Review of The Xenocide Mission – Book 2 of The Ark series by Ben Jeapes

Lieutenant Joel Gilmore is part of a multi-species space observation team stationed in a distant solar system, who find themselves attacked by the very aliens they were supposed to be watching. Now Joel and his allies, the enigmatic Rusties, explore the parameters of trust in a lethal confrontation with a deeply alien third species: one with a nasty predilection for mass murder on a planetary scale.

This book was marketed as a YA science fiction, but I had no trouble getting fully engrossed in the story which started with a bang and kept going right to the end, despite the fact that I hadn’t read the first book, His Majesty’s Starship. The story is told in multiple viewpoint – and Jeapes joins that select handful of science fiction writers who are brave enough to have a serious stab at writing from an alien point of view. In fact, there are two major alien species in this adventure. The vicious variety with teeth, talons and a propensity for ripping apart anyone who seriously upsets them – and the Rusties, who have formed a coalition with humans. So, the question has to be – does Jeapes pull it off?

As far as the bad guys, known as Xenocides, are concerned, the depiction is excellent. We get a really good slice of their political and cultural life without any info-dumps silting up the narrative pace, which is always a lot harder to achieve than it looks. There is even some humour in there and I particularly enjoyed Oomoing, who had the job of evaluating the captured human. The twist near the end of the story was one I didn’t see coming and thoroughly enjoyed. By the end of the novel, I had a really good sense of what they looked like and how their society ran. But the overall impression of how the other species – the First Breed – operated, their appearance, and their relationship with the humans was a lot less sharp. However, I am also aware that this is the second book in a series and I got the feeling that the storyline featuring this particular species was highlighted in His Majesty’s Starship.

As far as the main human story running through the book, Joel makes a solidly convincing hero as someone who reacts quickly and selflessly when the unthinkable happened – and then finds himself up to his neck in trouble as a consequence. He manages to care about issues like honour, duty and loyalty without coming across as some lantern-jawed dummy, which also demonstrates Jeapes’ skill as an able, technically gifted writer. His relationship with Boon Round, the First Breed also caught up alongside him, is nicely sharp.

The ending is well executed, with all the lose threads across all three main species satisfyingly tied up. Overall, this slickly convincing multi-species adventure story is a really good read – and I’m going to be looking out for more of Jeapes’ writing.
9/10

Review of Jump Twist Gate – a Jon and Lobo duology by Mark L. Van Name

This duology of the first two books, One Jump Ahead and Slanted Jack, in the popular Jon and Lobo series was released by Baen in a smart marketing move a couple of years ago.

Jon Moore: A nanotech enhanced wanderer who wants nothing more than a quiet life and a way back to his strange home world. Lobo: An incredibly intelligent machine equipped for any environment from the sea to interstellar space. Two battle-scarred veterans unwilling to tolerate injustice. Together in a jam-packed collection that not only includes the two novels, but also two short stories giving some of the backstory to the two protagonists and an interestingly frank foreword and afterword by the author.  I read the third book in the series last year, Overthrowing Heaven, and was very impressed – so when I got the opportunity to grab a copy of this duology off the shelves, I took it. Did it live up to my expectations?

This series falls into the adventure/military science fiction sub-genre. Sort of. Because although Jon is an ex-mercenary who offers his services for hire – including his lethally effective battleship – he is also allergic to killing anyone. Indeed, he goes to great lengths to try and avoid using lethal force and if someone does die, Jon treats it as a very big deal. I have to say that I find this approach to the inevitable violence very refreshing and a lot more thought provoking than those shoot-em-ups where bodies are constantly being blown up or ripped apart in a variety of gory ways.

I also very much enjoyed the unfolding relationship between Jon and Lobo. In One Jump Ahead, Jon meets Lobo for the first time and they work together. Jon’s enhancements have forced him to be constantly careful how he interacts with other people, as his greatest fear is finding himself locked up by some large corporation and treated like a labrat as they discover exactly how he came by his unique abilities. One of the consequences of these enhancements is his ability to communicate directly with the machines around him – including, of course, Lobo, his intelligent battleship. Lobo’s constant frustration with Jon’s micro-managing temperament creates a nicely sharp relationship between the two of them, which gradually deepens into trust and genuine affection – from Jon’s side, anyway. We can only guess at what Lobo really thinks…

However, Lobo isn’t the only machine that Jon can communicate with – he is also able to chat and eavesdrop on drinks dispensers and toasters, which produces some amusing interludes. I really enjoy this world – the inevitable mcguffin that allows humanity to zip around the universe in next to no time are a series jump gates, apparently left or seeded by another species. All very convenient – but there are also a number of interesting aspects to these gates that have a bearing on the plot, in addition to creating extra layers to the story and giving faster-than-light travel extra zip, something that this author is adept at doing.

In a sub-genre where a number of effective world-building writers manage to create their particular brand of magic at the expense of characterisation, Van Name’s characters are believable and suitably complex, allowing him to weave engrossing and complicated plots in first person viewpoint. Indeed, approaching the climax in Slanted Jack, I actually felt physically nervous… If you enjoy fast paced, lively space opera featuring interesting characters then this is a must-read – even if you don’t generally dip your toe into science fiction on the grounds that all that nerdy, techie stuff gets in the way of a good story, you owe it to yourself to track down this book. It’s worth it.
10/10

Review of Cibola by James H. Cobb

I’m a sucker for a really cool spacescape on a book cover – and this offering shouted READ ME, so had to be plucked off the shelf. And I’m very glad I did…

Being the cop on the beat is never easy, especially in the 22nd century, where mankind has the capacity to reshuffle the heavens and humanity and even reality itself is a matter of opinion. Just ask Free Marshal Gain Chandry of the United Nations Law Enforcement Authority, who is about to take the wildest ride of his career – and maybe even his life.

Fresh from his latest assignment chasing smugglers, Chandry is handed the Cibola Project, The Johannesburg United Metals Combine is using the largest space vehicle ever built, the robotic mass driver tug MD-24, to move a gold ore-laced asteroid into near-Earth orbit. If the project succeeds, it could revolutionize cis-lunar industrial civilisation. If it fails, the resulting ecological catastrophe could be the greatest since the extinction of the dinosaur.

And someone wants Cibola to fail.

Is it a deep, multi-layered and meaningful treatise into the possible dangers that lie ahead of humanity? Nope. It’s a great, escapist romp written by an experienced author with an engaging protagonist, Gain Chandry. That said, there are some really nice touches. I think Cobb has managed to depict deep space mining more effectively than many other sci fi writers. I enjoyed his world and the characters – and as for the whodunit, I really didn’t see it coming. However, I wasn’t wasting too much time and energy trying to unravel the plot – Cobb’s fluid style whisks the story along at a good clip and I read it in one greedy gulp.

Like all enjoyable whodunits, as well as a good spread of suspects, Gain is part of a team – however, this being the 22nd century, his side-kick isn’t your average human companion… This cyber-buddy is a great wish-fulfilment. I want one, too! Someone who can subsume him/herself into any system with a plug and switch; someone who doesn’t need to breathe, or eat; someone who can keep you company and kiss it better when it all goes wrong…

Overall, this is great fun and my only sadness is that I cannot find any kind of sequel or follow-up to this entertaining offering. Hopefully, Cobb will see the error of his ways and provide Cibola with a follow-up book. Please??
8/10

Review of Orphaned Worlds – Book 2 of Humanity’s Fire by Michael Cobley

You’ve picked up a copy of Orphaned Worlds, lured by the cool spacescape on the cover and Iain M. Banks recommendation, but haven’t yet encountered the first book in the series. Whatever you do, don’t attempt to read it before hunting down that first instalment, Seeds of Earth. Orphaned Worlds is very much a mid-series book and as this space opera adventure is on an epic scale, trying to work out what exactly is going on means some serious flailing around. I know – I tried it…

Seeds of Earth has mostly been very well received by critics and readers alike who enjoy this sub-genre. So, the question has to be – does Orphaned Worlds manage to sustain the standard set by Seeds of Earth?

Darien is no longer a lost outpost of humanity, but the prize in an intergalactic power struggle. Hegemony forces have a stranglehold over the planet and crack troops patrol its hotspots while Earth watches, rendered impotent by galactic politics. But its Darien ambassador will soon become a player in a greater conflict. there is more at stake than a turf war on a newly discovered world. An ancient Uvovo temple hides access to a hyperspace prison, housing the greatest threat sentient life has ever known. Millennia ago, malignant intelligences were caged there following an apocalyptic war. And their servants work on their release.

I believe this sequel would have benefitted with a Story So Far summary. Cobley did try to help by providing both a list of characters and the 18 different species of aliens that crop up in the story (I wasn’t kidding when I said it was ‘epic’…) and while they were useful reminders after having read Seeds of Earth, neither list was much help when attempting to read Orphaned Worlds first time around.

After completing Seeds of Earth, I found that Orphaned Worlds plunged straight into the story. This is a much faster-paced book as Cobley had already set up the dynamics of his world and we are now in the throes of the conflict, so there are a variety of battles with all the main protagonists – and the antagonists – fighting for their lives both in space and on a number of worlds. As in Seeds of Earth, the story is narrated in third person pov by the various characters, with each chapter titled by the viewpoint character’s name. This gives the reader a great deal of help – absolutely necessary while the action keeps rolling forward.

There is a lot less of the scene setting that silted up Seeds of Earth and I feel that Cobley really hits his stride during this instalment of the Humanity’s Fire series. If you enjoyed Seeds of Earth, I believe that you will certainly find Orphaned Worlds an equally engrossing, entertaining read and I look forward to getting hold of the final book in the trilogy, The Ascendant Stars.
8/10

Review of Seeds of Earth – Book 1 of Humanity’s Fire by Michael Cobley

Talk about this space opera debut came up on the forums I lurk on more than once – and so I grabbed hold of a copy when it came my way and dived in…

The first intelligent species to encounter mankind attacked without warning. With little hope of halting the invasion, Earth’s last roll of the dice was to dispatch three colony ships, seeds of Earth, to different parts of the galaxy. The human race would live on… somewhere.  Over a century later, the planet Darien hosts a thriving human settlement. But mankind’s new home harbours secrets dating back to the dawn of history. Secrets that could yet see a devastating war erupt across the entire galaxy…

This is space opera writ large – and although Cobley attempts to drop us into the middle of the rising action, I struggled for the first section. For starters, it seemed far too similar to a whole raft of other Avatar-type scenarios. Beautiful forest-like planet peopled by a (mostly) contented human population and quirky other-worldly aliens – until threatened by an aggressive rapacious enemy intent on acquiring the precious and unique something said planet has to offer… Yeah, yeah – yawwwn…

What actually held me was that a couple of the characters in this storyline were interestingly different – Catriona and Robert Horst both caught and held my attention in amongst the large cast who narrate the story in third person viewpoint. My perseverance paid off – the appearance of Kao Chih from another of the three ships and his desperate quest and various adventures suddenly lit up the whole book. The initial storyline became less of a cliché as it progressed and I found the notion of humanity caught between two vast, established alien powerblocks fascinating. It was always going to be a big ask for Cobley to be able to whisk his readers into the heart of a story with as many strands and scenarios that comprises this sprawling beast and I’m not convinced that he started in the right place. Both Greg and Theo, two of the main protagonists on Darien, are probably the least interesting characters – especially when set against some of the more intriguing protagonists on offer.

One of the issues examined in Seeds of Earth is the tension between natural humans and those with additional augmentations – while these beings regularly crop up in far future science fiction, their presence generally fades into the furniture – not so in this novel. As we are introduced to characters with and without AI companions, the political and personal consequences of such implants are thoroughly explored. Catriona, a researcher of Darien history and fauna, is a victim of a failed experiment to artificially boost the intellectual capacity of the small human colony as her Enhanced abilities start to falter when she hits puberty.

Overall, Cobley handles the large, varied cast of characters well and once the book hits its stride, I found the pace and narrative drew me right into the story. Any niggles? Well, I could have done with a lot less scene setting which at times interfered with my ability to bond with some of the characters and silted up the action, somewhat. But I am aware that many fans of space opera really enjoy the detailed depiction of the different land and spacescapes offered by authors of this genre. And despite my preference for less description, I was still hooked until the end and look forward to getting hold of the next book in the series, Orphaned Worlds.
8/10

Review of Transformation Space – Book 4 of The Sentients of Orion by Marianne des Pierres

Transformation Space is the last book in this sweeping space opera by des Pierres, so clearly if you haven’t read the previous three books you need to go back to the start of the series and track down Dark Space. However, if you’ve been waiting for this final instalment, the question has to be – does she deliver on the previous excellent storylines that have propelled this series to such admiring attention?

Mira Fedor’s pregnancy seems to be proceeding at an inhuman pace and the sedate acceptance of this state of affairs by her bizoon, Insignia, is as much an irritation as it is comfort. It seems clear that the extropists’ procedures have had an unforeseen effect – but will her child be more than human? Or less?

Meanwhile, the galaxy-wide conspiracy that has plagued the Orion League for so long is revealed. The conspirators stand unmasked, but is there time to prevent their carefully laid plans from coming to fruition? And even if there is, how many of the Orion Worlds will pay the price for their leaders’ blindness?

The pieces are all in play; all that remains is for each side to commit to its endgame. But there’s one question nobody has thought to ask: will ‘god’ play by the rules…?

Space opera tends to be epic in scope; storylines often sprawl across galaxies, while the characters tend to be larger than life and eccentrically different from the folks you brush shoulders with in Sainsburys. Let’s face it, that’s the attraction – a true escape from the everyday and mundane. Transformation Space certainly sustains the fast pace characterised in the earlier instalments, which is a plus – tying up various loose ends often silts up the final book in multi-volume series. Furthermore, des Pierres also manages to keep control of her disparate cast of characters, ensuring that they all grow and develop in varying ways after the adventures they endure – I particularly enjoyed watching Thales and Trin undergo some interesting changes, as well as following Mira’s steady growth in confidence. Overall, I think she handles closing this hectic adventure very well with most of the storylines and characters resolved to my satisfaction.

If you’re sensing a ‘but’, however, you’re right. For me, the single hole in this final book in the series is the disappearance of the Entity. I’m aware that it went missing, but having been such a feature of the earlier plot, it was something of a disappointment at how fleetingly it appeared in this book, given its pivotal importance to the storyline. Having said that, I’m aware that the whole series is a vividly depicted, ambitiously plotted piece of work and this is the only area where her sure touch stutters slightly. Overall, this is an entertaining, well executed series and Transformation Space – a worthy winner of the 2010 Aurealis Award – brings it to a successful conclusion. If you’re a fan of classic space opera and haven’t yet encountered The Sentients of Orion, take the time to track down this impressive four-book series – you won’t regret it if you do.
9/10

Review of Spindrift – Book 4 in the Coyote series by Allen Steele

The starship Robert E. Lee is bearing a controversial cargo on its return to Earth: the only surviving crew of the EASS Galileo. This ship and all aboard vanished decades previously, while examining an apparently alien artefact.

As John Shillinglaw, director general of the European Space Agency, waits nervously for the vessel to dock, he ponders the mystery. First Officer Theodore Harker, astrobiologist Jared Ramirez and pilot Emily Collins have been missing for fifty-six years. Where have they been… and why have they returned now?

While Spindrift is clearly set in the same world as the other Coyote novels, with the same political tensions and difficulties, readers don’t need to have read any of the previous books to be able to easily access the story – a major plus as far as I’m concerned. However, I came to Spindrift after reading the previous trilogy, which is the tale of a planet colonisation, leading to a war of independence from Earth. There were classic elements from Steele’s other novels – the political manoeuvring, leading to stupid mistakes being made. That strand certainly plays to Steele’s strengths – he is good at ramping up tensions between suspicious individuals and the Galileo’s outward journey provides a strong backdrop for these tensions to nicely fester.

I also really enjoyed the exploration of Spindrift, the enigmatic alien object. Steele manages to evoke the sense of wonder and excitement, as well as danger, while his three protagonists are confronted with the very first alien artefacts seen by humans. It is a staple of science fiction writing and all too often, authors are so carried away by telling their particular stories, they fail to take the time to adequately convey just what a big deal this event is. Not so Steele.

So far, so good. However, I do have several problems with this book, which in my opinion, isn’t as strong as his previous offerings. The first is the basic structure. As the blurb suggests, the book starts off in John Shillinglaw’s viewpoint as he waits to interview the three survivors of this expedition. Then the story is told from the viewpoints of the three main protagonists throughout the adventure, and then right at the end, it reverts back to Shillinglaw – as if the whole intervening narrative is in flashback, before the conclusion.

This has two effects – the first is that throughout the storyline of the expedition, we are aware that only Ted, Jared and Emily survive. So certain key moments are robbed of their shock or surprise value – we wait to discover in what way the Galileo comes to a sticky end, rather than being shocked that it happens. If a writer is going to pull that kind of stunt on his readers, he needs to provide another surprise – or make the characterisation so engrossing and original that the fact we already know several big spoilers doesn’t matter. Steele doesn’t provide either, so while the story is effectively told we already know too much, which robs this tale of a lot of its potential impact.

The other aspect is that as Shillinglaw ‘bookends’ the whole narrative, his character really needs to leap off the page, or he needs to provide a keynote role that helps to satisfactorily wind up the plot to a proper ending. In my opinion, Steele didn’t manage to fully persuade me that Shillinglaw’s contribution to the whole business was sufficiently important – and as for creating a really strong character – that isn’t one of Steele’s innate strengths, anyhow.

As a woman, I was particularly frustrated with Emily’s character – I felt she was very much the ‘token’ female – the fluffy, submissive kind. We kept being told that she was a wonderful pilot, despite the fact that she had all the drive and personality of a wet flannel. Both the male protagonists were a lot more interesting and I found myself wishing that Steele had stuck to making all three protagonists men.

However, all that said – it is still a worthwhile, reasonably enjoyable read. My frustration with the book is that if only Steele had restructured the story differently, it could have been so much better.
7/10

Review of Journey Into Space by Toby Litt

This is a generation ship novel – a classic science fiction theme that has also been visited by Robert A. Heinlein in his book Orphans of the Sky, Paradises Lost by Ursula LeGuin and The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolf to name but a few…
A vast generation ship hurtles away from a violent, troubled Earth to settle on a distant planet orbiting an alien star. Those who set out on this journey are long-since dead. Those who will arrive at their destination have yet to be born. For those who must live and die in the cold emptiness between the stars, there is only the claustrophobic permanence of non-being. Life lived in unending stasis.
Then the unthinkable happens: two souls – Auguste and Celeste – rebel. And from the fruit of their rebellion comes a new and powerful force which will take charge of the ship’s destiny.

Auguste and Celeste pine for the lost Earth they’ve never seen and it is this craving that draws them together. Auguste’s character is vividly depicted as his longing for Celeste merges with his attempts to describe weather events that he has never experienced. Litt’s writing ability fully flowers in the first section of this short novel as the interaction between the young teenagers is poetically described and the characters sing off the page – although I did find myself skimming through a very long Earth-like metaphor… I felt it was too heavy-handed a literary flourish at this crucial stage in the action.

However, Litt’s focus abruptly shifts from the young couple as events move onto the next two generations and we don’t get the same depth and complexity of characterisation with any of the subsequent protagonists. To be honest, I found some of the following events difficult to believe. The notion that someone as spoilt and self-centred as Three would devote whole years of her life to producing a letter – and why wouldn’t there be paper and writing implements on a colonial ship, anyhow?

As the years speed on by and the crew become increasingly alienated from their original Mission and more wrapped up in the capricious demands of their mentally challenged Captain, the novel lifts away from the character-led depiction of the beginning and into an omniscient viewpoint as Litt skims across the next major protagonists in his story, leading to the shocking end which I should have cared about a lot more than I actually did.

I found the notion that humans start behaving oddly when shut away from Earth-based sensory stimuli to be entirely believable. However, I do feel that in order to fully convince his readership that Three’s behaviour or the ending is a convincing outcome, Litt needed to spend more time and energy on the second half of the novel. It seems to be a book of two halves and the latter section simply does not live up to the shining promise of the beginning, which is a real shame. Litt is clearly a talented and extremely capable writer – the fact that this is still a book worth reading despite the rather perfunctory ending demonstrates this. If only he had continued writing with the same fire and conviction shown in the first section, I believe this could have rivalled the likes of LeGuin’s outstanding Paradises Lost. As it is, Journey Into Space is a thought provoking but ultimately flawed attempt to examine this fascinating concept.
7/10

Review of The Quiet War by Paul McAuley

This hard science fiction tale grabbed my attention because being a shallow sort, I loved the cool cover…

On twenty-third-century Earth, ravaged by climate change, political power has been grabbed by a few powerful families and their green saints. Millions of people, most little better than slaves, labour to rebuild ruined ecosystems. Those who fled Earth’s repressive regimes to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn live in a fantastic variety of habitats, some deep underground, others protected from inhospitable atmospheres by vast tents; all scientific utopias crammed with exuberant inventions of the genetic arts.

But the fragile peace between Earth and the colonies is threatened by the Outers’ growing ambitions to spread out through the Solar System, pushing human evolution forward. On Earth argument rages: whether to take pre-emptive action against the Outers, or to exploit their scientific talents. Amidst all the debating and turmoil, war between the two branches of humanity moves ever closer.

This book looks at a familiar conflict point much explored by the likes of Alistair Reynolds, Eric Brown and Iain M. Banks – that of humanity diverging as the diaspora start living in space. McAuley, like a number of other science fiction writers, trained as a scientist and this becomes apparent in the loving detail he lavishes on the extra-terrestrial vegetation that the Outers manage to establish in all sorts of unlikely nooks – like Callisto and Titan, for instance.

So, how ably does he handle this ambitious tale that spans a number of far-flung settings, with six main characters? Is the characterisation sufficiently complex and compelling? Do the passages concentrating on the extra-terrestrial eco-systems silt up the narrative pace and get in the way of the book’s message?

While there are six viewpoint characters, it is Macey Minnot and Professor Doctor Sri Hong-Owen whose stories drive most of the action. McAuley has tweaked this familiar territory in interesting ways – while we are given a ringside seat into the slow, inexorable slide into war, all the main characters including Macey and Sri are all underlings, hemmed in by a strict chain of command. Not one of them are free to follow their own wishes – and when any of them try to do so, the consequences are dramatic and dangerous. This gives the reader a first-hand appreciation of the limits experienced by the Earth-based characters, both good and bad. However, it is interesting that we are not privy to any Outer viewpoint. I’m wondering whether McAuley covers the experiences of that faction in detail in the sequel, Gardens of the Sun. I’m not willing to believe that this was just some random omission – McAuley is too careful a craftsman to make such a basic mistake.

I particularly enjoyed Macey and Sri who are both well rounded, complex creations – neither are innately likeable, yet I was able to empathise with their dilemmas as the stakes become ever higher in the increasingly febrile political situation. It was interesting to compare how both women deal with the unfolding conflict, given that there are some obvious similarities along with their very different backgrounds. There is an implicit suggestion that had Macey enjoyed Sri’s advantages, she could have achieved similar success and status. McAuley does an effective job of providing a sophisticated Earth society with a variety of influences and differing agendas, while the Outer factions are less well defined. Though, I’m betting he’s going to get round to those in due course.

Loc Ifrahim is less successful. He starts off very well, but unfortunately towards the end of the story, he becomes too much of a caricature. There are plotlines that could have coped with that type of shorthand, but this isn’t one of them. McAuley’s initial approach is too nuanced and knowing to allow such a lapse to be anything other than a disappointment. The other fascinating character is Dave #8. Perhaps his journey is the most dramatic of all and I’m going to track down Gardens of the Sun in no small part because I want to discover what happens to him.

McAuley is an accomplished, experienced writer and when I realised that he would be devoting pages of detail to his invented world, I decided to go with the flow. After all, if it got too tediously wordy I could always abandon the book and pick up the next one on the pile teetering by my bedside. As it happened, I fell under the spell of his enthusiasm and rolling prose, growing to really enjoy the flights of imagination that had these fragile bubbles of life seeded in improbable crannies around the solar system.

Overall, I found The Quiet War an enjoyable, satisfying read and will be tracking down Gardens of the Sun to discover what happens next, and if your taste runs to the harder end of science fiction and you haven’t yet come across this little nugget, I recommend you do so.
9/10

Review of Overthrowing Heaven – Book 3 of the Jon and Lobo series by Mark L. Van Name

This is another excellent offering from Baen – which immediately tells those of you in the know that this is adventure space opera, with something of a military edge. There is plenty of action, with plot twists aplenty and two strong protagonists who fully engaged my sympathies and drew me into the world.

Jon Moore grew up on an island of outcasts and in a prison laboratory. When he escaped, memories of the things he’d done still haunted him and he often helped those in need. This particular adventure began as a favour to a woman trying to get away from an abusive household. However, his kindnesses frequently didn’t work out well. This one really didn’t work out well.

It hurled John and Lobo, the intelligent assault vehicle and Jon’s only friend, down an accelerating, dangerous spiral involving: private armies and government covert ops teams; a courtesan who always seems a step ahead of him; rival superpowers that define ethics as whatever doesn’t get in their way; and a brilliant, amoral scientist to whom human beings are just more experimental animals – and who might be Lobo’s creator.

I have to say that the book is better than it sounds on the blurb – I’m not convinced that their back-of-the book summaries are one of Baen’s strengths. However, there is nothing wrong with the quality of their current stable of authors – I’ve recently read a batch of Baen books which have all impressed me and Van Name is one more to add to the list.

His characterisation of Jon is extremely deftly done in first person viewpoint – we get a real sense of how damaged and closed off he is because of his horrific childhood. At times, this is played for laughs – Jon’s complete cluelessness with women and Lobo’s merciless teasing creates some welcome humour in amongst the ever-tightening tension. There are also times when Jon’s essential loneliness creates a real sense of poignancy. I also very much liked the fact that despite their formidable strengths, Lobo and Jon are not depicted as invincible. They are up against a major organisation and there is a realistic appreciation of just what a difficult business it is for an outsider to gain access to Wei, the unscrupulous scientist, whom Jon and Lobo are contracted to extract. The other aspect to this book, which is a recurring theme throughout, is that Jon is determined that no one should die unnecessarily. He constantly wants to use trank weapons and is concerned that injuries he inflicts on his opponents aren’t life threatening. In a genre where violence is a staple and bloodstained bodies are part of the landscape, I found this preoccupation both enjoyable and a refreshing change. Jon is very aware that it is only his moral compass that sets him apart from a monstrous killing machine – and doesn’t let the reader forget it, yet manages to avoid any kind of preaching. It’s a clever trick to pull off.

Van Name’s pacing is faultless. It zips along at an appreciable rate so that a 541 page book didn’t seem long, yet at no time what I ever left in any doubt exactly what was happening in any of the action scenes. He also manages to effectively provide the whole unfolding plotline from a single viewpoint without sliding into omniscient viewpoint or holding up the action with a lot of description – an achievement which is a great deal harder than Van Name makes it look. He also earns a gold star from me by managing to make a third book in a series sufficiently stand alone, that I didn’t feel I was missing anything by not having read the two earlier books, One Jump Ahead and Slanted Jack. Having said that, I’m definitely going to try and get hold of them – Van Name is a great storyteller whose world is worth another visit.

10/10