A Review of Ken Hart’s It was a Small Affair
(Pensacola, FL: World Castle Publishing, 2018), ISBN: 9781629899985 (print edition) It has been my pleasure over the past six years or so to review Ken Hart’s science fiction novels. This will be my third. My previous reviews were of Behind the Gem and The Eyes Behold Tomorrow . Hart brings a lot of heart to his sci-fi. His previous two novels deal with family and reproductive issues and his stories explore what happens when distinct binary groups—be they male–female, human–nonhuman, or past–present—interact. His latest novel, It was a Small Affair , focuses on the third binary—past–present. The past is the confrontation at the Alamo in 1836 between the Mexican general Santa Anna (whose derisive remarks after the battle provide the novel’s title) and Travis, Houston, Bowie, Crockett, and Co. Texas’s independence from Mexico was at stake, and the Texans were badly outnumbered. There is a great deal of romanticism and myth that surrounds the Alamo. It has been the sub...