Synopsis:
A planet steeped in mystery…
Jess Amiko is long past her days as a space marine, with all the glory of that time tarnished beyond repair by what came after. Trying to rebuild from the ashes, she’s taken a job as a security guard on Kenai, a lonely world far from the Council systems. It’s supposed to be easy duty – quiet and peaceful, on a docile world with no real threats, watching over an archeological dig at a site built by a race long vanished.
Betrayed and attacked by forces unknown, and finding that nothing on Kenai makes sense, Jess is plunged into a desperate fight for survival that leads her deep into the mysteries of Kenai’s past, and deep into the hardship and paradox the planet imposes on all who call it home.
Review:
Space marines, distant worlds, ancient civilizations, and an element of time travel (with potentially dire consequences) make for an intriguing story in Kenai.
I’ll be the first to admit this book wasn’t quite what I expected it would be going in, but I enjoyed it. I assumed there would be more action than there was based on the book description; the main focus of this story wasn’t about Jess the former marine fighting the attackers, but more about Jess’ role on the world of Kenai and how she ended up shaping its future. There was some fighting and her past as a marine was certainly helpful, but the bulk of this storyline was focused on other things.
Kenai itself is a weird planet. There are ancient ruins on the surface, but no intelligent life remains by the time humans discover and begin to document the world. The native creatures are mostly herbivores and pose no threat to humans, but they also have a strange habit of disappearing overnight without explanation. And I don’t mean they wander away. They literally disappear. Or so the researchers think.
What’s actually going on is a lot more complicated and involves some unique time-traveling elements that I’ve never encountered in anything else. And while the concept was explained in the book, there are still pieces of it that weren’t fully explored (like the “reset” that occurs for some aspects of the world, and why things from off-world aren’t affected. The scientist part of my brain doesn’t like unexplained anomalies…and while there might have been a plausible explanation for them, it was really just speculation on my part and was never confirmed.) But I really liked the paradox dilemma that was presented, and the fact that the consequences of messing around with time were, in most cases, pretty dire.
But the story was really about Jess’ role on Kenai. Her character changes and grows in the best sort of way. At the beginning, she’s relatively angry and hasn’t found a purpose for her life since it all fell apart. By the end, she’s found her calling, and she’s in a much better place, emotionally. She’s learned to make friends again, and she’s willing to work for a greater cause, one that’s so much more than just hers alone. I loved her character’s growth in this story.
And I loved the unpredictability of the plot. It took a number of turns I could have never guessed at, and in the end, it made for a really interesting story. Kenai is a standalone, and there is so much more to it than what I’m willing to write about here (I’m trying to avoid spoilers, and all.) Just know that it’s one of the more unique sci-fi books I’ve read in a long time, and it’s definitely worth reading.
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