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Submission Synopsis
Fearful Symmetry
by Edward McKeown
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Length:
91,000
Genre:
Science Fiction
Series:
Was Once a Hero
Points of Departure
From Which No Traveler Returns
Sentence:
Captain Fenaday and the deadly Shasti Rainhell have only one chance to
stop the rise of a new master race.
Blurb:
Having survived the nightmare world of Enshar, Robert Fenaday abandons
privateering and his quest for his lost wife to begin life anew with the genetically
engineered assassin, Shasti Rainhell. But spymaster Mandela has other plans
for the pair, intrigue and murder on Shasti’s home planet of Olympia. Fenaday
must fight his way to Shasti, facing her deadly creator and an alien mystery
that could destroy the Confederacy.
Synopsis:
Fearful Symmetry is the second of three novels concerning Robert Fenaday’s
search for his wife Lisa, and his companion and sometime lover Shasti Rainhell’s
search for her humanity. The trilogy is written so the reader can pick up
any of the books and have a complete SF adventure in hand, yet all three form
the overarching story of Robert’s quest and Shasti’s emotional voyage of self-discovery.
Robert Fenaday, reluctant privateer, and the genetically engineered, but emotionally
crippled, Shasti Rainhell have survived the terror of the doomed planet Enshar.
Fenaday, now wealthy, returns to New Eire to restart his life. Something unexpected
has grown between he and Shasti. Love? Perhaps, Shasti can not tell. Her hard,
cold life has little prepared her for such feelings, which both exhilarate
and terrify her.
On a mission to Earth, Shasti is intercepted by the Confederate spymaster,
Mandela, who offers her one of her heart’s desires, revenge on her abusive
creator, Jalgren Pard, leader of a guild of assassins on her homeworld of
Olympia.
Torn between a new life and an old hate, Shasti falls back on what she knows
best, death. She joins a Confederate team dropped on Olympia to assassinate
Pard. But disaster overtakes the team. Shasti and the survivors must flee
and hide on a world rife with murder and intrigue. Fenaday learns of the mission
and launches a rescue, gathering old friends and new, as well as an old enemy,
the cyborg, Mmok, who serves only Mandela.
Aboard the rearmed star-frigate Sidhe, Fenaday sets off for Olympia. At his
side is his alien friend, Telisan, the fighter ace. Telisan has not come alone,
bringing a female and demi-female of his species, both his fiancées. Fenaday
and Pard play a cat mouse game of move and counter move in orbit of Olympia,
as Fenaday seeks both Shasti and allies to fight Pard.
He finds both in the non-engineered citizens of Olympia, led by General Maria
Dominici, a sensual and deadly woman playing her own hand. On the world below,
Shasti battles agents of Pard and seeks to reach the Sidhe. Pard wants her
destroyed, but his lead agent, Mikhail Vaughn, is fascinated by the almost
perfect Shasti, as he is repulsed by the brutality and perversion of Pard
and his Lieutenant, Antebie.
Antebie’s unsanctioned bombing of the Sidhe goes awry, giving Fenaday his
opening to sneak onto Olympia. Shasti, believing Fenaday to have been killed,
is determined to carry out a suicidal attack on Pard’s high desert complex.
The book climaxes in ambush and slaughter as Fenaday’s forces attack Pard,
by chance coinciding with Shasti’s own desperate attempt. The maelstrom of
battle brings Shasti, Pard and Fenaday face to face, in a fight to the finish.
Pard falls to his death from a bridge but not before severely wounding both
Fenaday and Shasti, who lie dying in a cold rain far from the main battle.
Mmok and Telisan rescue their injured friends, defending them as Olympia descends
into chaos. But in the fall of Pard’s empire, Telisan has learned two facts
that remake the universe. First is the true reason Mandela sent them, Pard’s
supermen had an alliance with a new and dangerous alien power. And second,
those aliens hold a prisoner, Robert Fenaday’s lost wife, Lt. Commander Lisa
Fenaday.
Endorsements:
Tim McLoughlin
Film:
I write in a very visual style that will translate easily to film
Additional:
This is the second book of a completed trilogy. A fourth book in
the series, is well in progress.
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