When the US discovered that aliens had invaded the middle east, they fought back and managed to capture the portal that enabled travel to and from the stars. With the help of a captured device, they transformed a Navy Submarine into a Space Ship called the USS Vorpal Blade, and took it out into the stars to fight off an alien enemy called the Dreen.
While both times they took the ship out into space, they were successful in beating back the Dreen, it nearly destroyed the ship each time. However, their campaign against the Dreen has had its own rewards, and the help and friendship of aliens who are also menaced by the Dreen is one of them. In each case, the aliens helped to rebuild the ship. The help from the latest aliens, the Hexosehr, literally rebuilt the ship almost from the ground up.
Now, back on earth, the Vorpal Blade is being readied for a third trip out into the stars, and one of its most decorated marines, Eric Bergstresser, is also getting married to the girl he loves, Brooke. Because the Vorpal Sword's missions are the most secret of Top Secret, though, he can't tell her any of the details. But the Navy and US's hand is about to be tipped. To really win the war with the Dreen, the entire earth must be involved with the building of a space fleet, and that means finally letting the Russians and Chinese in on the secret of the Dreen War and the existence of the Vorpal Blade, and with rumors running rampant among journalists, the US Government must also finally tell the truth to the ordinary Americans.
Which they were planning to do anyway, just not this early. But luckily, due to the films made using footage from the Dreen Invasion of Earth and the missions of the Vorpal Blade, the citizens come out strongly in favor of the actions of the Navy, and coincidentally make stars of many of the people who survived all three missions, including Eric Bergstresser. This shocks his new wife, but in a good way, and helps her quickly become a part of the military wives' club, who are there to help her deal with fallout from realizing how much peril he has been in.
As the crew and military deal with the new publicity, they also must find the missing parts desperately needed to keep the ship running... that were taken off the ship as non-essential parts and lost somewhere in the military storage depot, as well as get the necessary rolls of space tape that the military clerk doesn't want to disburse to them and deal with the new officers coming on board to replace those lost on the last mission. including a new CO who doesn't believe in women aboard Navy Subs... and has taken a dislike to Miriam Moon, the only one who understands the new alien tech the ship is built on! Can the crew change his mind about Miss Moon before he ends up undercutting the ship to its ultimate failure and the death of everyone on board?
Miriam decides to do an upgrade on the ship on her own, she sneaks her cat, Tiny, on board to deal with any pests the ship might pick up. "Tiny" being a misnomer for a cat that weighs 30 pounds, and is of the Savannah breed. And Tiny does find a small purplish-red crab-like creature surviving on cereal from the ship's stores. Upon investigating them, Miriam Moon discovers that the crab-things are genetically designed to feed on type-four organisms... exactly like the Dreen. But who created them?
When the Vorpal Blade discovers a strange signature around a nearby star, they investigate, to find a huge tree-like structure surrounded by four planets in the same orbit, orbitting at equidistant points. They soon dub it the "Tumtum Tree" and set off to investigate it. But when the marines inside are left behind so that the Vorpal Blade can aquire some Hexosehr help, the Dreen arrive, and the Marines are the only ones who can defend what they decide is the ultimate concert venue from the Dreen, with the help of the tiny crab-like things. But can they survive until the Vorpal Blade returns? Or will Brooke Bergstresser be mourning her husband at last?
I like this series, and it has all the gritty realism of hard-SF stories and military stories mixed with the humor and character development of the best soft-SF stories I usually enjoy reading. Oh yeah, and a high body count: though in this case the marines are killed en-masse by what seemed to be author fiat. It seemed that at a certain point in the story, the authors looked around and were like, "Oh darn, we haven't had any friendly casualties yet!" and decided to kill off most of the marines in one shot.
Admittedly, it probably wasn't as arbitary as I am making it seem, but that was certainly the kind of impression I was left with. And at least the marines in question got some small bits of character development before they were killed off. Or at least, one seemed to get most of the character development, a Finnish marine who I hoped would survive, but no such luck. In fact, in the future, if I see a marine getting the character development in many scenes, I'll know that this is one of the ones who is going to bite it, bigtime.
Aside from that small annoyance, it was nice to see everyone show up again, from the Hexosehr to the Cheerick, and the bumping up of several characters up the command ladder, Eric Bergstresser included, along with William Weaver, who was made XO (Executive Officer, for those unfamilliar with the term) to the new Captain of the Vorpal Blade from being a civilian consultant in the first two books. Eventually, of course, he *will* command the Vorpal Blade, but first he must take on the position of XO to understand how to delegate things under his command, and how to deal with the supply and other problems he'll deal with as CO.
In short this was a book that showed both sides of command, both the combat and the paperwork, and how both are important to the running of any command. So in addition to entertaining, it also informed, and I loved reading about all that. I also loved the scenes on the Tumtum Tree where the marines and Miriam Moon are arguing over what sort of music to play, which actually made me laugh out loud, and I rarely do that when reading.
For a mix of funny and realistic, combat and paperwork with an entertaining and realistic-seeming story of the American military in space, you will rarely find a better series than this one, and I do recommend it to anyone interested in Hard or Soft SF.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I believe you're wrong about Dr William Weaver. In "Into the Looking Glass", he was a civilian contractor. By Vorpal Blade he had joined the navy and been placed in accelerated courses and tours of duty to allow him to be the Astogator and the 3rd in command of the vessel as "Lt Commander".
Like I said, former civilian contractor. :)
Quote: "When the US discovered that aliens had invaded the middle east, they fought back and managed to capture the portal that enabled travel to and from the stars"
Might want to reread the first book. The portal was never captured. It was accidentally created at a Florida University (wiping out the university and a 5 mile radius at the same time in what at first looked like a nuclear event). What happened in the mid-east was some of the Dreen fungus was stolen and then not contained by one of the fanatic groups. Over the next several years, the Jihad against the Dreen took precedence over the one with the West, and most of the fundamental groups got wiped out fighting it. The U.S. or other nuclear powers would occasionally step in to prune back the Dreen with nukes.
I probably did read the first one too long before reading this one. Mea Culpa!
There was a portal captured and withheld in an underground bunker with heavy defenses which lead to an off world planet where we read the first hints of the dreadnaught dreen ship. So he's not entirely wrong.
She. :)
Post a Comment