Changing The Guard

Title: Changing The Guard
Author: Peter Hansen
Cover Artist: Dare Empire eMedia Productions
Publisher: Storm Moon Press
Amazon:
Genre: Science Fiction/gay fiction
Length: Short story/7.5K words
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Summary Review: An interesting story with two unusual characters. If you like playing with guns you will like this book; if you don’t, maybe not so much.

THE BLURB

Tomi Vuorela works security in a frozen off-world outpost. The terrain is unforgiving, especially when it comes to maintaining any semblance of a social life. Any guest is typically a welcome one, provided they’re cleared for a refueling or part of IntelServ. Tomi knows his machinery, however, and when a suspicious landskimmer heads toward the his remote access node, Tomi must determine if the interloper is a harmless workman or a dangerous terrorist.

Andile Harper introduces himself as an engineer, but Tomi would rather play it safe than turn his back on a hacker in disguise. When Andile’s story doesn’t check with his own records, Andile’s in for a world of trouble. Normally, keeping a man at gunpoint until backup arrives would be out of the question. But when Andile starts to play with fire, Tomi finds he’s more than eager to hold a gun to the intruder’s head and make his own personal set of demands.

THE REVIEW

One of the reasons I love science fiction and fantasy is the worldbuilding. I liked the barren and desolate world in Changing the Guard. The first thing I noticed was the extreme cold, something I can relate to today “The air was still, dry and cold enough to burn off the steam from the exhaust pipes.”

Tomi had been assigned to guard the remote IntelServ access node as his punishment for insubordination because he had offended Command. When a visitor showed up with no prior warning he was suspicious about the stranger’s identity and purpose as the station was a long way from everywhere. What’s a guard to do alone on this off-world outpost who is unsure about the intentions of his unwelcome visitor? Why, use his gun in ways you wouldn’t expect while he checked his guest’s credentials and more. But there was a surprise in store for Tomi.

Andile and Tomi didn’t seem to have much in common and there was the issue of lack of trust on Tomi’s part, however they were in sync in one area – their sexual attraction. Despite his fear that Andile could relieve him of his only protection, his gun, Tomi was prepared to take the risk.

Surprisingly Andile and Tomi were fully fleshed out for such a short story. The writing was good, the plot worked and there was even a little humour. I also found out that there were other ways to use a gun which could be pleasurable, depending on your taste.