Daniel B. Greene is a YouTuber who focuses mostly on
fantasy and science fiction, reaching over 250,000 subscribers and like many
YouTubers he made what seems to be an inevitable leap to writing. Breach of Peace is the first of a
planned trilogy of novellas before a main series and unlike other, bigger content
creators who make the leap into writing, Greene at least has always had a
passion for writing and a basic understanding of storytelling. Breach of Peace is a novella which has
a clear beginning, middle, and an end while still setting up a larger universe
with no ghostwriter in sight. Its plot
is fairly standard murder mystery fare, set in a world in the grip of authoritarianism
with a police force which is corrupt, and journalists who will rewrite history
for their own ends. Greene’s worldbuilding
does hint at something greater, however, one of the novella’s biggest faults is
that it doesn’t feel like this is an introduction to a world. Like many author’s, Greene falls into the
trap of writing a story without giving the audience the proper bearings that
are clearly in his head but fail to translate to the page. The trio of characters Breach of Peace
follows all clearly have their lives, but the book feels like this is right
near the end of their stories and we don’t actually get a beginning. This perhaps would have worked better if this
was released in an anthology of novellas instead of as the first of a trilogy
of upcoming stories. Greene has also
confirmed the characters here will not be the protagonist of his main series.
The actual murder mystery is excellent: Khlid is
essentially our primary point of view and detective, and she’s gotten her way
in the world with her own sets of prejudices against the system, yet a taste
for power. She’s happily married to Samuel,
her partner, has a chain smoking problem and is ready to abuse her power. There is definitely a logical series of deductions
present in the mystery, even if that mystery ends up becoming a simple working
to the solution. The graphic depiction
of the murder, one of an entire family with a young boy being hanged out of a
window, is excellent and immediately sets the gritty tone of this world. Breach of Peace doesn’t quite set
itself in a standard fantasy world, there is clearly some magic system though
it isn’t fleshed out nearly as well here and the technology is most definitely more
advanced than medieval, but not steampunk or modern as most high fantasy alternates
usually choose. It helps with Greene’s
attempt to comment on abuse of power in police systems, however, that metaphor
doesn’t every actually comment anything more than abuse of power is bad. Part of this is due to the fact that this is a
novella, and including that as a large theme with a comment would be incredibly
difficult, however, Greene needs to do something to follow up. There are also points where Greene’s plot
just stops dead until he can find a way to move things forward instead of
flowing neatly from one scene to the next.
The first chapter in particular is incredibly slow and probably could
have been split to help feel more in line with the other seven which are
incredibly snappy.
While there are a multitude of issues with Breach
of Peace, it still does provide a good time with a nice introduction to
Greene’s world and what will become his eventual series. It’s most definitely a great first book to
send out into the world, but it may be something people may wish to skip until
the rest of the trilogy of novellas are published and the world can be fleshed
out more than is presented here. 7/10.
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