Path of the Fury by David Weber is a stand-alone novel. Recently the novel was greatly expanded to reveal earlier parts of the main character’s life in a new combined novel, In Fury Born, though I have not read it.
It is still a military sci-fi drama, full of little details about spaceships, armor, weapons, AI’s, and strategy, even a little mythology. As the protagonist, Alicia DeVries, is betrayed by her commanding officer for a profitable bribe and has to watch her special forces platoon die around her, then given leave with her family but comes home to find them murdered, and almost dies killing every one of the mercenaries who committed the act. Alicia is saved by a spirit, a figure from Greek Mythology, and later with the help of an AI, hunts down and kills the people responsible for the murdering of her family.
Path of Fury is one of those books that, even though it is a sci-fi military drama, brings up many philosophic questions about your own life. For example, “How would I react or feel in such a situation?” This can be done in almost any situation, yes, but this book delved more so than usual into matters of revenge, pent of anger, betrayal, loss of family, etc. There were many points where Alicia desired nothing else but the death of her family’s murders, twice she, if not stopped by her new and old friends, would have crashed her fighter straight into the murders with no care of her own life. She believed that there was no point living anymore, other than for revenge. The book brings up questions of friendship and obsessive focus on one’s own pain to the point of ignoring others’ well being and their care for you.
A marvelous book for philosophers and sci-fi geeks alike.
