RogerBW's Blog

Audacious, Mike Shepherd 30 June 2020

2007 military SF, fifth of the Kris Longknife books. Kris is sent to show the royal flag on a minor diplomatic mission to one of Earth's first colonies.

Well, of course, that's not what it's going to be about! And I'm glad to say that people have smartened up a bit compared with previous books in this series; Kris quickly realises that the thing which has happened before is happening again, and by the end of the book has confronted the King and made it clear that she's not going to be put into this kind of situation ("it's messed up, and we want you to do something about it") with no briefing or orders any more.

The bad guys have smartened up a little too, but we still have the usual pattern of "stupid Peterwald heir throws spanners in the works of the competent but not as well-born enemy field commander" – indeed, on this occasion, if the heir hadn't been stupid, Kris wouldn't have been alerted to the actual planetary takeover plot in time to do anything about it. I'd take this as a polemic against hereditary power if Shepherd weren't so clearly happy to have his heroine being an actual princess (and if the king appointed himself, so much the better).

There's never any question of loyalties here: you can tell which side someone's on within a paragraph of their introduction. OK, so can everyone in the book, which helps them look a bit less like idiots, but it's still a bit lacking in subtlety for my taste. (Of course, all the professional military characters are on the side of Good.)

On the other hand… this book's planet has a political mess, and one might have expected a lesser author to go off on a political rant – many do – but Shepherd sticks strictly to the desire for a universal franchise rather than getting into any of the other problems. (That said, there's a welcome acknowledgement that by the end of the book there are plenty of problems left for the planet to solve once the shooty heroes have gone home.)

The opposition still tends to be a bit dim, but they're doing better than they have in previous books. Their plan actually makes some amount of sense (though if lbh'er tbvat gb nffnffvangr gur ragver yrnqrefuvc bs gur cynarg fb gung lbhe cngfvrf pna zbir va naq gnxr bire, jbhyqa'g vg znxr frafr gb trg gur bccbfvgvba nf jryy fvapr gur pheerag yrnqrefuvc vf zhpu zber ba lbhe fvqr guna gurl jvyy or naq gurl'er zhpu zber boivbhfyl va n cbfvgvba gb gel gb sbez n tbireazrag?). The action works.

This isn't great, but it's better than the last few. Or maybe I should just keep taking them at multi-year intervals.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Resolute | Series: Kris Longknife | Next in series: Intrepid

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1