J.A. Sutherland's A Brief Interminable Peace: Alexis Crew #7
One minute Lieutenant Alexis Carew is out doing things with her boyfriend lamenting the fact that her naval career is most likely over. The next moment she’s being transported by a man who has come to inform her that she’s being sued. Then she ends up delivering a majestic sized chewing out to a Royal Herald who has come to tell her she’s being knighted. Better yet, there are things that happen after the first chapter as well. J.A. Sutherland’s A Brief, Interminable Peace is not for the weak at heart. This thing cooks with grease.
For those that aren’t familiar, although you all should be, the Alexis Carew series is a Military Science Fiction series with a twist- it mimics the age of sail. Seriously there are ropes and masts and sails and everything. It’s crazy but it works.
And “crazy but it works” seems to be about the best way to sum up the plot of A Brief, Interminable Peace that I can think of. I mean I get it. Every story has a central problem and the plot of the story revolves around solving it. Problems arise. Overcoming all the stuff that goes wrong is a huge part of what makes a story a story. It makes sense. The thing about this book is that everything seems to go wrong every time.
A Brief, Interminable Peace is also a bit unusual for an Alexis Carew in that there’s no ship to ship combat really. This book is, at its core, a murder mystery wrapped up in some political intrigue with a bit of a family feud thrown in for good measure. There is always something going on. Sometimes it’s even what it claims to be, but not always. There is a lot going on here and, like most mystery stories, things can turn on a dime.
Reading about Alexis on the ship she travels on is a bit of a trip. (Pun totally intended, unless you hated it and then it’s not only intended it’s dedicated to you because I’m that guy.) She’s a naval officer used to naval standards and this ship doesn’t match those. Honestly, the shape that ship is in makes me nervous for the safety of both crew and passengers. And yes I said passengers but this is no cruise liner. It’s dirty and treacherous with problems that a ship just shouldn’t have. In short: This ship is not shipshape. (I’d see myself out, but it’s my blog and I’m not leaving.)
We get to see a side of the Carew Universe that we haven’t dealt with much before: Indentures. Given the fact that The Carewniverse is basically Age of Sail Britain in space this makes sense. Being of Irish descent myself, seeing immigrants sold like pieces of meat kind of disagree with me but that’s what made it feel so real. Indentured servitude was a thing for centuries. I don’t know enough about the practice in real life to tell how accurately it’s portrayed by Sutherland, but it feels right and that’s close enough for government work.
Carew is forced to show a certain amount of political acumen in A Brief, Interminable Peace and I’m wondering if that’s not going to come in handy at some point in the future. She is, after all, travelling to meet the Queen and be knighted. I’ve been here before with Honor Harrington and this feels similar. I don’t know JA Sutherland. I don’t have any inside information. Having said that, the arc of the series does seem to be pointing toward Carew ending up in some important political post at some point, or perhaps as an admiral. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing her end up as both. I’m excited to see where things go, and I see this as a harbinger of things to come.
Carew is her usual resourceful self throughout A Brief, Interminable Peace. She may not always be at the top of her game but nothing stops this chick. And trust me, there’s a lot that could this time around. The threats are not what she’s used to facing. Carew is a combat veteran, used to wielding both firearm and cutlass in the service of her sovereign. She’s also used to the conditions outside of the ship, donning her suit to go out into the black and leading the men who are working in the rigging or giving orders on the gun deck, directing fire. The danger this time around doesn’t come from the front. She’s forced to react to things that are outside her norm, but she won’t let that stop her.
It’s also fun to see Carew have to deal with a bunch of grabasstick civilians. There are people on her ship, and on her home planet before she embarks, that are not in any way affiliated with the military. They haven’t been conditioned to follow orders. They don’t know how to react in an emergency. They’re underfoot when they shouldn’t be and they have no skills to put to use. They don’t have a spot in the chain of command, either above or below her and that makes it harder to figure out what to do with them. She gets over it though, and manages to retain enough control to make a difference, even if it’s not always the difference she wants to make. She’s still a leader but it’s harder when the people she’s attempting to lead don’t want to be led.
A Brief, Interminable Peace is, in short, an amazing work of space opera. I went through this thing in only a couple of days. I can’t wait for the next one, but it looks like I’m going to have to because it only came out a couple of weeks ago. I’m glad to see that Sutherland is back to releasing new content though. I’ll be picking all of it up as it comes. You should too. And, once you’ve gathered all of the Alexis Carew awesomeness available and read through it at record speed, you can stop back here and thank me.
Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Hidden Scuba Tanks
A Brief, Interminable Peace: Alexis Carew #7
J.A. Sutherland
Darkspace Press, 2025
A Brief, Interminable Peace: Alexis Carew #7 is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.
Really like this series and glad Sutherland seems to be in a place where he can write again.