Ooh Golly.. Golly golly golly.. where the heck do I begin?

Okay, let’s start with kick @$$ murder death kill assassin for the Lord, Father Bernard Campion.

This catholic priest (small C intentional) is an assassin. He, uh.. kills people for the pope. Well, at least he DID. That was back in Vatican Assassin. But I’m talking about Vatican Ambassador now. In this book he – um – ambassadors . . . for the – err – moon. He’s a space priest, see? A priest in space.. with a laser gun, libido and inner dialog that just won’t quit.

In the last novel. BC kinda stirred up a hornet’s nest. He was sent to assassinate the mayor of a moon colony and – you know – one thing leads to another.. war breaks out. He has some adventures, bonks his head a couple times – and everything pretty much goes to the Day-Vihl (“devil” with a southern drawl, work with me here, folks)

Vatican Ambassador is a space opera romp. There’s space, there’s romping, there’s technology, People get blown up. There’s a whole new world out there – well, several new worlds, ’cause we live on the moon and mars and stuff. There’s moon people, space religion, galactic babes, war ships, sub plots that spiral off into the deepest reaches of the universe and more inner dialog that than you can shake a stick at. I mean, I just wanna shake the MC like a British Nanny and say “GET THE schmeck OUT OF YOUR HEAD! STOP TALKING TO YOURSELF!!” There’s just no opera, though – not really – but Space Opera doesn’t really need singing.

It’s pretty unique, actually. You got a main character who’s about as messed up in the head and confused as he can be. I mean - he’s a friggin confused killer priest, and the audience gets to witness his bent decision–making process throughout the story. The author writes in a style I’ve never encountered before- sort of a tongue-in-cheek ironic / sarcastic 3rd person / first person present tense mesh. It’s neat.

Campion’s life is a friggin train wreck. Everything’s just going to fashizzle, but I just can’t tear my eyes (ears?) away. I mean seriously! If something can go wrong for this dude, it does, but he deserves it all, cause he friggin KILLS people for a living (or used to) so it’s OKAY to giggle when he gets his @$$ kicked scene after scene.

You know, I haven’t seen any aliens yet. And that’s actually kinda cool, huh? Scifi, we’re in space zooming around in ships and stuff, and the existence of extra terrestrial life is still a mystery. Hmm, well, I guess since we have humans on the moon and mars that, well, we ARE the extra terrestrial life. But you know what I mean. We’re zipping from planet to planet and we ain’t seen no nonhumans yet.

So, that’s pretty cool.

Now, you may be staring at the word “Vatican” with some degree of trepidation. I did too, but then I’m just sick and tired of hearing about religions fighting to take over the friggin world rather than tending to the needs of their flocks. (Don’t worry, there is a Space God cult that addresses this) *I* am getting through this story (and got through the first novel) by replacing all the religion names with “Space God”. *nodnods* It works! “Space god people on Mars are pizzed off at Space God people on Earth because the Earthies have kicked the Marzies off the planet and blew up all their holy sites, and the moon is trapped in the middle where the MC, who’s on the Earth Space God side…”

Vatican Ambassador is an ongoing podio story about a man’s attempts to clean up the mess made in the previous book. And, dudes – seriously – mess!

What issues people seemed to have with the technical aspect of the first performance (reading at 900 MPH, or as I like to call it, Texas Speed – some sound over-cleaning – stuff like that) have been fixed for this work. Mr. Luoma reads much more casually and steadily this time around, and is a bit easier to listen to.

I can’t rate this story low because it is somewhat addictive. I do not regret listening to the first one, and I am listening to this one as it updates. I don’t hate it. It does kill me a little bit here and there, but I do not feel it’s a bad waste of time. However, I can’t give it really high marks, because it falls kinda’ way outside my usual reading comfort zone. I just don’t really have a whole lot of interest in the future of earth’s religions. (Frankly, I hope they ALL evaporate – I personally can’t WAIT to get left behind so at lest they’d all quit shooting at me) This story doesn’t have me on the edge of my seat. Imho, the main character is a pretty loathsome slug who really kinda deserves to be jettisoned into space. Can he redeem himself? Will he? Maybe, maybe not. But you know what? My real world frustration with organized religion really does add a certain depth to this plot for me. So, it definitely has an IMPACT.

You know, lemme yammer about that. Impact. This story does have something of an impact. Sure, okay, it murders me a little bit. But I still wanna see how he cleans up the mess he helped make in the first book. I wanna see if these two huge, warring factions finally get a clue and work things out or just Blorking fight until the end of time. OOH maybe we’ll get to see them be the extinction of each other! I am intrigued. And like I said, I have every intention to follow this story to the end.

There is a third novel in the series, and depending on how THIS novel wraps up, I may or may not get into it as well. I’m at the point where I don’t wanna leave without having taken in the entire story, BUT there might be more compelling ways to waste my time. We’ll see.

So if you like feel-good ending, easy to swallow stories, then perhaps you should steer clear of this one. However, if you like gritty and dark, speculative fiction about a possible future for Earth religions, then by all means, give it a listen. It’s not so hard core scifi that the reader gets lost in the technics, but there’s enough science to reinforce the scenery of a futuristic world. AND, if you like stories in which there are ramifications for events, then, Ambassador really does give you a glimpse of that.

There are plenty of reasons to tune in – to check out this novel, and there are some why you might prefer to give it a miss. If you’re on the fence, go ahead and check it out. Especially if you’ve just finished listening to the first. It does wrap up some loose ends that I think you’ll appreciate being tied off.

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