Rage of Night

Rage of Night by J.N. Chaney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the seventh entry of J.N. Chaney and Terry Maggert’s The Messenger series, Dash’s alliance, the Cygnus Realm, is now at home in the Aquarian system, receiving news from a dying ship, their antagonists controlling thirty systems and opposing free life, further seeking to destroy the series’ eponymous Messenger, Newton “Dash” Sawyer, by any necessary means. Skyhooks prove to be part of a plan to hide the precious mineral known as Dark Metal, although Dash, the piratic Gentle Friends, and the rest of his amassing forces try to fight back, Dash discovering an antediluvian plot to use an entity known as the Shroud against the Cygnus Realm.

When the book starts, Dash leaves the Aquarian Ring in his mech, the Archetype, hoping for a break from the war, although a vessel known as the Granite sends a distress call. The Forge, in the meantime, is busy constructing new mechs to assist the fleet, with the concept of the skyhooks playing a significant role in the story’s plotline. Dash discovers an area of the martial space station only the Messenger can visit, with he and his friends seeking a Golden facility in the atmosphere of a gas giant called Gale, which has harsh winds known as the Roaring Forties and a Storm called Big Eddy.

The leader of the Gentle Friends, Benzel, who has a price on his head, introduces Dash to one of his associates, Katerina Vensic, who ultimately agrees to assist the Cygnus Realm. Adversarial mechs known as harbingers attack, with Dash’s team retrieving huge chunks of them after their defeat. Amy and Conover receive their own mechs, with Dash leading them to the star Typhoon and the ravaged planet Typhoon-3, where a battle had occurred. He and the others discover things such as a civil war among the Golden, which gives them the idea to seek the rogue members of the race for possible alliance.

Unlike previous installments of the series, battles don’t occur sporadically throughout the text, although there is one in the penultimate main chapter, and despite this, Rage of Night is overall another enjoyable entry of the literary franchise, given its exploration of new worlds within the fictitious universe. The glossary of key terms at the beginning, as with the book’s precursors, is, as always, a nice addition to refresh readers of the original terminology, along with the synopsis at the beginning that brings any reader up to speed with the plotline. There are some other similarities to other science-fiction media, but otherwise, I definitely wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this novel.

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