In the world of Myke Cole’s Shadow OPS novels, magic is a real thing as a result of the “Great Reawakening.” Naturally, since magic is something that can be weaponized, its use becomes controlled by the government and military. With Breach Zone being the third installment of the Shadow OPS trilogy, Cole can focus on action and physical conflict since much of the character foundation for the protagonists (Alan Bookbinder, Jan “Harlequin” Thorsson, and to a lesser extent, Oscar Britton) and support characters was laid down so strongly in the first two volumes. This physical conflict is the complete war zone the island of Manhattan becomes when the rogue Probe Scylla makes a bold comeback after disappearing in Fortress Frontier to make war against the human (mostly American) government.
Harlequin, who was painted as something of an antagonist in the first novel in the series, grew out of that role in the second novel and for all intents and purposes in Breach Zone he’s the star and de-facto hero even if he shares the spotlight. One of the undercurrents of the novel, from my reading, is how one adjusts to being the hero. Due to his actions in Fortress Frontier, Harlequin is thrust into the spotlight as a voice supporting the rights of Latent people – those who possess magical abilities. He finds this transition from on the battle-lines military man to man in the spotlight difficult, it isn’t something he wanted or something he enjoys. That said, Cole manages to make Harlequin’s ultimate acceptance of this new role a believable growth of character.
Parallels are drawn between Harlequin’s ‘current’ adjustment situation with his past, when he was more of a rookie in the Supernatural Operations Corps and was liaising with the corporation who developed the Limbic Dampener, the drug that allows for greater control of an individual magic. When he and his colleague Crucible visit Channel Corp, they meet with the company’s founder, a dark haired, beautiful woman named Grace. There’s an immediate attraction between Grace and Harlequin and the two soon become lovers. What these “interlude” sections illustrate is multi-layered and compliments the ‘current’ time very well. The seasoned Harlequin and the inexperienced Harlequin both had questions about what they were instructed to do by their higher ups and as a result, things don’t go smoothly for some people involved.
As for Grace, this isn’t readers’ first introduction to the character. For Grace is better known as Scylla and plays the role of primary antagonist of the novel, and perhaps even the series. Where Cole built a solid base for Britton, Bookbinder, and Harlequin in the previous novels and Harlequin to a greater extent here, the sympathy he builds for Grace as she transitions into the Scylla persona is a powerful evolution. Even if her actions as Scylla throughout the current siege of the New York Breach Zone are horrific and world shattering, her reasons for doing so are understandable. Amble empathy is build for her over the course of the novel to the point she becomes an almost sympathetic villain.
In many ways (as I said on twitter while reading the book), Scylla is like a sexier, younger (maybe more dangerous) version of the Marvel Comics/X-Men ‘supervillain’ Magneto. Over the fifty or so years since the X-Men first appeared, Max Eisenhardt aka Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto has been cast in many different lights (Evil Overlord, Leader of the X-Men, Misunderstood Social Activist), but the one thing that has always remained was the character’s pursuit of mutant rights and that mutants were the next step in human evolution. He was the less peaceful counter-argument to Professor Charles Xavier. Like Magneto, Scylla was wronged by the system and is seeking retribution on a global (or even multi-planar) level. Her clash of ideals with Harlequin both as “Grace” and as “Scylla” is equally fascinating as the dialogue in the past is a strong parallel to her actions in the “present.”
Bookbinder plays a pivotal heroic role in the novel, as the hoped-for relief effort during the siege of New York. Like Harlequin, it isn’t a role in which he finds much comfort, at least initially. This is made more difficult by the fact that, like Harlequin but to a greater extent, Alan Bookbinder is not looked at as completely favorably by some of his peers for his role in the events in Fortress Frontier. Most frustrating for Bookbinder is the disapproval from his wife for his actions. As a career soldier, Bookbinder and his family live on military bases and are friends with military families, so his wife’s attitude, who hasn’t seen Alan in quite some time, is flavored by the military families in whose proximity she lives and the families she’s befriended. A symbolic event in the second half of the novel sort of happens in the conflict, which may point a way for Bookbinder’s future.
Lastly, Oscar Britton is the most influential character with the least ‘screen time’ in the novel. His actions in both Control Point and Fortress Frontier are very much the impetus for the action which transpires in Breach Zone. As such, he is spoken about in somewhat mythic terms by those people with magical abilities branded as criminals for not registering their abilities. Even Oscar has some minor adjustments to make by novel’s end.
Breach Zone works on many levels; one of which is overriding themes of character evolution in the face of conflict and a globally changing environment. Each of the four primary characters – Britton, Bookbinder, Scylla, and Harlequin are not the same characters they were at the novel’s beginning and more drastically, at their introduction in Control Point. That’s an easy line to map out, characters change, but the true mark of the writer’s skill is illustrating in a believable fashion how characters change and evolve. On both the book level of Breach Zone and the trilogy level of the Shadow OPS series, Cole has exhibited great skill in making me believe in these characters: their motivations, their reactions to events that affect them, and their ultimate evolution because of these things.
This final novel in the Shadow OPS trilogy is a perfect balance between amazing magical/supernatural action featuring sorcery and monstrous creatures and reflective character development, revealing more about characters we thought we knew through two books. One **might** be able to read Breach Zone without having read the first two, but why would you want to do that? Each book is excellent in its own right, and as a whole, the trilogy is a superb story in three parts. The milieu here is so rife for many different stories to be told which makes me very pleased that Myke has three more books publishing within it, but it will be about a year before the next one, Gemini Cell publishes.
So here’s my recommendation – get reading these books because Myke Cole is a powerful, smart voice in the genre and these books are just a blast.
Highly Recommended
© 2014 Rob H. Bedford
Myke Cole: http://mykecole.com
January 2014 384 pages
ISBN: 9780425256374 Mass Market Paperback
Thanks, Rob.
I unfortunately had not gotten a reviewer’s copy, so I am still waiting and eager to finish out the trilogy. 🙂