Teaser

The Waystations have been activated, and now a sinister countdown has begun. None know for sure what is coming, but all fear it. Yet even in the face of this unknown disaster, the many factions of the galaxy are unable to reach an accord . . .

Review

It’s no secret that I found my time as a judge in the SPSFC (Self Published Science Fiction Competition) to be somewhat rough. But the rough is where you find diamonds, and unquestionably the brightest of those diamonds was N.C. Scrimgeour’s Those Left Behind. I may have read it out of obligation, but I enjoyed that book so much that I’ve picked up the sequel of my own free will. A decision I do not regret.

Those Once Forgotten picks up right where we left off at the end of the last book, with the galaxy in a state of all-out war, our protagonists scattered across the stars, and the fate of several unknown. As an aside, you might notice that I don’t name many names in this review. That’s because I don’t want to mangle names like Idrin’Var (which is almost certainly not how you spell that word). I’m becoming something of an audiobook fan this year, but the format does have some disadvantages over seeing the words in front of me. I would like to give thanks to Scrimgeour for putting the name of each viewpoint character at the start of their chapters, for clarity of both narration and spelling.

I probably read more space opera than any other genre, which means I’m familiar with a lot of the tropes and tics of the genre. And make no mistake, Those Once Forgotten is a very tropey book. But do you know why tropes become tropes? Because they’re entertaining. The Waystations trilogy isn’t treading any new ground. It isn’t breaking any boundaries. What it is, is a love letter to all the space opera that has gone before. A celebration of everything from Star Wars to Mass Effect. In a time when it seems like every story sets out to either subvert of deconstruct old narratives, sometimes a celebration is all you’re really looking for.

If I have one complaint about this book, it’s that it the human and alien stories don’t cross over enough. Rivus and Niole, the alien protagonists, have a great relationship as they find themselves on opposite sides of the war. Likewise, Kojan and Ridley’s investigations take them in different directions. Ridley ends up in a particularly exotic location that will probably feel familiar to anyone who recognises the term ‘Rakatan Empire.’ But by the end of the middle book in a trilogy, I’d have expected all of the protagonists to have met at some point. And while they do all have threads linking them, it does end up feeling as though there are two separate stories going on here.

All things considered though, Those Once Forgotten is an incredibly fun and entertaining story, and up there with the very best self-published works of science fiction. I can’t wait for the audio of the third book to release.

Book Stats

• Narrated by Jared Kedzia
• The Waystations Trilogy #2
• First Audio Release 18/7/23
• Self Published
• 12hrs 28 mins runtime