A Dark and Dirty War

Written by Eric Thomson

Narrated by Stephen Floyd

Life hasn't been easy for Siobhan Dunmoore and many of her fellow veterans since the Shrehari War ended.

 The Fleet's quick return to a mundane peacetime footing left them unmoored and incapable of fully readapting after years engulfed in an existential struggle. Meanwhile, the memories of all those hard-won lessons, paid for with humanity's dearest blood, are fading as careerists, bureaucrats, and politicians in uniform replace the leaders who brought about the war's end.

 Yet an increasing number of senior officers understand true peace is illusory. Without an external threat to unify them as a species, humans have resumed their favorite activity — fighting each other in dark and dirty wars for power, profit, or glory. And this despite the risk of eroding the Commonwealth's delicate social and political balance and triggering violent unrest. Ironically, those best suited for stopping nasty, albeit minor conflicts before they escalate, are the very veterans on which the Fleet turned its back.

 Will Siobhan Dunmoore and her comrades find a new role in halting what could become fatal to human unity, or will they fade away, unwanted, while the Commonwealth begins a long slide into civil discord?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sanddiver Books Inc.
• Release date: Jun 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781989314982

Eric Thomson

Eric Thomson is my pen name. I'm a former Canadian soldier who spent more years in uniform than he expected, serving in both the Regular Army (Infantry) and the Army Reserve (Armoured Corps). I spent several years as an Information Technology executive for the Canadian government before leaving the bowels of the demented bureaucracy to become a full-time author. I've been a voracious reader of science-fiction, military fiction and history all my life, assiduously devouring the recommended Army reading list in my younger days and still occasionally returning to the classics for inspiration. Several years ago, I put my fingers to the keyboard and started writing my own military sci-fi, with a definite space opera slant, using many of my own experiences as a soldier as an inspiration for my stories and characters. When I'm not writing fiction, I indulge in my other passions: photography, hiking and scuba diving, all of which I've shared with my wife, who likes to call herself my #1 fan, for more than thirty years.