Review of “The Handler's Gambit” by Ingrid Moon

Score: 95+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)

The Handler's Gambit is a riveting, thrilling, action-packed sci-fi novel by Ingrid Moon!

This book—which skirts multiple genres including space opera, military science-fiction, and adventure—features some of the coolest characters and best world-building of any book this year!

The Handler's Gambit follows a young space fleet commander named Turner Boone, a man known as a prodigy in terms of strategic planning. Indeed, Boone (as he is often called) has been elevated to a position of authority despite his relatively young age and inexperience. A seeming turncoat from the Coalition Academy, Boone is under the fold of a powerful, ruthless, and intimidating warlord named Vindik.

Now, can we just stop and say this? Vindik is a standout villain. First of all, what a great name for a villain? Vindik sounds like “vindictive.” It gives you the impression of someone who is hateful, violent, and dangerous. He reminded us of Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek--maybe not in terms of intelligence or strategic prowess, but in terms of reputation, ruthlessness, intimidation, pride, and ego.

Vindik, like Khan, is a force to be reckoned with. He always seems to have your number. It doesn't matter how smart, how strong, or how capable you think you are, Vindik has the edge.

It helps that in the audiobook (narrated by Scott Allen) Vindik sounds like a giant octopus/squid monster, which somehow succeeds at being menacing while also being entertaining and humorous. It helps his badassery that he survived a direct shot to the face because the bullet (“slug”) hit his eye but missed his brain, so he probably looks like Ransik from Power Rangers: Time Force.

Vindik is a special kind of humanoid called a Saxen. Saxens possess superhuman abilities like gravity manipulation, telekinesis, energy manipulation, and ferrokinesis (fire manipulation). Apparently, the Saxens gained these abilities as part of a mutation from a “Sax” retrovirus. It actually reminded us a lot of the T-virus and G-virus from the Resident Evil franchise. In fact, the Saxens kinda reminded us of Tyrants (bioweapons).

Vindik is especially powerful with gravity manipulation, being able to manhandle and ragdoll just about everyone including other Saxens.

So, Vindik is not someone you want to cross. He's not someone you want to make unhappy.

Well, Boone is always standing on thin ice in that regard.
Boone is not just a talented strategist, but he's also a brilliant schemer.

Throughout the book, he is playing a space-chess game against a character named Greming.
Well, this is a clever allegory for the literal chess game he's playing against Vindik.

Boone positions himself into a trusted position in Vindik's chain of command. He is subsequently given a very special assignment: to become the designated “handler” of dangerous, living, breathing bioweapon called “the weapon.”

Despite the dehumanizing designation, the so-called “weapon” is actually a girl named Elyon. Elyon is a Saxen similar to Vindik. She was raised and trained by another Saxen named Reia, another major character whom we are told acted as Vindik's Master of Coin and was helped to escape by Boone.

Elyon is far and away the coolest character in this book. She's one of the coolest characters of the year, quite frankly.

Before she's even officially introduced, the characters and the narrative do a great job at building her up as a mysterious, dangerous, and fascinating character.

They refer to her with a mixture of fear, caution, and reverence. They also view her with optimism and hope.

Elyon is a very powerful Saxen with a tremendously high potential, though she still falls short of Vindik due to her age and inexperience. Elyon has not mastered or even come close to understanding her powers yet. She seems to be able to generate and/or manipulate heat, fire, energy, and gravity.

Something interesting about Elyon is that her speech and mood are suppressed a lot of the time. She's soft-spoken and even seems apathetic at times. However, when her mood turns up and she feels triggered, she can do all sorts of gnarly things. She is truly a force of nature! A killing machine!

She kinda reminded us of Alice from the Resident Evil movies, pretty much filling the same role with some additional abilities.

If there's one bad thing about her, it's that she really overshadows Turner Boone and Reia as major characters. They just can't match or keep up with her most of the time. It doesn't matter how much backstory and intrigue the author adds to those two characters, Elyon is infinitely more interesting and cool than they are.

As an aside: we really loved what Scott Allen (the narrator) did with Elyon's voice in the audiobook version. She is given a soft, suppressed, enchanting voice with a light foreign accent, adding to the mystery and intrigue of the character. These things defy her fearsome reputation and the power of her character. Her voice isn't big, booming, and fierce like Vindik's is, but that doesn't mean she can't be ferocious as well.

We do wish that Reia sounded a little more different than her as they do seem to share very similar voices/accents. Maybe the Saxen women just happen to all have light British accents?

Anyway, Elyon becomes the figurative Queen on the chessboards of Boone, Vindik, and Reia, who all view her as a potential benefit to their cause.

Boone brings Elyon on missions, attempting to unlock her latent abilities (and/or to learn more about them). These missions range from faux “prisoner exchanges” to a fetch quest for an invaluable artifact.
Increasing in danger, these missions reveal more and more of Elyon's capabilities as well as more and more of the hands that the other major characters are trying to play.

It should also be noted that a lot of people die during these missions. It's actually a bit upsetting because it often seems like they're dying for nothing. They're pretty much all pawns falling like flies so that the stronger pieces can get to the endgame.

For example, Elyon shockingly kills two people who were slowing her down. Boone kills some guides to keep them from spilling the beans on his and Vindik's plans. So, Elyon and Boone are capable of being savage and ruthless, though they occasionally show regret and apprehension to harm innocents, especially in Boone's case.

It doesn't really leave a good taste in your mouth when your protagonists are killing good or neutral characters. In Elyon's case, at lease it puts across how dangerous and unpredictable she is. In Boone's case, it just makes him seem like a jerk.

Actually, Boone got on our nerves a few times. Probably the most annoying thing about Boone is that he seems to have a selectively-nurturing/selectively-protective nature. In other words, there are times when he seems caring and kind, but then that just gets flipped on its head moments later. Case in point: the prisoner exchange. He goes from giving Elyon a rifle to protect herself with because he's concerned about her safety (on an earlier mission) to then putting her in a situation in which bullets/slugs are flying all around her because he hands her over to a slaver. So, is he concerned about her health and safety or isn't he? He says weird things like telling Elyon that she can only endanger herself when he tells her to.

Another annoying thing about Boone is that he constantly undermines and underestimates Elyon, even though Elyon is almost always right and almost always has the power to fix a problem/situation. It's the equivalent of having the perfect problem-solver on hand, then constantly telling them they're wrong or ignoring their advice.

One last thing we didn't like about this book is that it really seemed to drag, become drawn-out, and overstayed its welcome. It was awesome until about 3/4ths of the way through, then it started to read more like an epilogue.

However, all in all, this book has a lot of great qualities. We've already talked about the coolness of characters like Elyon and Vindik. Well, this book also shines in terms of world-building and writing.

There are so many different locations and a variety of different types of characters who make this galaxy feel lived in. There's economics, politics, and even culture. The characters don't go by “days” but rather “revs” (revolutions) or “shifts.” There are three “shifts” in what we earthlings would probably consider a day. It also goes along with the feeling that so much of what Boone and the others do for Vindik is like slavery—they're always on the clock, always working. So we sympathize with the fact that the protagonists long to be free!

Lastly, a lot of the writing in this book is impressive. We'll paraphrase some of our favorite passages below:

“...distinct odor of despair...”

“... stunning savage”

“...stung like a stitch in her side”

“...tone of truth”

There's also something amusing about Vindik threatening to have his commanders “replaced.. violently.”

Check it out on Amazon!