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| Jacket art & design by The Chopping Block, Inc. |
| ROGUE STAR Michael Flynn New York: TOR, April 1998 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN 0-812-86136-2 | 446pp. | HC | $25.95 | |
This sequel to Firestar begins with Deep Space Vessel Gene Bullard en route to asteroid 1991JW, in the FarTrip mission that was planned at the close of the original volume of the series.
But the action soon returns to Earth, as Mariesa van Huyten is summoned to the White House, where President Donaldson delivers an ultimatum.
"I've been reading the old SDI study papers. LEO is the high ground, always prized by the military. Tremendous advantage of position." He leaned forward enthusiastically. "We can drop kinetic weapons from there— nonnuclear, you see, but awesome energy. We can wipe out armored columns or warships with not much more than lumps of metal. Crowbars with just enough brains to recognize a target from the air." – Pages 39-40 |
He means to intervene in the long-running Balkan conflict, and proposes that Mariesa should agree to place those weapons on the space station the purely commercial LEO Consortium is building out of space shuttle external tanks, now boosted to orbit instead of being discarded. Or else his Secretary of Transportation might decide the fees VHI is paying for the tanks are not a fair return.
She faces other opposition, too. Cyrus Attwood has died, but his nephew and heir vows to continue the fight against VHI. And Roberta Carson, the poet formerly known as Styx, now works for the People's Crusades. She has decided Mariesa wants to rule the world and undertaken a quest to bring her down at any cost.1
Ultimately, after agonizing over the decision, Mariesa goes along with Donaldson. By doing so, she gets access to a battle laser. It can be adapted to serve as a prototype for power beaming systems — and for defense against asteroids, the foundation of Mariesa's whole effort. But the decision proves a fateful one, precipitating... many things.
About midway through the novel, Mariesa notices traces of a disturbing trend in the trajectories of some near-Earth asteroids. Professional astronomers confirm her discovery that some of their trajectories have changed in ways that make a collision with Earth more likely — though still not imminent.
But that's nothing compared to what the three men aboard FarTrip have discovered.
"Ship rising over the hull," Werewolf reported. "Get ready." "Ned? You are aboard? Ah . . . To meet again after all this time . . ." "Those Lock-Mar cruisers aren't designed with missile launchers," Werewolf said. "And I doubt they jerry-rigged outboards on the hull, so . . . "Levkin, call off the attack. There are innocent people up here." ". . . so they must have carried the missiles as cargo, which means they have to open the cargo bays and . . " "Who is on side of angels now, old friend?" – Page 421 |
This novel is a worthy successor to Firestar, and that's saying a lot. Seldom will you find social and political realism so well married with technical accuracy. Although it has plenty of action and is shorter than Firestar, it doesn't move quite as fast or grab the reader quite as hard. But, with success more nearly in hand, Mariesa van Huyten and VHI have entered a world less dominated by fervent idealism facing off against reactionary ignorance — a world where baselines are shifting and issues once black or white are fading to shades of gray. Such worlds require just as much heroism; they just require heroism of a different kind.2
The book leads off with a cast of characters, and this is much needed given the number of characters present. It contains a spate of grammatical errors, but I noticed only one continuity error. That comes at the very end, when Roberta, having driven Mariesa back to Silverpond in her battered but serviceable Datsun, waits for Sykes to call her a cab. Full marks for the second volume in the series. Still to come: Lodestar (2000); and Falling Stars (2001).
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.