Very pleased to discover this morning the first review of “Under the Shield.” A big thanks to my friend and fellow WOTFian Stephen Gaskell for the tip!

The review (written by Lois Tilton) appears on the Locus Magazine website. Here’s the highlights:

A fascinating and thought-provoking scenario, bringing to mind such diverse events in our own timeline as the initiation of WWI, the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Department of Homeland Security, and the birth of the atomic age. It’s a story of conflicted loyalties and the eternal threat of totalitarianism in the name of security, as well as a murder mystery. This is all good stuff. The scenario, however, is complicated and takes the author a while to set it up; the result is dense and over-compacted. I could definitely see it expanded into a cracking good novel, with all its elements given room to fully work themselves out.

Pretty happy with that! I’ve heard from a few other readers already and I’m very pleased that people are getting what I was going for with this one. Now, about that novel… 😉

The full review (which includes a plot summary) can be found here.

– S.