2020 military SF, first of a series. Max Carmichael, younger daughter
of a super-rich family, is trying to get away from their influence.
Meanwhlie the Near Earth Orbital Guard is just trying to keep space
safe for honest travellers…
Yeah, the premise here is unashamed US Coast Guard in space.
Which I can live with; at least it hasn't been overdone like US Navy
in space. While there's some of the usual military SF angle here, and
people are under orders, the overall theme is very much, and
explicitly, about the found-family of a good crew as distinct from the
birth-family one got away from.
There are two overall plots: preparation for the Boarding Games, which
started as an informal competition for shipboard skills but has
somehow now become the most popular sporting event in the world, and a
criminal conspiracy which turns out to be much larger than the one
slightly dodgy ship that started it all. The Boarding Games are the
occasion for team-building, though I was a little surprised that only
the hand-to-hand fighting element was covered in detail. (Only a
complete idiot takes a gun aboard a spacecraft, so our not-Coast-Guard
use swords and unarmed combat.)
The author is very clearly American. It's never questioned that the
life-extending treatment (which also allows human activity in space,
because it protects from radiation damage) is and should be the
monopoly of a single corporation, or that various bodies do and should
use the cost of the treatment as a way of stopping employees from
leaving. All military people are Good. It's not clear what the Navy
actually does, or indeed the Army or Air Force, what with the
unified government and no aliens, but never mind, Coast Guard gotta be
dumped on by everyone else.
You have to get into that mindset to enjoy the book, I think. Don't
stop and ask why this military is good, or what it's for apart from
being Space Cops; it's all about the found family. I managed this
attitude control, and I enjoyed it.
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