Book Review: The Maquisarde

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

The Maquisarde     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Louise Marley
Class/Genre:   Science Fiction
Ace, Dec 2002, $23.95, 400 pp.

When the fossil fuels were used up, the world fell apart. Some countries used nuclear weapons on their neighbors while other places used biological weapons. The stock markets crashed and international trade was severely crippled worse than what happened during the Great Depression of 1929. The American and European polities along with Todakai (Japan and the Koreas) joined together in the International Cooperative Alliance, an isolationist organization that has quarantined all nations that don’t belong to their organization.

Commander General George Glass of Security Corps rules the alliance with an iron fist and he is the person that Ebriel Serique blames for the death of her husband and child. She is determined to kill him and joins the international resistance movement to achieve that goal. When the time comes to kill her enemy, she finds she cannot do it but she is determined, with the help of some powerful and invisible allies, to see that his regime is toppled from power.

This is the story of a woman who undergoes a metamorphous from an elitist into a revolutionary, a person who comes to symbolize to the world that there is a change needed in the world order. Louise Marley has an uncanny ability to make the reader feel that the events in THE MAQUISARDE are really unfolding sort of like turning the pages of the Neverending Story. The heroine makes mistakes, learns from them, and gets a second chance at happiness. Readers will admire her grit, determination, and courage, but mostly appreciate Ms. Marley’s ability to paint a picture of a world turned much colder and nastier than Dickens worse nightmare.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner