Book Review: Dezun

Reviewed by Kathy L. Brown

Vibrant, sympathetic individuals make the galactic-scale world conquest of Dezun accessible and emotionally compelling.

Dezun opens with the conquest of a planet by the Stolisian army: the planet Dezun. A generation later, the reader sees the outcomes of their hegemony as well as the lengths the rebel forces are still willing to go to rid their world of the invaders. Dezun follows a group of freedom fighters as they plan and carry out a desperate act of insurgency.

The Stolis civilization depends on a rare substance, Sol, and will tear apart any number of worlds to get it. Stolis has all the advantages in this fight: a wealth of stolen natural resources, military might, and technological innovations.

The story moves back and forth among several characters’ point of view. For example, Inaal is a veteran of the resistance who we meet in the introductory chapter as an idealist young woman. She has retired to a hermit-like life in the whitewoods, raising a child. That child, now a young man named Lyas, longs for adventure and to do something meaningful with his life. He has learned many handy mechanical skills from the village tinker, Histh, and hunting expertise from his foster mother. 

Representatives from the rebellion, Inaal’s old comrades-in-arms, show up at the remote village. Inaal may think she’s out, but Nakell and company want to pull her back in for one decisive final mission. But if she isn’t interested in the rebellion, Lyas is, and soon he is on his way to the big city to join the fight. 

The reader also meets the Stolis regent, Celos, a personage of immense power and negligible humanity. He, too, has a pivotal role to play in the story’s critical events. 

Dezun addresses issues that will resound with the reader, such as colonialism, resource exploitation, terrorism, and self-determination. Ironically, everyone in the story is a descendent of the humans who arose first on Earth, then explored and migrated far. But their common heritage does little to enhance understanding or cooperation. 

Throughout the story, the reader asks, “Who will prevail, the Dezun natives or the Stolis invaders?” The plot is replete with political intrigue and double-cross and keeps us guessing. 

This short book has many characters (frequently with a nickname or honorific used as a name), and while they maintain their distinctive personalities and motivations, it can sometimes be a challenge to keep everyone straight. 

Some characters stay true to their initial mission, but others grow, develop, and change in response to the challenges of this last-ditch effort to drive out the Stolis. Histh, the tinker, changes the most; he leaves his village machine shop for the final confrontation and seeks resolution of various personal issues along the way. Lyas has the most conventional development arc, but as much as we might expect him to be the story’s hero, he isn’t the primary focus of the tale. 

The story doesn’t belong to any one character, although I found the cyborg monk Sibat, a kind of all-around Zen chaplain-guide, for the rebels quite interesting and a pretty good fighter in a clinch.

Dezun’s worldbuilding is top-notch. Every detail of life on the planet has been worked out as well as the implications of each of those details and how all aspects weave together. We are treated to a rich, alien natural environment with Inaal’s country retreat as well as the seamy urban decay of the cities. 

In one haunting scene, in the aftermath of the invasion a displaced forest creature forages the burnt husk of a town. “Rhythmic hoofbeats echoed through empty streets suffused with ash and soot, ringing loudly with only the Harbor’s decrepit shell and sparking machinery to bear witness. Emerging from the low-hanging haze, a lone tollut raised its mottled-brown snout to drink in the dust-choked gusts that swept through the silent city. It was a towering beast of the whitewoods, a solitary leaf-feeder, foreign in the silent city…Though far from the gilded greenery of its woodland realm, it proceeded through the wreckage with an otherworldly grace conveyed through its lilting gait and unblinking eye.”

Readers who enjoyed grimdark fantasy stories and apocalyptic science fiction will appreciate Dezun as well as anyone looking for beautiful prose, intricate worldbuilding, and character-driven plots.

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