Looking for a good read? Here is a recommendation. I have an unusual approach to reviewing books. I review books I feel merit a review. Each review is an opportunity to recommend a book. If I do not think a book is worth reading, I find another book to review. You do not have to agree with everything every author has written (I do not), but the fiction I review is entertaining (and often thought-provoking) and the non-fiction contain ideas worth reading.
Book Review
A Lost Colony Found
Reviewed by Mark Lardas
September 7, 2025
No Man’s Land: Volume 1,” by Sarah Hoyt, Goldport Press, September 2025, 273 pages, $4.99 (E-book) (Print version forthcoming, but not yet available.)
In the late 21st century the faster-than-light travel Schoedinger Drive was invented. It instantaneously moves things across space and time. People left Earth for greener pastures. New colonies, often based on crackpot ideas, started. The problem, unknown at first? Schoedinger travel sometimes sent travelers backwards or forwards in time. Sometimes thousands of years, creating lost colonies.
“No Man’s Land: Volume 1,” by Sarah Hoyt, deals with the consequences to lost colonies.
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden Viscount Webson (Skip) is a diplomat in the service of Britannia, the second largest empire in worlds colonized by humans. It is a constitutional monarchy founded on an idealized version of 19th Century Great Britain.
Eerlen Troz is the archmage of Elly. Eerlon’s spouse, the king was assassinated. Eerlon is now on the run with the heir, Brundar Mahar. Elly is a lost colony world, possibly thrown 10,000 years into the past. Founded by colonizers intent on a society of perfect equality, used genetic engineering to turn their descendants into hermaphrodites. No one knows for sure because, like most lost colonies unable to reconnect with Earth, they reverted to barbarism, losing all records.
Skip was on a diplomatic mission to Drakash, another lost colony which wants to join Britannia, Skip is there to see the treaty signed. Then he discovers they own slaves and possibly are cannibals. No slave society should be offered membership, but Drakash is. When Skip is almost assassinated on Drakash, he is rescued by Brundar Mahar’s agents and taken to Elly, a completely different planet.
Elly uses magic. They call it magic, but it may be magic in the sense that any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. Their skills include teleportation, possibly interstellar teleportation, invaluable to Britannia. Instead of Britannia’s diplomats and scouts reporting Elly it has been concealed. Something is rotten in Britannia and Drakash. Skip and Eerlen Troz must find out what to survive.
Hoyt wrote this after reading “The Left Hand of Darkness” at age 14. Hoyt felt Le Guin’s got a hermaphrodite society wrong, and she could do better. Forty years later “No Man’s Land” is the result.
Whether it is better is an individual judgement. It is an exciting and fast-paced tale, with lots of action, intriguing surprises and a satisfyingly coherent backstory. It is addictive. The first book of a three-part linked novel. its cliffhanger ending leaves readers eager for the next installment.
Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City. His website is marklardas.com.