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The Bastion
On a distant planet, men of power will risk it all.
Calix spent his entire life in the city known as The Bastion, on the planet Osessis. Unknown to Calix and the many citizens of The Bastion, the planet was once colonized by Earth, a long time ago. Protected by a strange vapor cloud layer in the planet's atmosphere, the planet is completely cut off from Earth. Hundreds of years later, a small section of the vapor cloud mysteriously opens up, allowing Earth back into the once forgotten planet.
Arriving with advanced armies, the men and women of the Earth Defence Forces are immediately met by the soldiers of The Bastion. Calix is forced by The Bastion's leader, the Administrator, to embark on a journey to defend his beloved city and family from an unknown enemy. He will venture across the planet's vast desert plains, while the commander of the EDF and the Administrator, fight for control of The Bastion.
Calix spent his entire life in the city known as The Bastion, on the planet Osessis. Unknown to Calix and the many citizens of The Bastion, the planet was once colonized by Earth, a long time ago. Protected by a strange vapor cloud layer in the planet's atmosphere, the planet is completely cut off from Earth. Hundreds of years later, a small section of the vapor cloud mysteriously opens up, allowing Earth back into the once forgotten planet.
Arriving with advanced armies, the men and women of the Earth Defence Forces are immediately met by the soldiers of The Bastion. Calix is forced by The Bastion's leader, the Administrator, to embark on a journey to defend his beloved city and family from an unknown enemy. He will venture across the planet's vast desert plains, while the commander of the EDF and the Administrator, fight for control of The Bastion.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 11, 2013
About the author
Joshua Harkin
3 books9 followersJoshua Harkin is a thirty-year-old aspiring novelist from Melbourne, Australia. A hard-working family man by day, he spends his nights and spare time obsessing and working on various ongoing writing projects. He has a passion for reading and writing and hopes to one day turn this enthusiasm into a profession.
A bit about his background: Josh studied character animation for five years and worked briefly in the industry prior to the financial crisis. Needing to retrain his skills, he studied accounting and currently works full-time for a small business owned and operated by his in-laws.
He plans on writing more novels with new releases later in 2016.
He lives with his loving wife, baby daughter, and two beagles in their countryside home.
A bit about his background: Josh studied character animation for five years and worked briefly in the industry prior to the financial crisis. Needing to retrain his skills, he studied accounting and currently works full-time for a small business owned and operated by his in-laws.
He plans on writing more novels with new releases later in 2016.
He lives with his loving wife, baby daughter, and two beagles in their countryside home.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 22, 2013
This was a very intensive read. The book was set on a planet that had been terraformed about 500 years ago but had only been able to be accessed by earth again 10 years ago. The characters were very well written, with people on both sides being well liked. The ruler of the city, The Bastion and the commanding officer of the earth forces were both mad. This made them very enjoyable to read.
Calix, a man from the city was made to go fight against the earth forces the e.d.f., with 2000 other men of age, and saw every one slaughtered. His story was of trying to get back home to his family, whilst injured. He met a doctor on his way who saved his life and explained some facts to him and asked him to do something to help the planet.
On the e.d.f. side there are a number of soldier's that were good. I liked sergant Jones and his gunner, Faulkner. I enjoy books that have a lot of action in them and this certainly has that, I also liked that there was mystery as well, like what is the cloudy atmosphere that surrounds the planet.
I'm looking forward to reading the next book.
Calix, a man from the city was made to go fight against the earth forces the e.d.f., with 2000 other men of age, and saw every one slaughtered. His story was of trying to get back home to his family, whilst injured. He met a doctor on his way who saved his life and explained some facts to him and asked him to do something to help the planet.
On the e.d.f. side there are a number of soldier's that were good. I liked sergant Jones and his gunner, Faulkner. I enjoy books that have a lot of action in them and this certainly has that, I also liked that there was mystery as well, like what is the cloudy atmosphere that surrounds the planet.
I'm looking forward to reading the next book.
July 21, 2013
This was a fantastic book that was difficult to put down. I feel incredibly lucky that as my husband wrote this, I was the first to be able to read it and provide feedback. I found the characters very interesting - and loved their interactions with one another. Each character was described in detail and the descriptions provided a very clear image of the world that was created. I found the battle scenes to be vivid and gut wrenching at the same time. Too often I could feel the suffering of the soliders in a pointless war. This book is a must read for anyone who is a fan of dystopian setting and a poor man's struggle against the corruption and power of an oppressive leader.
May 1, 2020
The characters were well developed and the plot well executed. The story and the pace at which it was delivered left me wanting more.
November 18, 2013
There are times where a reader can overlook the occasional typo to enjoy a book anyway. This isn’t one of those times. It can’t be, not when there’s at least one, and sometimes two, and even three mistakes on virtually every page: there are spelling mistakes galore, constant missing punctuation and frequent usage of the wrong word (populous when what’s meant is populace; graciously instead of gracefully; fixated instead of fixed; and on and on). There were times when I had to read the sentence over a couple of times just to decipher what the writer meant.
Considering this book is about 260 pages in length, this made for hundreds of errors, without the least bit of exaggeration on my part. That’s just unacceptable for a book that unsuspecting readers may unwittingly plunk down their hard-earned dollars for. And that’s not even counting the broken syntax, clichéd dialogue, two-dimensional characters, and non-sensical story.
Oh yes, there is a story. The planet Osessis was once a colony of Earth. For barely-explained reasons, it broke off all relations with the mother planet five hundred years before the beginning of our story. Now there’s a constant state of battle between the forces of Earth and those of The Bastion, a ten million-strong city on Osessis. Both sides are headed by very similar autocratic megalomaniacs, who would gladly sacrifice everyone around them to succeed in their goals. Both these rulers have trusted female assistants who eventually see their insane cruelty for what it is and turn against them. We are also given matching soldiers on both sides, carrying out their orders because they have no choice, but still hating their respective leaders, as well as the pointless battles. I kept expecting to find out that at least one pair of these mirror-images would turn out to secretly be twins that were separated at birth, but that was not to be. There just seems to have been a limit to the number of character traits the author could think up.
The so-called battles between the two sides also don’t make much sense. The Bastion attacks the Earth army’s base with a couple of thousand barely-trained and badly armed soldiers and the Earth forces wipe them all out without taking a single casualty. This, we’re told, takes place on a weekly basis, and there seems to be no strategic or political reason for any of these attacks. I expected that The Bastion would eventually reveal some secret plan behind this wholesale slaughter, but unfortunately there was none.
In the end, the tyrannical leaders do what tyrannical leaders have always done, lots of people die unnecessarily and some of the more likable characters survive to the promise of a better day…and a sequel, it seems. Hopefully one that a good editor has had a look at first.
Considering this book is about 260 pages in length, this made for hundreds of errors, without the least bit of exaggeration on my part. That’s just unacceptable for a book that unsuspecting readers may unwittingly plunk down their hard-earned dollars for. And that’s not even counting the broken syntax, clichéd dialogue, two-dimensional characters, and non-sensical story.
Oh yes, there is a story. The planet Osessis was once a colony of Earth. For barely-explained reasons, it broke off all relations with the mother planet five hundred years before the beginning of our story. Now there’s a constant state of battle between the forces of Earth and those of The Bastion, a ten million-strong city on Osessis. Both sides are headed by very similar autocratic megalomaniacs, who would gladly sacrifice everyone around them to succeed in their goals. Both these rulers have trusted female assistants who eventually see their insane cruelty for what it is and turn against them. We are also given matching soldiers on both sides, carrying out their orders because they have no choice, but still hating their respective leaders, as well as the pointless battles. I kept expecting to find out that at least one pair of these mirror-images would turn out to secretly be twins that were separated at birth, but that was not to be. There just seems to have been a limit to the number of character traits the author could think up.
The so-called battles between the two sides also don’t make much sense. The Bastion attacks the Earth army’s base with a couple of thousand barely-trained and badly armed soldiers and the Earth forces wipe them all out without taking a single casualty. This, we’re told, takes place on a weekly basis, and there seems to be no strategic or political reason for any of these attacks. I expected that The Bastion would eventually reveal some secret plan behind this wholesale slaughter, but unfortunately there was none.
In the end, the tyrannical leaders do what tyrannical leaders have always done, lots of people die unnecessarily and some of the more likable characters survive to the promise of a better day…and a sequel, it seems. Hopefully one that a good editor has had a look at first.
January 11, 2014
The Bastion is in need of a serious edit but, as this is Joshua Harkins' first novel, I was prepared to forgive the mistakes. I liked the mirror-imaging of the characters and didn't feel that it was done because the author had run out of ideas for new characters. I felt that it was done quite deliberately to make the point that, in war, the sides are not divided into heroes and villains as past and present war propaganda tends to suggest.
The fact that there was no convincing reason for the war given in the Bastion was also not so very surprising and, I felt, was intended by the author as a damning indictment on past wars where the troops have not really known what they had been fighting for or, if they had been told a reason, the reason has turned out to be bogus (Think of the scandal surrounding the Weapons of mass destruction motive for the Iraq war, for instance). I felt some very deep points were being made in a very simple writing style which was quite refreshing and should appeal to the teen - young adult reader.
Another thing I loved about the book was that the battle scenes were very easy to imagine - they were cinematic in style. They were also fast-paced and exciting.This is not very easy to achieve, especially in a sci-fi novel where you are describing use of equipment not in existence.
Finally this book left me wanting to know more which, as I believe Joshua Harkin is intending to write sequels to The Bastion, is a very successful outcome for a first time novelist. There were some unanswered questions but I see this as positive in a book intended to be one of a series. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future and to see how he improves with more thought given to editing.
The fact that there was no convincing reason for the war given in the Bastion was also not so very surprising and, I felt, was intended by the author as a damning indictment on past wars where the troops have not really known what they had been fighting for or, if they had been told a reason, the reason has turned out to be bogus (Think of the scandal surrounding the Weapons of mass destruction motive for the Iraq war, for instance). I felt some very deep points were being made in a very simple writing style which was quite refreshing and should appeal to the teen - young adult reader.
Another thing I loved about the book was that the battle scenes were very easy to imagine - they were cinematic in style. They were also fast-paced and exciting.This is not very easy to achieve, especially in a sci-fi novel where you are describing use of equipment not in existence.
Finally this book left me wanting to know more which, as I believe Joshua Harkin is intending to write sequels to The Bastion, is a very successful outcome for a first time novelist. There were some unanswered questions but I see this as positive in a book intended to be one of a series. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future and to see how he improves with more thought given to editing.
October 21, 2013
If you enjoy science fiction with a military adventure theme you will like The Bastion by Joshua Harkin. It is full of action and adventure and will keep you reading from the start to the finish of the book.
The author did a great job of developing an interesting and intriguing storyline which was both believable and realistic. The book was fast paced and full of twist and turns, but at the same time it was easy to follow and keep up with the plotline. I was glued to the story.
I really liked the way Joshua Harkin developed his characters. In one aspect they were strong and courageous, yet at the same time he wove their weaknesses into the story. It was easy to identify with and follow each character in the story.
I enjoyed reading The Bastion by Joshua Harkin and recommend this book.
[Please note: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.]
The author did a great job of developing an interesting and intriguing storyline which was both believable and realistic. The book was fast paced and full of twist and turns, but at the same time it was easy to follow and keep up with the plotline. I was glued to the story.
I really liked the way Joshua Harkin developed his characters. In one aspect they were strong and courageous, yet at the same time he wove their weaknesses into the story. It was easy to identify with and follow each character in the story.
I enjoyed reading The Bastion by Joshua Harkin and recommend this book.
[Please note: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.]
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews