I’m very intrigued by James Longrove’s Dev Harmer Mission series, and I may add it to my Fall Reading Program. (I’m also intrigued by his 8-volume Pantheon series, but let’s remain realistic, shall we?) Dev Harmer is a reluctant agent of mega-corporation Interstellar Security Solutions, dispatched to various hotspots around the galaxy. He wakes up in a brand new cloned body every time. His original body, back on Earth, reportedly no longer exists, so Hammer has to earn enough to afford a new one… and that means doing the dirty jobs no one else wants.

Each of these jobs takes him to a very different locale — starting with Alighieri, a planet perpetually in flames, and the setting for the opening novel in the series, World of Fire.

Dev Harmer, reluctant agent of Interstellar Security Solutions, wakes up in a newly cloned host body on the planet Alighieri, ready for action. It’s an infernal world, so close to its sun that it surface is regularly baked to 1,000°C, hot enough to turn rock to lava. But deep underground there are networks of tunnels connecting colonies of miners who dig for the precious helium-3 regolith deposits in Alighieri’s crust.

Polis+, the AI race who are humankind’s great galactic rivals, want to claim the fiery planet’s mineral wealth for their own. All that stands between them and this goal is Dev. But as well as Polis+’s agents, there are giant moleworms to contend with, and a spate of mysterious earthquakes, and the perils of the surface where a man can be burned to cinders if he gets caught unprotected on the day side…

Giant worms, hostile AIs, hell planet… that’s all the essentials for a rousing space adventure, right there.

The second volume, World of War, is (naturally enough) set on a water world. Here’s the text on the back of the book.

In this stellar sequel to World of Fire, Dev Harmer has landed in a new body on a new planet…

Dev Harmer, reluctant agent of Interstellar Security Solutions, has travelled to ocean world Robinson D, nicknamed Triton.

Here, settlements belonging to the Terran Diaspora have been coming under attack by members of the planet’s sub-aquatic indigenous race. ISS suspects the involvement of an agent provocateur working for humankind’s galactic rivals, the artificial intelligence civilisation known as Polis+.

As the violence escalates, Dev finds himself battling to restore order – but he has only seventy-two hours before his genetically engineered host form breaks down irreversibly. And all as an ancient god-beast rises from the depths to usher in an apocalypse…

And here’s the publishing details. Both book are published by Solaris, with colorful covers by Jake Murray.

World of Fire (464 pages, $7.99 print/$6.99 digital, August 24, 2014)
World of Water (464 pages, $7.99 print/$6.99 digital, March 29, 2016)

Will there be any more in the series? That will probably be determined by sales of these two. So if you’re interested, try them now. Your purchase could be the one that pushes them over the edge!

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