The Praxis: Book One Of The Dread Empire's Fall by Walter Jon Williams
01/10/2002 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 

Pub: Earthlight. 417 page enlarged paperback. Price: £10.99 (softcover); £17.99 (hardback). ISBN: 0-7434-6110-X and 0-7434-6111-8.

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This book I'm not so sure about at present.

Essentially, we have here the backdrop of a galactic empire on the verge of falling apart after the last of the Shaa, who've held it together for ten millennia under brutal rule through their military, the Praxis.

Into this mix, we follow the lives of two individuals of noble blood as they move up the ranks. This is a reality where whom you know and how you're connected can get you promotion or good job placement often better than military achievement.

There is Lieutenant Lord Gareth Martinez whose position of power is changed with the death of the last Shaa and sent out on starship duty. A smart officer although seen by the nobility of higher ranks as common through not having a posh accent - snobbery also rules in this reality!

There is Lady Caroline Sula - a space-flight cadet earning her wings initially by attempting to rescue a sportsman whose race ends in tragedy. Between all of this is the occasional glimpse into Sula's life previous to joining the military as a drug-taking over-indulged rich kid.

I must have been either feeling smart the day I read this to have figured out where the events of this aspect of the story were leading and then proven right or it was rather too easily telegraphed.

With the death of that last Shaa, there is a revolution when one of the alien races, the Naxid, begins a coup and war ensues. No doubt this will lead to further developments in the later books in the series.

The main reason why I have reservations about this book is largely because of the way author Williams focuses the story. He plays up his strength in writing dimensionalised characters like Martinez and Sula but neglects to fill us in so well on the backdrop reality.

The Empire, apart from the nobility, seems a reasonable place to live in before and after the Shaa's death mainly because we see so little of it to draw any comparison not to like it. I doubt if we'd seen much of the brutality when we stay with the nobility and military so much. Even Sula's life on one of the planets seems pretty much like a standard quasi-ghetto/urban city.

Sula's friends frequently ran in with the law for drug-dealing and racketeering. Nothing unusual about that situation - happens on our current Earth a lot as well.
The real problem lies with how Williams deals with his antagonists.

They're practically a faceless enemy and we don't really see much of them to make a judgement call on their motivations and actions. Williams is really applying an 'American attitude' to this and automatically is making us think that because the humans are on one side that this is the good side. This is just painting this reality in black and white.

I'm really hoping that in future books that he is intentionally leading his readers up a blind alley and examining the morals of both sides in all of this at some point.

Granted in every other space-opera series, we get to see the species on both sides of the fence. Indeed, Williams might be seeing the way he's done this as a unique slant by not fleshing out the opposition.

From his early work, I know he's capable of doing more than that and this feels somewhat like a backward step relying only on his character work. This isn't to say the story doesn't have its moments. The major space battle is done rather well. The real problem lies with the non-human species that should have really been fleshed out more than being left as ciphers.

Although I can't attest to be waiting with bated breath for the next book in the series, I will be curious to see whether or not he will develop away from some of these flaws in this first book.

GF Willmetts