The Reformer (The Raj Whitehall Series, Book 7)

On Hafardine, civilization had fallen further than most. That men came from the stars was not even a rumor of memory in Adrian Gellert's day. The Empire of Vanbret spread across the lands in a sterile splendor that could only end in another collapse, more ignominious and complete than the first. Adrian Gellert was a philosopher, a student whose greatest desire was a life of contemplation in the service of wisdom...until he touched the "holy relic" that contained the disincarnate minds of Raj Whitehall and Center. On that day, Adrian's search for wisdom would lead him to a life of action, from the law-courts of Vanbret to the pirate cities of the Archipelago -- and battlefields bloodier than anything in the history he'd learned. The prize was the future of humanity.

The Reformer continues their Raj Whitehall series, with its intriguing schtick of the cloned consciousnesses of a military commander (Raj) and a battle computer (Center) becoming voices in the head of a would-be hero on a primitive world who is trying to coax humanity back--one planet at a time--to the level of progress it had acheived before a crippling galactic civil war. In The Reformer, Raj and Center are guiding a clever, scrappy philosopher named Adrian and his studly soldier brother Esmond, helping them introduce gunpowder and civic order (eventually) to the quasi-Roman civilization on Hafardine. Fast-paced, but not quite as meaty as earlier installments in the series, Reformer still gets the job done with believable battle scenes and knowing descriptions of early weapons and technology. --Paul Hughes