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Thursday, February 25, 2021
GO! magazine — A&E in Northeast Oregon
BOOK NOOK
■ Book Review: ‘Scorched Earth’
sets fire to the Halo Trilogy
By Renee Struthers
EO Media Group
The Halo Trilogy penned by
Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall
began with “The Gates of Mars,” a
dystopian view of what could be in
store for us if climate change, ram-
pant greed, and the rise of artifi cial
intelligence progress further down
an already familiar road.
Crucial Larsen, a cop on the
trash heap of what is
left of
Earth, is just trying to make it
through a bleak existence as best
he can when his sister Essential
disappears from Mars, now a
gated planet for the ultra-rich
Five Families. His search for her
embroils him unwillingly in a
rebellion against Halo, the planet
AI that controls everything at the
behest of the Families and enforces
the divide between the haves and
have-nots.
The second book of the trilogy,
“Scorched Earth,” plunks Cru-
cial into the dilemma of saving
the life of his ex-lover’s current
fi ancee, who has been framed for
the murder of a Family headman.
The investigation leads him to the
scorching desert world of what
was the Southwest United States,
where genetic mutants hold the
key to something most in the
Families don’t know they need, but
a few will do anything to get.
The technology critical to the re-
bellion resides in only two people,
but the Larsen siblings aren’t
the only ones able to hoodwink
Halo, and time is running out
for Crucial to unravel plots
within plots and somehow
escape intact. And the plan
to co-opt Halo for the com-
mon good is the least of his
worries.
Crucial’s personal
brand of humanity is
the driving force behind
the success of the Halo
Trilogy. In a bleak
future dominated by
everything that is
bad about our society,
Crucial Larsen
clings to decency
and loyalty in a
world that could
care less with a
stubbornness that
is as irritating as
it is endearing.
And as he blunders through
life armed only with his wits and
a love/hate relationship with ev-
erything he holds dear, the future
of Earth’s existence hangs in the
balance.
Of all the characters brought to
life by Hays and McFall, cybernetic
sidekick Sanders fl ies under the
radar as central to the overall plot.
Originally tasked with keeping
Crucial within bounds on a planet
where he is barely welcome, and
constantly bearing the brunt of le-
thal attacks aimed at (and by) his
charge, Sanders fi nds himself with
divided loyalties and questioning
what, truly, being human means.
“Scorched Earth” was released
Feb. 14 by Pumpjack Press (www.
pumpjackpress.com).
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