To save a world… none of his brothers.
He stands alone against evil.
Drin must face overwhelming odds to liberate millions of slaves from their captors and bring faith to a downtrodden world. But in his way stands the most dangerous weapon in the galaxy.
Can Drin use his Templar training to survive?
Fans of Star Wars and Warhammer 40K will love Justified, the new military science fiction epic from #1 Bestselling author, Jon Del Arroz. Read today!more
This novel makes clear the individual’s difficulty in determining what his purpose is and how to accomplish it. Just what does a call from God feel or sound like? How do we know if we hear Him correctly? Drin’s soul-searching and prayer rings true to any person of faith trying to live his life the way we are called to. He muddles his way along a path that is not approved by his leaders and manages to use the warrior skills he has been given to lead new disciples to his God, including one who is able to advise him in the Way. For someone who only wants to look at the storyline rather than Drin’s personal internal struggles, this is a good military sci-fi story with a single warrior leading a revolution that changes a world. Fans of military sci-fi will find this novel compares well with Daniel Gibb’s Echoes of War series.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
At first I didn’t know what to expect from this novel. Then I rapidly got into it and really enjoyed the mesh of good science fiction with a religious setting. This novel is like reading about the crusades in the far future and naturally the conflict that differing religions entail. I believe that this novel, the first in the series, will lead to another great installment.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I love the future created by this author! It is similar to the present. Life is not going to become a utopia with no problems. In any world that is worth living in, life will struggle. That is part of how we grow and learn. But this story is more than that. It is excellently written with a wonderful story and of course, wonderful characters like Drin. Fast-paced and action-packed, I would love to see this as a movie.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Wonderfully written, action-packed story. It’s a Christian sci-fi story and is brilliant. The author has done a great job with his world building as well as introducing his characters.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Justified
Jon Del Arroz
I do not read a lot of this genre, but…
WOW! New author for me, and boy, did he deliver! Loved it!
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Fans of Star Wars are gonna love this one.
This was an interesting combination of military sci-fi and faith. I enjoyed going along with Drin as he made the choice between his duty and his God. It was different from my usual reading choice but all a very enjoyable read.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Drin was a Templar the elite of the Elorians’ Army. He dropped on the planet Nemayr where they destroyed what was left of the Sekarans. The destruction on the planet broke Drin’s heart with so many people dead in the major cities in ruins he simply couldn’t stand it any longer. He ran into a Sekaran battlemage who was forming balls of energy throwing them at Drin disrupting his nanites. The battlemage was killed and Drin was saved by Jellal. In the capital city of Pyus on the planet of Deklyn kicked the door in of Anais’s room and took her to another planet. Drin woke up from a horrifying nightmare and couldn’t go back to sleep he decided to get up and go for a walk and tried to figure out what God’s plan was for him. He didn’t believe God wanted him to continue fighting. Decided to flee the ship he took Viper he took off and hyperspace folded into normal space. He discovered they were in Konsin space with five planets the second one being habitable which he headed for before he could move towards the planet the Justicar and they tried to get him to come back which he didn’t do. As he ran towards the planet he came upon to capital vessels of the Sekarans the fighters in the Justicar pulled back leaving the system. Drin then crashed on the planet when Anais woke up she was sweat covered in the sheer fabric and noticed that there were at least a dozen other women locked in the room none of them had woken yet. She met an Elorian woman and spoke with her on what was going happen she just wanted to go back home but she didn’t even know where she was. She ended up in a stoning pit along with Drin and some Skree. One Skree was killed and everyone else escaped. Now to find out what happens you need to read the rest of the book? It’s a well written book. And a very good book…
Good story. At first it seemed to be a man having a crises of faith. It turned out to be a lot more than just that. There is a lot of danger but then again there is always danger when there is a revolt.
Drin taught the people of the planet a lot. Not only to fight but also about his faith. I like it after Drin got on the planet more. I received a complimentary review copy of the book and I am voluntarily leaving a honest review.
What a great story. It was fun and exciting to read with the occasional sad moments. It is a good clean read. The characters are well developed and reflect the diversity of the life in the universe. The underlying angst of the hero is one that all of us must face at some point in our lives. The troubles of the other characters parallel many of the troubles found in our own world. The universe building was well conceived and executed. The story is compelling and is one of those “as old as time” arcs. A very good read and I recommend it to all to read. I look forward to the next book in the series and I hope to be able to review it as well.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book from the author. I had the opportunity to review or not.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was filled with adventure, danger, excitement and moral decisions that could bring about major changes to entire peoples. We traveled along with Drin, a great Templar Warrior, who, sick of war and the blood and the wasted lives, steals a spaceship and flees to what he hopes will be a better place. A place of peace.
But Drin’s God had a different plan for him. Drin lands on a planet ruled by an enemy he knows well. He is captured and sentenced to death in a stoning pit. But this is not the plan God has for Drin. With his strength and technology Drin escapes the pit. Gathering a few others that were sentenced to death in the same pit they head for safety. And now the plan begins to take shape.
I loved the characters in this fictional tale. They are well developed, and I became quickly invested in their safety. There are many great characters, the description of the world is well done. I think I found sand in my sandwich.
This book is well worth reading. It looks like there is room for more. I hope so!
Drin is a warrior. More than a warrior, a nanite enhanced Templar of God. He has spent his whole life training for and participating in a holy war. He had done his duty and done it well, without question. But he can do so no longer. God has set a calling on him and Drin turns his back on everything he knows to follow that calling.
Anais has been raised in luxury where the most important decision facing her is where to go clubbing with her friends. Until … the night enemy soldiers kidnap her from her home and take her to a world where she is perceived as nothing more than a commodity—a slave.
The Skree have lived for generations as slaves. But before they were forced into slavery, they had a culture and a world of their own. They dream of freedom and reclaiming their world.
Justified is a fast, action-packed read. I felt drawn to Drin who seeks to serve God and readily places himself between danger and those he would protect, even when the situation may lead to his own death. Does he kill? Yes. He is a trained soldier. But he doesn’t enjoy killing.
Del Arozz does a great job painting the Elorian church as well as their enemies who seek to defeat and dominate all the worlds of the known universe.
Certain actions at one point in the story seemed unreasonable and left me asking, “What?” But other than those specific decisions, the story arc moved forward well.
I would recommend Justified for science fiction and fantasy readers. It is a good mix of space travel, nanite technology, strong warrior heroes, and various races. The theology is well presented, organic, and feels natural within the scope of the story.
Drin is with a futuristic order of Knights Templar. Spaceships and healing nanites instead of horses and healing salves.
Drin walks away from his post when he finds some battles senseless. He feels he is far too good at killing.
Drin finds himself in a situation where he must fight and turn others to his faith, cause and belief system in order to help enslaved folks from infidels who badly mistreated enslaved masses.
If he survives, one day Drin will likely have to face judgment by his own God and his Templar order.
An epic book in this saga!
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
This book was unexpectedly more enjoyable than anticipated, as this isn’t my normal type of book to read. The story drew me in fairly quickly, and it makes for a great science fiction, whether or not you are into stories regarding God and those working to help him. I’ll definitely be continuing on with the series.
The accounts of the Christian conquest of Jerusalem usually feature Crusaders approaching the sites sacred to the Prince of Peace by wading through the rivers of blood that reportedly ran in the streets. We moderns have not doubt that the Crusaders must have felt disgusted with their own hypocrisy and repented of their violence as if they could have been made to realize that a multilateral treaty negotiation process was a more workable answer than sieges and battles.
But maybe not. The Crusaders, after all, were fighting to free a city that had been Christian for hundreds of years from an alien power that had violently imposed its novel religion on Christians and their holiest sites.
Jon Del Arroz’s Justified begins with scenes that make the Conquest of Jerusalem seem tame. Population centers are nuked as the righteous forces of the God-Man Yezuah descend upon the almost helpless forces of a planet controlled by their hereditary enemies, the Sekarans.
Drin is among the invading forces. He has been born, bred and trained to be a Nano-Templar, able to wield the nanites in his body to form weapons and shields for the glories of Yezuah. Sekaran warriors fall before his superior skills and technology like wheat before a scythe.
After the battle, Drin begins to question the way of war that he has embraced as his life work. Drin goes AWOL and finds a refuge on a backwater Sekaran world. There he learns that the Sekarans truly are the forces of darkness he had been told they were. They are raiding slavers who deny dignity to any who fall below the aristocracy. Drin discovers that Yezuah’s message of hope resonates with members of the subordinated population.
He also finds that it is necessary to go to war.
This book is “neo-pulp.” It is action-packed and quite a bit of fun. Action propels the story as Drin finds himself moving from danger to danger, extricating himself by his skill, nanites or luck.
The main characters are sympathetic. Drin, of course, easily overcomes his doubts about the virtues of violence as he tries to do honorable battle and teach mercy to his followers. We also meet Anais, a member of a different species, taken by Sekaran slavers to this planet for their lust, which raises the interesting question of how such different species can share the same standards of beauty. Yezuah only knows. Anais moves in the direction of becoming Drin’s love interest in this book and we will have to see how that turns out in later books.
Again, this is a plot-driven story. Del Arroz knows his craft. The writing is economical and effective. There are no substantial gaps in the action. For page-turning fun, I recommend this book without hesitation.