John Stovall's Reviews > Star Marque Rising

I seriously Love the writings of Shami Stovall, and this book takes it to a level not seen before. It is a "space opera" style story, with a fascinating world(s), incredibly real and diverse characters, and incredible moments of heart-wrench and triumph throughout the book. For the last thirty pages, I was reading because I had no idea what would happen and had to know, and the finale was amazing.

The main character is Clevon DeMarco, and he starts as a self-interested thug on a space station, bone squandering the gifts given him by his mother (who had him genetically engineered to make him at the peak or beyond the peak of human normal). His only ambition is to leave the criminal life he is in and live "planetside", a life of luxury.

He is quickly picked up by the titular ship "Star Marque", a group of security for hire and psuedo-mercenaries. There, he meets Endellion, a human modified by cybernetics that tries to help him find his ambition and help her in her ambition (to rule a planet, the first human to do so since the "Homo Superior"; modified humans, took over).

This story, in addition to being excellent space opera, deals with questions of ambition, good and evil, honor, and heavily deals with questions raised on issues of genetic engineering and issues of "class". It is a fantastic read that I highly recommend to everyone into science fiction.