Rebels of Merka
Reviewed date: 2025 Aug 1
Rating: 1
190 pages
Laser Books
Rebels of Merka is book 48 in the Laser Books series, and it's a sequel to book 39, Brandyjack. I haven't read Brandyjack. Maybe some of the events in Rebels of Merka would mean more if I'd read the previous book, but wow, it's so bad that I have no desire to go back and read Brandyjack.
Brandyjack
Our main character's name is Brandyjack. He's a bull-headed, super-smart, super-talented, super-strong hero who loves to gamble (well, cheat at gambling) and to drink himself into oblivion. When we meet him in this book, he has settled down with a girl named Lotus. He decides the quiet small-town life is too dull, so he tells Lotus he's leaving to go off adventuring. He hangs around a few more days to finish off his last keg of ale, then slips off without even saying goodbye.
Am I supposed to be rooting for Brandyjack? This guy is morally repugnant.
Star
Brandyjack falls in with some friends from the previous book, most notably Thoruso the Merchant. The Merchant is organizing a rebellion against Star, the Premier of Merka. Star is a tyrant. His Enforcers brutalize the public and quell any dissent. Brandyjack also meets a new friend named Snake, as well as old friends Dextor and Virgil.
Plot
There's a lot of basic adventure stuff. Skulking around in alleys. Getting hit on the head. Drinking ale in bars. Fighting in bars. Talking to people in bars. Scheming with colleagues in boarding rooms above the bar. Secret meetings in the dead of night. Beautiful women in bars who try to seduce our hero Brandyjack but who turn out to be traitors.
And of course, deliberately getting caught by Star and pretending to switch allegiances to serve him. Twice. Yeah, Brandyjack pulls that one over on Star twice. You see, he tries it again because he figures that after the first time, Star would never fall for it again. And Brandyjack, not being a fool, would know that Star wouldn't fall for it again. And Star, knowing that Brandyjack is not a fool, would know that Brandyjack would never try it again. So when Brandyjack does try it again, it must be genuine--because only a fool would try that stunt twice, and Brandyjack is no fool, and he knows that Star knows that he's no fool. *sigh* This is so dumb.
There's some nonsense about a vast underground transport system that links all of Merka. It's like bullet-train subways, but it links the whole country. It's the only surviving piece of technology from before the collapse, and Star keeps it secretly for his own use. His Enforcers use it to travel quickly and to send messages from one city to another, always staying a step ahead of the rebels. So Brandyjack and the rebels force their way in and disable the tunnels, neutralizing Star's advantage. Then there's a surprise attack on Enforcer Headquarters, Star is defeated, and the Enforcers and all of Merka are pretty OK with this because they really don't care who is in charge.
What I want to know is: first, who built an underground bullet train system that spanned a major portion of the continent? What would persuade someone to build such a ridiculous system? And it just kept running perfectly all these years? No way, man. No way.
Merka or Canada?
The title is Rebels of Merka but I'm 95% sure it's set in a post-apocalyptic Canada, not the United States of America. The author blurb in the book mentions that Mr. Funnell is a young Canadian writer and the action takes place in a major city called Toronew, which is relatively close to the city of Moneral. That sounds like Toronto and Montreal to me. Another town is Canav, which is several days' walk south of Toronew. I checked a map that doesn't make geographical sense (there's water south of Toronto; you can't walk through Lake Ontario), so I'm guessing the author Augustine Funnell was just making things up but using Canadian names.