Brazen Shark - David Lee Summers, Author

The Brazen Shark - Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir Laugh Repeat; Think With Your Taste Buds; A Book and A Dish

The men took their stations with samurai keeping careful watch. Legion continued to calculate reasons for the airship's capture. A mission to discredit the emperor's power and gain popular support seemed a high probability.  Usurping the throne directly also ranked high.  Either possibility could precipitate further warfare and involve either the United States or Russia.... Legion, you have abandoned me.  Although Mendeleev remained silent, Legion had no problem hearing his thoughts.  Legion considered and after a moment, decided to speak.  "We have not abandoned you.  We have been watching and calculating possibilities."

"Why didn't you stop the samurai from taking the airship? Certainly you can see what a disaster this would be for our goal of world unification."

"We could not stop the samurai without taking over their minds and bending them to our will."

Legion remembered assorted names for himself.  Most were simple combinations of letters and numbers which identified the different machines he once occupied, but some held ancient meanings. Perhaps one had even been his name as a corporeal life form.  He was nothing but a swarm of microscopic machines that reproduced asexually.  Over the millennia he had watched solar systems form as well as thousands of species destroyed in a microsecond.  His main goal in being though was the unification of earth and its people.  This goal has taken him into the minds of a small circle of humans that he has helped by expanding their ability to create items that he feels is needed for them to succeed.  Two of these items became the first air ships and fast moving water ships.

Legion's interference in the creation of these vehicles has taken a turn for the worse.  A group of samurai have captured one of the air ships owned by the Russians.  For some time their intended use for this ship is unknown even to Legion.  When their agenda is made clear, it's up to the humans he contacts to save the world from a major war that will put an end to the unification they all desire.  But can he do this without interfering into the minds of others?

The Brazen Shark was a book that I will say I wouldn't normally have chosen... but... once I started reading I had to continue to see exactly where it would take me.  It took me to a world that is called earth but with an entirely different history.  One that actually had me wondering if there really is a 'Legion' out there that is powering the minds of those who create what most of us can't even imagine.  Could Einstein have been one that was contacted by a being like Legion?  After reading this book it just might be possible.