The Warrior Within

Angus McIntyre — 2018

Angus McIntyre makes his debut with The Warrior Within, a mind-bending science fiction adventure about a man with many people living in his head Karsman has a dozen different people living in his head, each the master of a different set of skills and hoping to gain mastery of Karsman’s body. He survives on a backwater planet dominated by the Muljaddy, a mostly ambivalent religious autocracy, where devotion and prayer can be traded in for subsistence wages and enough food to survive. Surrounded by artifacts of a long dead civilization, the population survives off its salvage, with Karsman eking out an uneventful life as the unofficial mayor of his small town. But that life is soon interrupted, when a group of commandos arrive, coming from the wastelands as only off-worlders could. They've come to kill a woman, or so they say. At first the commandos merely threaten as they search. Unable to find what they're looking for, they begin to ratchet up their measures, separating the men from the women, instigating violent encounters, and eventually staging a coup against the Muljaddy and his Temple. Faced with the task of protecting his quiet town and a woman he might love from the commandos who could want to kill her, Karsman must balance between maintaining his personality and harnessing the personas whose skills he desperately needs.

Reviews

Ryan LaFerney@ryantlaferney

Dec 15, 2022

If you crave sci-fi and fantasy, look no further than Tor.com’s line of novellas. The Warrior Within (the debut novella by Angus Mcintyre) is one of the new titles from Tor to be published this year. Set in a futuristic desert like world scattered with remnants of past civilizations (which the population survives off of), The Warrior Within is a mind-bending science fiction adventure about a man named Karsman with many people living within his head. Karsman had basic modification surgery when he left home to cope with the conditions of the other world, except what the surgeons did was far more invasive than simple modifications. They managed to graft single skill artificial intelligences (such as Warrior, Dipolmat, etc) in Karsman’s mind. The plot of this novella is pretty intriguing. Karsman presides over his current town as the "Mayor". It’s overseen by the Muljaddy (dominant alien beings) who run an ambivalent religious autocracy. Life is sustained through prayer and worship. Yet, this all changes when a group of commandos arrive, claiming to be in search of a woman they must assassinate (or so they say). When their searches prove fruitless, they begin to take more extreme measures, forcing Karsman to enlist the help of his intelligences….Karsman is forced with then protecting his town and a woman he might love from the commandos all while maintaining his personality and intelligences. Can he keep the Warrior under lock and key? I was pleasantly surprised by this novella and its ending. If you loved The Gunslinger, Dune, or Ancillary Justice, you’ll probably dig this novella. The Warrior Within combines many Western and SF tropes into something wholly new that looks at what a post-human society might look like. I liked that the story wasn’t bogged down by exposition but rather Mcintyre gives us just enough information. An excellent debut. Looking forward to seeing what Mcintyre might write next.

Phileas Fogg@phileas

Aug 16, 2022

Joseph Aleo@josephaleo

Sep 23, 2021