Hal J Friesen

Hal J. Friesen’s Shepherds of Sparrows is tightly plotted thriller touching on questions of germline genetic modification in humans and the rise of a fascist movement in an isolated community. It’s set in the context of the Okal Rel Universe created by Canadian novelist Lynda Williams, but stands on its own merit. Friesen’s novella shifts between the efforts of Olivia Ald’erda and her brothers Pleo and Voltan to survive and make sense of the sudden violence that overturned their lives and the efforts of Di Mon, Liege of the Sevolite planet Monitum, his retainer Nestor, and Nestor’s family to contain the violence and prevent reprisals from the rest of the Sevolite Empire.

The prose is solid, and the primary characters well-drawn given the constraints imposed by the novella’s length. However, I would have appreciated more information about the the gene-doping technology at the root of the crisis, and more about the Caddy’s motives and those of his backers. Despite these cavils, Shepherds of Sparrows is an excellent addition to the Okal Rel Legacy series accreting around Lynda Williams’ Okal Rel Saga. Because Shepherds of Sparrows is set before the events of her first novel, The Courtesan Prince, (between the first and second Nesak Wars, according to Ms. Williams), it is readable without prior exposure to the Okal Rel universe.… (altro)