Commissar Ploss reviews the new, independent novel Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long. Published by Night Shade Books, Jane Carver is the first in a new series of independent novels from Mr. Long.

“Jane Carver is John McClane in a Die Hard-meets-Avatar setting. Visceral. Sensual. Action-packed. Awesome.” ~The Founding Fields

Howdy folks. Commissar Ploss here to bring you a review of a book recently (as in the last couple days) published by my pal Nathan Long. Jane Carver of Waar is a stunning swashbuckling novel about a beautiful, tall, redheaded biker chick on the run from the law. The quip from Night Shade Books:

Jane Carver is nobody’s idea of a space princess.

A hard-ridin’, hard-lovin’ biker chick and ex-Airborne Ranger, Jane is as surprised as anyone else when, on the run from the law, she ducks into the wrong cave at the wrong time-and wakes up butt-naked on an exotic alien planet light-years away from everything she’s ever known.

Waar is a savage world of four-armed tiger-men, sky-pirates, slaves, gladiators, and purple-skinned warriors in thrall to a bloodthirsty code of honor and chivalry. Caught up in a disgraced nobleman’s quest to win back the hand of a sexy alien princess, Jane encounters bizarre wonders and dangers unlike anything she ever ran into back home.

Then again, Waar has never seen anyone like Jane before . . . .

Both a loving tribute and scathing parody of the swashbuckling space fantasies of yore, Jane Carver of Waar introduces an unforgettable new science fiction heroine.

It truly is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I devoured it in about three days.  Which for me, is a lightning pace.

Now when i say that Jane Carver is a veritable John McClane, i mean it. Jane Carver, as the heroine of this novel, finds herself in every bad situation imaginable. Straight off, she’s enslaved by a tribe of four-armed tiger-centaurs, whom she aptly names Cen-tigers…  And the ride doesn’t stop there. One escape after another finds her tied in with all manner of people and situations. None, i might add that have her best interest at heart. She’s putting herself on the line throughout this novel for Waarians who may or may not be able to help her get home like she wants. But is that really what she wants?  The end of this novel paints a slightly different picture.

I want to say that i really enjoyed this book, and I’ll not hide it at all.  Nathan, when you read this, and i know you will (you read most of your reviews lol). I want you to know that you’ve got a winner here. With any amount of luck, Jane will go down as one of the quintessential heroines of your writing career. Right up there with Ulrika. So know this; you will have all the help that I can give you with promoting this series. It’s absolutely one of my favorites!

Anywho, moving on. The book is exceptionally uniquely written. Now when I say uniquely, I mean it in the sense that Nathan got to write the book he wanted to put out. Yes, there are many grammatical errors and sentence structures that wouldn’t pass with other publishers, but Night Shade Books saw the light with this one. The way it’s written is just like a story would be told if you were listening to someone telling it. There are errors in all the natural places and they make perfect sense where they are.  There aren’t a lot of male writers that can really personify the female identity very well. Nathan doesn’t seem to have this problem at all throughout this book.

Characterization itself was also superb. You can really get a feel for the desperation that Jane has, and her developing sense of purpose as the story progresses. You also get the strong feelings of identity in her compatriots. Sai and Lhan are two Waarians that Jane Carver comes in contact with throughout her journey and they all become fast friends.  Racial and societal tensions play an important leading role in this novel to boot.  Her two friends are very high-class people on Waar and their observations of the world are viewed through blinders in a sense. Their view of Waar and its state as a culture are very different to Jane’s. She’s from Earth after all, and you find out from the very beginning that Waar has not the level of sophistication or technological advancement that Earth does. In other words their kind of “backwards.”

It’s a very fast-paced book. If you ever seen a Die Hard movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s awesome, i simply couldn’t put it down. That is, until my eyes refused to keep working, haha!

My other observation was that it was like a Die Hard/Avatar mixture.  If you’ve seen Avatar, you’ll remember the difference in atmosphere, and the extreme colors and the extreme animals and so forth. Well, Jane comes face to face with all of these things and more on Waar. The people are funny colors and the animals scare the pee out of her, but she manages to take all of this in stride.

I wont give away too many more things about the book, but suffice it to say that it’s absolutely wonderful. I loved it.

I’m going to give Jane Carver of Waar my highest accolade of success, and while it really means nothing it’s still there to show that no matter who you are, you’ll like this book.  Jane Carver of Waar gets a 10/10 from me. And it earned every point of that score.

Reason: This book simply resonated with me. The pages seemed to breathe with life. It was an absolutely wonderful story. I would normally deduct for errors, but the thing is, that all the errors that were prevalent in the pages were there on purpose! Very unique. I highly recommend it.

Commissar Ploss

You can find Jane Carver of Waar here: http://www.mystgalaxy.com/book/9781597803960 (buy it from there, Nathan gets a nice kickback.)