Steven Harper - Trickster

The Dream has been shattered, and the majority of Silent who telepathically communicated through it have been cast out by the event known as the Despair, unable to reenter. Now the remaining Silent still capable of linking to the Dream have become a valuable commodity to those in power seeing to keep the lines of galactic communication open...In the midst of the Despair, Father Kendi Weaver and the crew of the Poltergeist have a limited window of opportunity to find the loved ones they have lost--including Kendi's parents and siblings, who were sold into slavery more than fifteen years ago.But just as Kendi closes in on the whereabouts of his brother and sister, they are taken by a mysterious group intent on using them for their own secret agenda...

Comment: This is the third installment in the Silent Empire series and I'm so happy it went out to be as addictive to me as the first one had been.

In this third story, we keep following Kendi and his closest friends after the terrible events in the second book. Now that only a few can reach The Dream, Kendi and Ben among them, life has to be reorganized everywhere, although the use of slaves doesn't seem to end. As soon as they successfully rescue Harenn's son from slavery, it's time to finally follow the clue about two of Kendi's missing family members. The problem is that they had been sold again, merely two days before and Kendi can't help but feeling he lost his chance after so many years. Thankfully, a chance encounter allows Harenn to pay Kendi back, for she recognizes her ex and where he is, slaves must have been sold, thus making them aware of where the two people they are looking for will be. To rescue them is the issue, for they are in a place with heavy security... they all need to work together to find a way to get the keys to enter the place... but how?

What a heist romp this was! I will have to say that my favorite element in this story was how the plot was focused on helping rescuing people from slavery and reuniting families, instead of battling a vicious enemy as it happened in Dreamer. This means I was always eager to keep reading, to see what they would do next and, more importantly, how would they do it!

In fact, the plot of this book is basically a big adventure of how to help, first Harenn's son, and then Kendi's family. The antagonists are the slavers and those who have the keys which would allow our protagonists to help those they need and the story is centered on how this can be done without them being caught. I really liked this story, it had adventure and suspense here and there, but in the big scheme of things, there wasn't a bad outcome to fear because it seemed kind of a given that the good guys would succeed in what they needed.

I liked this story because it made me think the plot was very closed off, instead of how things were in the previous book, which was in a way that it felt many things were getting out of control and something not easily fixed might occur. I was also quite invested in seeing how they could solve things, how could they help the people they needed in the time frame available. In a way, this made me think of a slightly simple plot where the biggest adversity was that they couldn't just act, they had to have a plan.

And a what a plan, Kendi calls for a favor and somehow a bigger than life situation is possible to be put into action. I will confess that some scenes weren't as appealing but I was always eager to keep reading. I was also very curious to see how the end would be, and if Kendi could save the two members of his family, how would their reunion be, especially because I liked the first book where we see how they got separated and how Kendi always thought about finding them again.

The two members are his siblings, and they leave the place where Kendi thought he would find them into a new place where they are told some unlikely things. Since we also have the POV of his sister, we can understand what is going on and it seems as if they ended up in a weirdly cult like place, but for what is the question. I also liked these sections and they weren't too heavy to read. I was curious as well about their state of mind and who they were after years as slaves, and if Kendi could hope for a happy reunion...

As expected, not everything goes as smoothly and a few things have to be dealt with, but despite some situations which seemed to be more nerve wracking, things go on to develop pretty much as predicted, except a scene at the end which felt like doom was about to happen for them all, but a twist made everything be solved as one would hope for. Well, I did. Then, although the end was what I hoped for, it was still not too lengthy, but there was still time for a final revelation, which I bet will be developed in the last book and now I can't wait to get to that one!

Grade: 8/10