2024 SF, fourteenth of its series. Roslyn Chambers takes one of the
experimental scout cruisers out in pursuit of the other, which was
stolen at the end of the previous book.
Well, I'm getting a certain sad feeling of inevitability here.
Much as David Weber's series got to a point where the main conflict
could have been brought to a permanent end, only for Weber visibly to
notice that no explodey spaceships equals no book sales and require
everyone to behave like idiots in order to kick off a new war, I can
see a sadly likely course of future events which will bring in a Great
Big War to finish off the series.
(But maybe Stewart will surprise me. He has before!)
What actually happens here is rather more interesting, and more fun.
The stolen ship is very short of crew, which means that they simply
don't have as many options as the pursuers who took a few days to drag
in a full (if inexperienced) complement before setting off after them;
and in a genre which tends to favour the small band of plucky heroes
it's good to see this being taken seriously. Even more importantly,
the mindset of the hijackers leads them simply not to be able to
accept certain things which would potentially render their
multi-generation conspiracy (and all the bad things they did in
service of it) pointless.
Sadly, this does mean we spend rather more time with the hijackers
than with the pursuers, which wouldn't have been my choice (they are
after all fanatics, if reasonably competent ones). Chambers is an
interesting enough character that she really doesn't have to be
relegated to the B-plot in her own book.
Ah well, Not one of my favourites but it still works, and there are at
least two more books out already…