A Question of Faith: A Castle Federation Novella by Glynn Stewart is a short read based on his larger Castle Federation series, which spans six books. I hadn’t known that when I started with A Question of Faith but it also seems that this author has a lot of books under his belt, all which seems to revolve around sci-fi and space opera battle themes. Question of Faith served as a quick introduction to the author’s creativity and writing style.

I personally enjoyed the short story. In so little pages, the author was able to descriptively convey and describe a sense of depth and scale of the story. There’s obviously a lot of be desired but this is where the author is hoping the reader will pick up on Space Carrier Avalon, the first in his Castle Federation series after having read this short novella. We follow in the footsteps of fleet admiral Darius Moonblood as his crew tries to determine who has mysteriously attacked and down a ship belonging to a trade colony that they’ve promised to protect. So starts the cat and mouse game. I must admit that there wasn’t anything that unique or special to the storyline and that it would had to rely on its characters, dialogue and environmental surroundings to engage with the reader. What actually caught my attention was reading about the description of the technologies being employed. Being a space opera, I expected no less but it definitely gets me excited each and every time imagining if one day in the far off future it would actually become a reality.

Another positive was the incorporation of some space politics into the mix! I think politics plays an even larger role in space opera themes like these being that we’re dealing with a mixture of colonies and planets which each having their own ideals and beliefs. While going to war with other states or countries on a single planet can been seen as trivial, a lot more resources are obviously required when your target is tens to hundreds of light years away. Every single battle, no matter how small it may seem, may have dramatic consequences if not planned correctly. Therefore, negotiating for peace between the different ruling parties is much more preferred. I’m hoping this line of reasoning continues in his Castle Federation series.