US Review of Books 

Heavy Weight of Darkness
by J.M. Erickson

Book Review by Kate Robinson

 "I now understand what Kurtz meant in one of her transmissions about the ‘heavy weight of darkness killed them.’"

Earth’s Third Great Republic is in further crisis due in part to the news of Cassandra Kurtz freeing slaves and plebs on Mars. Meanwhile, her depredations of Martian colonies have cost billions in lost revenue. Willard Bennett’s previous mission imploded because of his failure to eliminate Kurtz when he was delivering her to Mars for an arranged marriage. Plucked from prison, Bennett is given a second chance. He is reinstated as acting captain in the Plebian Auxiliary Corps Task Force. Court-ordered to locate Kurtz, Bennett is charged with destroying her base of operations, executing her and all mutinous members of Bennett’s former crew, and returning all property, particularly slaves.

Just hours before the mission begins, Bennett delves into Kurtz’s psych files to better understand her motivation, and he makes a brief trip into Delta Exchange, a market where humans are bought and sold for labor and sexual pleasure. Kurtz was lost in the market for just thirty minutes as a child, an experience that radicalized her and which erodes Bennett’s confidence in Earth’s social order in just half the time.

Bennett, the former captain of the light cruising ship Jefferson Davis, and Cassandra Kurtz, a convicted terrorist formerly known as Cassandra IX, meet again four years after their original confrontation in this gritty sequel to Erickson’s Endless Fall of Night. Tight writing, fast pacing, prodigious conflict, and a knack for no-frills description make Erickson’s dystopian thrillers a good bet for sci-fi readers also interested in the complexities of racial and class inequity, extreme capitalism, and imperialism. Erickson also takes a creative spin on fictive environments on Mars and the fantastic flora, deadly fauna, and unique conditions underground that make any human journey there nearly impossible as Bennett and two selected crew members seek their elusive quarry.

RECOMMENDED by the US Review