“Exiles Burn” is the story of a telepath named Rat and a woman named Neva.  Rat and his “le-murr”, Jasmine, have stowed on board a ship leaving a space station.  He’s having problems controlling his abilities and wants away from people.  Neva was one of the few survivors of an attack on her planet but she’s badly disfigured, making her an oddity in this future society.  The people who paid for her surgery have asked her to help them.  Both Rat and Neva end up on board the same ship.

The writing is solid, a bit dark and peppered with technospeak.  This isn’t the clean, white and shiny future of Star Trek, it reminds me more of Firefly/Serenity, only without the humour or sense of adventure.  The future depicted here has space freighters, bored military grunts who hassle civilians, space pirates, and designer gene-spliced pets.  The space ships are banged up, the paint is worn away, the cables are exposed, and the air is cold and smells of sweat.  There’s been a war between a military group, the Zatvian Guard, referred to as Zats, and the colonies.  The Zats won.  Some of the colonists are still fighting. 

The writing gives a lot of detail about the perils and discomforts of space travel.  There’s lots of references to safety webs, hyperspace and other future technology.  The story feels like it’s driven by the technology and the fallout of the war, rather than by the characters.  The characters are responding to the situations they’re caught in.  There’s not much humour in the writing, in fact the overall mood is of quiet despair.  Most of the dramatic tension is provided by the antagonism between the characters and their worry about encounters with the Zats. 

The main characters seem to be all damaged misfits, struggling to survive and find someplace safe–or at least where they can belong–existing on the periphery.  After 50 pages I was still not overly attached to any of them.  They were either scared, sad, depressed or angry.  The background details were missing or being filled in sporadically.  I was having problems keeping the names straight.  By 90 pages, several of the characters had become distinct personalities, although some still weren’t very likeable. 

I found it interesting that the author chose to add religion to this story.  Several of the characters make reference to gods, goddesses, rituals and tools.  It’s a bit odd reading about pentacles and cleansing rituals on a space ship, but it added a different dimension to what is essentially a military science fiction story.

If you like science fiction about a dystopian future where the rebels are still struggling to fight a lost war, you’ll probably love “Exiles Burn”.  If you prefer something lighter, funnier or more character-driven, this might not be your first choice.

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