coris.
However, my absolute favourite is Barker, the robodog, who makes K9 look positively analogue. His frame boasts more gadgetry than a galactic Swiss army knife, in addition to which he is endlessly inventive and adorably loyal.
There are action, gore and fire, catapults and explosions in this fast-moving book. There is wit and banter. But, purposely understated yet insistent, is a moral dimension. The Ghrnese are repellent, sure, but don’t they have a case? We root for Dorn’s team and will them to make their escape, but is not the Dominion’s regime oppressive and exploitative?
This is Book One in ‘The Chronicles of Dorn’. Book Two: The Orbs of Kelen is in preparation. It will be eagerly awaited.
