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Cross the Stars - by David Drake
For someone who has claimed not to be the biggest fan of military
sci-fi, I do seem to keep seeking it out. Or, maybe that's just a
large part of the 'laser' genre, and I should try to mix in a little
more of the 'sword' from time to time. Well, this was my first Drake
book, and so obviously my first visit to his Hammer's Slammers
universe, and I must say that it was a good trip. The writing was
brisk and still detailed, the main character was tough yet had some
good layers to his personality, and the story ranged across some
decent varied scenarios in it's course.
The structure of the narrative was slightly odd, however. The book
begins as if it will be a rescue scenario, then finds our hero leaving
one world for another. Once on that second stop, however, the book
spends the majority of the remaining pages in a series of action
vignettes, as told via the holo-story-room of the family he meets on
this new world. It almost felt as if Drake had wanted to write a
collection of short stories, and so strung them together in this way.
However, after two hundred pages of this, we then spend the last
hundred back on the home world of the hero, and an entire political
subplot arises, which must be explained and resolved in time for the
finale.
While it sounds like this stutter-step plotting may have bothered me
as the reader, I was actually sufficiently entertained by the author's
ability to craft his tale that I was willing to excuse and overlook
this somewhat confusing choice. While still not likely to seek out
military themed work overall, I found this to be an enjoyable and
engaging work, and do indeed recommend it to fans of the genre.
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