It’s fun story to read in the same way a Michael Bay movie can be a fun film to watch – as long as you turn your brain off first. The first half is actually a lot of fun as the educated but uncreative Faey keep getting stumped by a human electronics student. After that it turns into an acceptable mystery/thriller. This is one of Mr Galloway’s first works, and unfortunately it shows in places.

Which leads us to the main character, and problem one. Jason is handsome, and knows kung fu, and can play the piano, and speak a foreign language, and is top of his class, and an orphan, and is really popular with the ladies, and can do a trick with his mind that the telepathic Faey have never seen before . . . You get the idea. If you’ve encountered this character type before then at least one of the plot twists will come as absolutely no surprise to you at all. If this kind of thing bothers you, you might want to skip Subjugation.

The second major problem can be summed up in one word: Muggles. No, Subjugation has nothing to do with Harry Potter, but it does use the same very old idea that the vast majority of people are vastly inferior to the main cast, and thus not only should they have no say in the running of the universe, but their suffering and civil rights are not important. Jason might think his life is bad, but at the same time the Faey are wrecking all of Earth in the same way Pol Pot tried to industrially and culturally castrate his own country. By the end at least 200 million people have been enslaved for 2 years, and millions have been murdered, and almost no one else has any money because all the factories have been raised, along with all the banks, and news services. And yet, just one year later after Jason wins (another revelation which i’m sure will come as a shock to no one) the vast majority of their muggles welcome their new set of alien overlords (who are also Faey) with absolutely no fear or resentment for how they’ve been treated previously. It’s just one of those stories where no one but the main character is ever important. If this kind of thing bothers you, you might want to skip Subjugation.

So like I said. Just like a Michael Bay movie. If you can ignore the two massive and ugly plot holes, then it’s a fun roller coaster. If not, move onto Spirit Walker, by the same author. A much better read that Fel started several years later, and it shows.

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