The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict, is a novel which pulls no punches. Set in interstellar space and on a space station this tale recounts the crossings of three flawed individuals. They are - Angus Thermopyle, a sociopathic coward, space pirate and an unbelievably amoral human being with no redeeming qualities, Morn Hyland a woman with a secret and dangerous affliction and finally Nick Succorso - another space faring pirate with a dangerous reputation. These three characters alone is what the narrative of this short novel represents. The recounting of events flow back and forth through time almost primarily through Angus Thermopyle's eyes. Donaldson has injected his first and by his own admission in the afterword, darkest first novel of the Gap Series with a very narrow and predetermined plot. Taut with claustrophobic interactions both misogynistic and sadistic, ultimately culminates with Angus Thermopyle allowing his feelings for Morn to betray his paranoid self. You will find this first of a five part series compulsive, disturbing and unputdownable if somewhat a little short.





Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap into Vision kicks off with Angus Thermoplye, now a prisoner being subjected to torture (poetic justice) by station security and with Nick Succorso and his newly won acquisition, the broken Morn Hyland, now onboard his ship the Captain's Fancy. Desperate and in pain aboard Captain's Fancy, Morn controls her body and mind with her illegal zone implant, recreating herself as a super being worthy of holding Captain Nick Succorso's affections. This has far reaching consequences for both her, Nick Succorso, the crew and her unborn child. Discovering that she is pregnant, the product of being raped by Angus Thermophyle, she lies to Nick, telling him that he is the father. It is after this point we are introduced to the alien race the Amnions, mutagen's and probably most disturbing of all - force-growing fetus procedures. The fetus is brought to term, matures to become an adolescent male within hours. He is sentient with most of the memories of his mother. The alien Amnioni are cold state of war with humankind, seeking to overthrow us with their bizarre technology and only the most reckless or foolhardy brave pirates enter their forbidden space. They also wish to keep Morn's offspring (Davies), named after her father and with all the physical attributes of his amoral father. Nick agrees but he fails to understand that Morn will stop at nothing to keep her son away from both Nick's vengeful rage and the Amnioni's design to further their own nefarious schemes for human conquest. The cop and the mother are more than Succorso, the Amninoni and Morn herself can tolerate. Donaldson prose is succinct and crisp and such lines as "She wanted to die. She wanted to get it over with." only deepen the admiration and more importantly the empathy you feel for a survivor such as Morn. Can a broken woman who has already been undone and forever broken snap once again? Read this second instalment and find out. His world of piracy, mistrust, conspiracy, physical and mental torture and anguish is dark, unforgiving, laced with characters that bring the ship and its crew to life, yet shows how little they value themselves. You won't regret picking up this novel.






Dark and Hungry God Arises: The Gap into Power the third in the Gap Series continues with more of what Stephen Donaldson does best - sublime space opera. On Earth the corporate entity that is the GCES and UMCP is exposed to the readers as a corrupt entity ruled by the Holt "Dragon" Fasner. Everything is smoke and mirrors. Their is nobody who can either be implicitly trusted or taken lightly amongst the unequalled and unbalanced triumvirate of Min Donner, Warden Dios and Godsen Frisk. All have hidden agendas, betrayals are redolent along the corridors of the orbiting space platforms. On Thantos Minor, the Captain's Fancy is docked and Nick Sucorso is in danger of, and fears a mutiny brewing. His air of invincibility is shattered and this only intensifies his fraying sanity and hatred toward Morn. The Amnions have docked two of their warships and play a cat and mouse game with Succorso. They want Davies Hyland. The man who runs Thantos Minor - The Bill - has Davies and has no plans on giving him back to Nick until he can figure out how much this pawn is worth to both humanity's greatest threat - Amnion - or to an unctuous and amoral space pirate. Succorso is trapped and to his sheer disbelief he learns that Angus Thermophyle and Milos Taverner have escaped onboard a scout ship and are headed for, if not Morn Hyland, straight for him. Is cosmic karma not already coming back with a vengeance to lay her fury on Nick? Also discovering that the woman, the only woman to have ever bested him is onboard Thantos Minor he vows revenge. Bedamned those who get in his way. Angus, now a human/cyborg construct is under orders from UMCP not to allow the Amnion to succeed in figuring out that their mutagenic experiments have been countered by humanity. He is unaware that Davies is his son. His programming is only concerned with ensuring that the Amnion are not to succeed. His desire to save Morn continues to burn within him.

Donaldson's narrative and character portrayals are simply wonderful, believable, all too human, creative, dark, disturbing and at times surprisingly delicate. He creates circumstances, events and accidental meetings which infuse this novel with a nervous and effervescent energy which resume old hatred's, questions human moralities and ignites new paranoias. He very slowly and with a perfect sense of timing allows a cunning and barely contained chaos to dictate events on both Earth and Thanatos Minor. It is something you will not notice until you are into the final quarter of this novel. Too many authors fail to create an effusion which allows characters to develop and plots to percolate, he isn't one of them. Building to a climatic crescendo which is not revealed until the final few pages reveals just how much we were led to believe was the truth, was nothing but a by product of lies, conceits and broken promises. It is what space opera is meant to be.





Chaos And Order kicks off right after the untimely destruction of Thanatos Minor. Morn Hyland, her son Davies, Nick Succorso and cyborg Angus Thermopyle--escape in a specially fitted cruiser, one step ahead of hostile pursuit. On Earth the Machiavellian scheming of Holt Fasner, Warden Dios and Hashi Lebwohl rises to a new pitch as events deep in interstellar space take more bizarre and unfortunate twists and turns. This novel simmers for quite some time before anything of real note occurs. On Earth the political machinations of the GCES and the UMCP tussle for supremacy of Earth's ship lanes. Power hungry demagogues and old heroes look for ways to cut the sinews and total monopoly that Holt Fasner hangs onto with every fibre of his being. In space Angus Thermpoyle sets the Trumpet on a direct course for the Massif 5 star system to aid Vector Shaheed complete his unfinished and untimely interrupted work on the mutagenic immunity drug. In hot pursuit are four ships: Free Lunch, Soar, Calm Horizons and Punisher. Which of those ships will make it out of the Massif 5 solar system? The stakes are higher now that Amnioni are aware of the threat to their DNA altering methods on humanity and they will stop at nothing to see that Shaheed's work fails. Donaldson has done it once again. He has maintained a plotline which at times seemed as if it was going to delve into the realms of hyperbole but which he nurtures into coherent and tub thumping space opera. It is by no means a flawless novel as I felt it could have been some one hundred and fifty pages shorter. His detailed and trenchantly explained physiological reasons for how the crew relates to each other onboard all the disparate vessels at times is verbose, very verbose but forgivable as it is so wonderfully written. The thing which captured my eye as I read this novel was how so seamlessly he manoeuvres all the plots into a skein which frays but never bloats or rips. He doesn't manage to clear his throat with his prose as so well as he accomplished with his previous novel but it only a mote of criticism.






The crippled starship Trumpet drifts in space, its drives sabotaged by a crewman tainted with an alien mutagen. Morn Hyland, cyborg Angus Thermopyle and the rest of its small band of battered survivors may hold the key to Earth's future. Yet unless they can regain control and return on their own terms, their recent escape from the Amnion will prove to be a hollow triumph. As Punisher closes in on the helpless Trumpet to arrest her crew as fugitives, back on a satellite near Earth a deadly game is being played out. UMCP Director Warden Dios is preparing to expose the secret machinations of the Dragon, the corrupt head of the UMC. But the revelation of Dios's own dangerous actions may precipitate all-out war with the Amnion, leaving humanity to pay a terrible price. As Dios in Earth's orbit and Morn in deep space both make far-reaching decisions, the Amnion act with swift fury, and suddenly Earth stands threatened with fiery destruction.

This finale to the Gap Series is a very unevenly proportioned novel. Donaldson's flair for the dramatic is razor sharp and packs a wallop that is both breath stealing and jaw dropping but he draws out every plot twist to an almost limitless and attenuated degree. Earth has a hostile alien ship hovering over its planets' capital but the inter political manoeuvring of those attending are examined and postulated to such extremities that it felt like I was watching some form of emergency government session on television. No matter the calibre of writer - a government session can only be jazzed or sexed up so much. I found it stifling and very boring at times. He very deftly keeps the reader guessing as to what fate is to befall the crew of the Trumpet and it credits him that he allows all other characters a certain degree of freedom to further evolve. Depravity knows no limits with Donaldson. With a certain amount of carnage already visited in the previous four novel of the series he continues to pump up the onboard tensions to snapping point. Nobody is in control of their destiny; a fact some characters have accepted more than others. I felt that although I could easily forgive the author's verbosity and lack of fluency he could have so easily streamlined the novel by one hundred and fifty pages. He delivers quantity but quality. Bigger doesn't always necessarily mean better but it's all down to personal choice in the end. He never quite managed to clear his throat with his plotline and punctuated the ending of this novel with a rather mediocre finish. All things considered a good, but not great finish to the Gap Series

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