AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: The Far Side of the Stars by David Drake ISBN: 0-7434-7158-X Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4.14 (7 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Ciphers On Tour
Comment: Others have mentioned the picaresque plot of this book. I don't have any problem with that, per se. A meandering journey can be entertaining if you are with people you like, but I'm afraid that's where this book falls short. Neither Leary nor Mundy are much more than ciphers here, and they are the most developed characters. Does either have a friend besides the other? Leary at least has some defining quirks away from work, but in this book he doesn't even get to do any wenching. Mundy is an almost tragic character, totally defined by her work, compelled to gather mounds of information that nobody will ever consult, totally cut off from love or even compainionship (other than Leary's). The Klimovs would seem to have potential to be great characters, but Drake underplays them time and again, letting the most interesting revelation (about the Count's past) pass without acknowledgement.

The odd thing is that Drake's characterizations in the Lord of the Isles books are so much better. The plots meander just as much, but all four main characters have such distinct and totally appealing voices that it matters hardly at all. Caschel in particular is the best realized character in any of Drake's works, and possibly anywhere.

Rating: 5
Summary: A Tour of the Galactic North, With Various Battles
Comment: The Far Side of the Stars is the third novel in the RCN series, following Lt. Leary, Commanding. In the previous volume, the captain and crew of the Princess Cecile have been marooned yet escaped, cut a deal with pirates, driven off an Alliance squadron, and installed a new president for Strymon. In the process, their ship has been badly damaged and was left in a Strymon shipyard for repair under Lieutenant Mon while Daniel and Adele return to Xenos.

In this novel, Daniel is temporarily at half-pay while his ship is under repair. He has been preparing a funeral for his uncle Stacey Bergen, the famous navigator and explorer. He is his uncle's principal heir and has been named as trustee for the widow. His sister Deirdre has passed on a message through Adele that he needs to find a yardmanager for his uncle's shipyard.

The Princess Cecile has been brought back to Xenos by Lieutenant Mon to be sold out of service. The Count and Countess Klimov from Novy Sverdlovsk have been carried on the Sissie as passengers and wish to buy the ship. Lieutenant Mon has been offered command, but the ship has encountered several problems in transit, so the crew think Mon is a hard-luck captain. Mon asks for advice from Daniel and is instead offered management of the Bergen and Associates shipyard, while Daniel takes the captaincy of the Princess Cecile. Everybody is satisfied and the crew happily cues up to sign the ship's articles.

The Klimovs have several requirements, including hunting, primitive societies, and card games. However, they are primarily searching for a huge carved gem called the Earth Diamond. Eighty years before, a mercenary soldier made himself Emperor Ivan the First of Novy Sverdlovsk. Twenty years later, he was overthrown but escaped in his private yacht with the Earth Diamond and other treasures. Since the present continents of Earth had been deformed by planetoid bombardment prior to the Hiatus, the information carved on the diamond globe is now literally priceless. The ex-emperor was last reported heading toward the Galactic North. Therefore, the first port of call for the ship will be 4795-C, where there are dragons, enroute to Todos Santos in the Ten Star Cluster.

Adele has an additional task bestowed by Mistress Sand. The RCN has received word of an Alliance base under construction on Gehenna, the satellite of Radiance, the capital of the Commonwealth of God. The Commonwealth has embargoed Radiance to foreign naval vessels, but the Princess Cecile is now a private yacht with the armament and sensors of a warship. Moreover, Bernis Sand arranges for the reinstallation of additional modules to further enhance the sensors.

The first part of the story is a quest for the Earth Diamond. Step by step the Sissie follows the path of the Emperor's yacht. They find a belt-buckle here and an artifact there, leading them toward the priceless relict.

They run into Alliance interference on Todos Santos in the form of Captain Bertram of the freighter Goldenfels. The captain begins to form a grudge toward Daniel when the Sissie is assigned to the berth that had previously been reserved for his ship. Then Bertram tries to cheat at cards, but the Count gets the better of him anyway. Moreover, the Goldenfels is not what she seems, for she has military grade security systems and over three hundred men on board; she has to be an Alliance spy ship. When the Princess Cecile leaves Todos Santos, the Goldenfels pursues her.

While this volume differs radically in plot from the first two in the series, the Princess Cecile nevertheless gets into some fearsome naval battles, even though she is now a civilian craft. However, she gains some unexpected allies along the way. Moreover, the plot was designed by Murphy: everything outside their control goes wrong and only the competence of captain and crew saves them from numerous perils.

This story takes place in an ambiance much like the Napoleonic Era. In fact, the Alliance commanders are named for French commanders of that time. However, the technology seems to tie this series to the Reaches trilogy based on an environment much like the early Spanish colonial period. If so, the Reaches stories must occur during the early recovery from the Hiatus. Maybe the author plans to connect these two storylines.

One thing seems to be incongruous, however. The author mentions that the communications protocols are based on those of his former unit in Viet Nam, which seems to be the case. But the RCN environment is sufficiently different to make those protocols problematical. While current naval (and marine) protocols need not be used, the naval call sign conventions are designed for the much more complex environment of a naval capital ship, both internally and externally. Some of the terminology also differs. However, call initiation, termination and other control practices are not very different in most environments.

To some extent, these commo practices were modified for communications with other ships, ports and so forth. While these modifications are sufficient for a small vessel such as the Princess Cecile, further mods would be required for a larger ship with a crew in the thousands and with dozens of excursions by landing craft, shuttles and other onboard craft. Moreover, larger craft have escorts and the larger the ship, the more numerous the escorts. In addition, naval communications and control is much more centralized than the military versions; so many vessels moving at such high velocities relative to each other must be controlled much more closely and require more complex communications protocols. Thus, naval protocols are much like that of a combined airport and seaport which is itself moving through space.

Nonetheless, this story was very convincing and filled with excitement throughout; the author knows how to keep the reader on the edge of his seat. The characterization, however, was rather wooden, with each character having only a few defining attributes. Adele has the best defined character, but she is deliberately handicapped with a notable flatness of affect; for example, she has little fear of dying and she presents a blank expression even when disturbed by some incident. One would hope that she loosens up more as the series continues.

Highly recommended for Drake fans and for anyone else who enjoys naval SF in a highly complex political environment.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Rating: 3
Summary: Not bad, but not up to RCN#1
Comment: The Far Side of the Stars is the third in Drake's RCN series, light space-operas starring Lt. Daniel Leary, a young starship captain in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy, and his faithful, deadly Signal Officer Adele Mundy. I liked With the Lightnings, the first book of this series, a lot: , but didn't much care for Lt. Leary, Commanding, the darker sequel. This one's an improvement, I thought, but still....

The RCN series is Drake's SF tribute to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin "Master & Commander" series -- itself a knockoff of Forester's Hornblower stories [note 1]. The sfnalization of Jack Aubrey's Royal Navy is a bit too literal for my taste -- Drake has starships with actual *sails*, complete with sailors in the rigging, and warships exchanging broadsides of solid-shot missiles. Granted, these are Casimir-effect sails, and antimatter-powered missiles that have a top speed of 0.6 c, but still....

Leary and Mundy (the fighting librarian!) were a fresh, fun combination in LIGHTNINGS. In this book, they, and their supporting cast, seem a little shopworn. One of the pleasures of a good series is watching the characters and background develop and grow richer from book to book. So far, Leary, Mundy and their universe seem pretty static -- and I'm starting to think that they aren't really very likeable, or very interesting, people. The plot is episodic, which is fine, but, you know, we've seen this stuff before.... And the auctorial pushing, shoving and hammering-to fit are distressingly obvious.

Hmm. I see I haven't said much about what actually happens in the book. And I don't think I will, actually: you can get a plot summary from the Usual Sources, but I don't think it's really going to help you decide whether or not to read the book. Anyway, if you're new to the series, you need to start with #1. And stop there, would be my advice.

Bottom line: STARS is decent commercial fiction and a not-unpleasant way to spend a few hours. Fans of Leary & Mundy will want to check it out [note 2]. But Drake has done better. And I believe I'll let someone else take the lead in trying out the next RCN Leary/Mundy book.

Baen's cover art comes in for (often well-deserved) brickbats, and this is a prime example. The man in the heavily-armored spacesuit (click on cover to enlarge), who appears to be riding a souped-up Space Ski-Doo --and the four different typefaces in the title, all contribute to, well, an *unusual* cover. Eye-catching, to be sure. It definitely doesn't match my mental picture of STARS...

STARS comes with a bonus: a really neat CD, which includes the complete texts for 26(!) of Drake's books, including an audio version of STARS and other cool stuff. This is a new Baen marketing idea, and a good one.
_________
Note 1). the O'Brian books are popular with a lot of SF fans (including me). And everyone should try at least one Hornblower....

Note 2). One hazard the book-reviewer faces is that critical reading of light, commercial fiction may spoil the fun for the reviewer. For this one, I was truly in the mood for a light, escapist read, and read it pretty much like I'd read any such book. It just didn't quite do the job for me, and I'm adding this note to make sure you know that I like Drake, and I like this kind of book, and I think I gave it a fair shake. And it's not a *bad* book -- just a little disappointing. Your mileage may vary.

Review copyright 2004 by Peter D. Tillman
First published at SF Site

Similar Books:

	Title: Crown Of Slaves by David Weber, Eric Flint ISBN: 0743471482 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00
	Title: There Will Be Dragons by John Ringo ISBN: 0743471644 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00
	Title: The Course of Empire by Eric Flint, K. D. Wentworth ISBN: 0743471547 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00
	Title: Ring of Fire by Eric Flint ISBN: 074347175X Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $23.00
	Title: Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon ISBN: 0345447603 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95