Matador Series

The Matador Series is a sequence of Science Fiction novels by Steve Perry, generally following the life of former soldier Emile Khadaji, as he initiates a revolution against the corrupt Galactic Confederation ('The Confed').

The books have been published out of chronological order, and over a number of years, but in chronological order they are:

• The Musashi Flex: The story of professional fighter Lazlo Mourn, as he develops a new martial art called 'The 97 Steps'.
• The 97th Step: The story of Khadaji's teacher, Pen. A thief who loses everything, including himself, and then is inducted into a mysterious priesthood called the Siblings of the Shroud.
• The Man Who Never Missed: Picks up where The 97th Step ended, following Khadaji as he learns what he needs to to know to start the fall of The Confed.
• Matadora: The story of The Matadors, trained as bodyguards, but destined to be leaders of the revolution.
• The Machiavelli Interface: The revolution finally starts in earnest, but The Confed isn't going to give up without a fight.
• The Albino Knife: The Confed has fallen, but mysterious accidents keep happening. Who's behind them, and why?
• Black Steel: Sleel used to be a Matador, but he's left the order, considering himself disgraced, and The House of Black Steel wants him dead. His best hope of survival is Kildee Wu, a martial artist looking for a student worthy of wielding the sword that she carries.
• Brother Death: The story of the Matador Saval Bork, his family, and an assassin named Brother Death.

There's also a prequel novel called The Omega Cage. A few of the characters from the main series appear in it, but the plot is unrelated. It deals with the titular prison, and the only people to ever escape from it.

Tropes used in Matador Series include:

• Absent Aliens: The Zonn, who have been gone for tens of thousands of years, but left some interesting ruins scattered around various planets.
• Absent-Minded Professor: Sleel's parents. The robot that delivers their meals has an annoying alarm that has to be manually deactivated, to make sure they stop working and eat.
• The Alcatraz: The Omega Cage. It's on a Death World, and hundreds of kilometers from any way to get off-planet.
• Arc Words: Every novel opens with 'Death came for <someone> from <somewhere>'.
• Arm Cannon: The spetsdöd, which is the primary weapon of the Matadors. It's a small dart gun mounted on the back of the hand, fired by touching a fingertip against the barrel. It's considered a nonlethal weapon due to the tiny size of the darts, though they can be loaded with a wide variety of chemicals for different purposes.
• Bodyguard Crush: Dirisha Zuri, who believes that love makes you weak, is sent to be a bodyguard for Rajeem Carlos. She falls hard for for him, and eventually ends up in a relationship with him and his wife. Pen or rather, Khadaji as Pen set her up with him intentionally, because she needed to learn what love is in order to be the best possible bodyguard.
• Bouncer: Dirisha, Sleel, and Bork are all introduced in The Man Who Never Missed as the bouncers at Khadaji's Jade Flower pub. Khadaji and Pen also both worked as bouncers at various times in their lives.
• Brain Uploading: Marcus Jefferson Wall has this done at the end of The Machiavelli Interface. The Albino Knife deals with his attempts to reverse the process, and put himself back into a human body.
• Chairman of the Brawl: Defied in The Man Who Never Missed. The chairs in Khadaji's bar are bolted to the floor to avoid this trope. Khadaji even uses the ability to overcome the bolts as a hiring test for his bouncers.
• Challenging the Chief: How the leader of the Musashi Flex is determined. Anyone ranked in the top ten can challenge the current number one, and if they win, they take that position, regardless of their previous rank.
• Combat Pragmatist: The Third Rule of Matador Villa: "There are no rules in a fight involving death."
• Covers Always Lie: The blurb on the back cover of The Albino Knife has nothing whatsoever to do with the book. It describes the titular character as "the secret weapon of the Matadors", even though she's not a Matador, and not particularly a weapon (though she's a competent fighter), secret or not.
• Daughter of a Whore: Dirisha. Realizing that she didn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps is what inspired her to learn martial arts, and take up bodyguarding as a way to get off the planet.
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Earth is the Confederation capital, and a majority of their bureaucracy is headquartered there.
• Embarrassing First Name: "Sleel" is an acronym of his parent's names. The actual name they gave him is that of a type of flower — that only grows in sheep dung. They didn't intend this to be embarrassing; they're just that clueless about anything other than botany.
• Everyone Is Bi: Or at least Pen, Dirisha, Geneva, and Beel Carlos are. Group relationships/marriages seem to be rather common, as well.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: Readily available via 'bender' ships, though depending on the distance involved, trips can still take weeks or months.
• Fantastic Fighting Style: The 97 Steps, or Sumito, are the style that the Siblings of the Shroud practice, and which is taught to the characters of the series. It's less fantastic than most examples of the trope, being a modified version of Pencak Silat.
• Flying Car: Quite common. Hoppers and flitters are ground/low altitude vehicles, used for shorter distances. Boxcars are sub-orbital, used for longer distances.
• Grand Theft Me: Part of Wall's plan in The Albino Knife. He's going to reverse the Brain Uploading, and put himself into Khadaji's body.
• Heavyworlder: Saval Bork, and his sister Tazzimi.
• Heroic Albino: Emile Khadaji's daughter Veate, the titular character of The Albino Knife.
• Hidden Depths: Bad-ass revolutionary Sleel is caught browsing the philosophy section of a bookstore, quotes poetry, and spots a deception that nobody else had ever seen through. Later he's revealed to have a doctorate in poetry, has written several award-winning and best-selling novels, and funded the creation of an orphanage. He usually downplays this, deliberately seeming like a non-intellectual (he was embarrassed when his friends noticed his philosophy and poetry interests).
  • A tough, sophisticated old man admitted that after reading Sleel's novel Heartsick for the first time, he cried himself to sleep that night.
• Human Subspecies: Mues are humans genetically modified to be more suitable for certain tasks, such as working on worlds with higher than Earth-normal gravity. There are also the Albino Exotics, created as sexual playthings for the wealthy. They're absurdly beautiful, as well as having control over their pheromones, but most of them tend to die young, usually by being in the middle of a fight over who gets to sleep with them or control them.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Hand-held energy weapons are rare, and most people are armed with various projectile weapons, often with explosive or chemically-treated ammunition.
• Last Stand: In the backstory, Lord Thomas Reserve Shamba responded to a demand for surrender with "To the Commander, Confederation Jumptroopers. Sir: Fuck you. We stand until the last man falls."
• Menacing Stroll: Dirisha's lover Geneva comments that Dirisha, although beautiful and sexy, has a swagger to her walk that makes men feel inadequate about their manliness. Someone else notes that their friend Sleel also has a walk that announces, "Hey, I'm the best there is."
• The Metric System Is Here to Stay: The stories are set somewhere around 2295, but things are still measured in meters.
• Mini-Mecha: The warden of The Omega Cage has a powered exoskeleton that's designed for combat. Luckily for the good guys, he's not very skilled at using it.
• Numbered Homeworld: #313-C, usually referred to as 'OhShit', after what most people say when seeing it for the first time.
• Organic Technology: Powerful computers are some sort of artificial brain, and custom-tailored viruses are used to teach people things quickly.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Entirely averted. Most of the main characters follow some variant of Zen, and Christianity is still very common.
• Shaving Is Science: Depilatory cream ('depil') is the primary method of shaving.
• Space Station: Eighty-seven of them, generally referred to as 'wheelworlds', regardless of the actual station design.
• Virtual Training Simulation: The Matador school has a room with a holographic projection system, used for practicing various bodyguarding scenarios.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: In Black Steel, it's revealed that Sleel's parents (especially his father) have been incredibly dismissive of everything he's accomplished, largely because none of it involves botany or genetic engineering. He still tries to get their approval when he visits them during the course of the book.