Starship Flagship: A Review

[Originally published over at SpaceMoat, which I had hoped I would mold into a website for book reviews, comic reviews, etc. However, as with many of my projects, it never really got off the ground, so I'm going to publish all that sort of content over here from now on.  SpaceMoat is now a publishing ground for Zachary Pine, a friend of mine who studies at University of California, Berkeley.]

Author: Mike Resnick
Pyr Books
ISBN-13: 9781591027881
Pages: 335
Publication Date: December 22, 2009

 

Mike Resnick has a track record for some of the best science fiction ever written.  He ranks as one of the leading award winners, and has a writing career spanning over half a century.  And yet his last book in the Starship series, ending the “Republic” period of the Birthright Universe left something of a sour taste in my mouth.

As I finished it, I tried to pinpoint what exactly I desired.  It wasn’t plot, this book had that.  It wasn’t action, this book definitely had that.  I think it was something between believability and a true suspension of disbelief.  It was also the sheer number of plot holes.  That was pretty scary.  At times it seemed that this book’s mission was to chart how many coincidences could be plotted so that the book’s characters could achieve what they desired.  It was slightly disturbing at times.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Starship series, it began with Starship: Mutiny.  I read this book several years ago, and it was quite good, a very light military science fiction tale, not too much jargon and just the right amount of action.  I liked it enough to keep reading the series.  The only thing that really kept me going through each of the books was the lightness of them.  They don’t require much to follow them, there aren’t intertwining story lines, or complex arcs.  1 main character, 1 main story line, and every plot point connected with the main character: Wilson Cole.

Formerly one of the most decorated officers in the Republic’s Navy, a 3 million ship force spanning thousands of populated worlds, Wilson Cole was one of my favorite science fiction characters.  He was funny, smart, and upheld his principles.  This is still somewhat true after I finished this book, but he was tarnished by some of its events.

At the end of the book, in one the last appendices, Mr. Resnick goes into detail about what he believed each of his Starship books was truly about, and the questions that he tried to raise.  While it could be a small spoiler, he explains that one question he tried to raise in this book was the purpose of torture, and whether a situation may justify its use.  Yes, Cole forsakes his principles to commit harsh interrogation and walk the fuzzy line between it and torture.  The previous book, Starship: Rebel also had elements of this in it.  To say that Mr. Resnick’s execution of his questions failed may be a little harsh, but I did expect a tad bit more from one of the masters of science fiction.

I mentioned earlier that suspension of disbelief wasn’t really kept through the entire book, and I truly believe that it’s the very premise that’s hard to stomach.  Wilson Cole, on a ship that’s nearly 80 years out of date wages war on a Republic with nearly 3 million ships in its Navy and tears it down not by winning tactically, but through other smarter means: propaganda and the like.  While I won’t spoil the actual ways that he does it, it does seem rather incredible to say the least.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh.  Looking back on the entire series, I can see that it’s probably not meant to be the most serious science fiction tale.  It’s not Asimov’s Foundation, and it’s probably not meant to be.  It’s most likely meant to be a fun, light, military science fiction romp, and it does succeed at that.

The entire series, if charted, took me about 15 days to read.  If you have 15 days to spare, take a read of the exploits of Wilson Cole and leave a comment below on what you thought!

If it’s anything, my short time in this point of the Birthright Universe does make me want to read other tales of the Birthright Universe, if only to escape for a few minutes from the more complex tales I’ve been reading.