Story: The plotline of “Vector Prime” is very standard sci-fi fodder, not even remotely original. Retreading the plots of such venerable SF franchises as Star Trek: The Next Generation (Conspiracy) and Blake’s 7 (Star One), the book involves an invasion of the galaxy by hostile aliens from the nearest neighboring galaxy. They’ve already slipped a few agents into our heroes’ galaxy to make sure the alarm doesn’t go up, and by the time Luke, Han, Leia and the others find out about the invasion, it’s almost too late.

Review: Sound familiar? It should. Virtually the only difference between this story and the above examples – among dozens of others – is that the aliens are invading the galaxy of Tattooine, Endor, Hoth, etc., rather than invading Earth for once. Speaking as a citizen of the planet Earth, I’m relieved about this development, but as a reader, I found the plot hackneyed and all too predictable. (more…)

Story: Pilot Luke Skywalker and Rebel Diplomat Princess Leia Organa find themselves stranded on the unfamiliar swamp planet of Mimban after their Starfighters crash land on the way to an important treaty negotiation. Once aground, Luke and Leia find themselves teaming up with Halla, a Force-sensitive, in her search for the Kaiburr Crystal, an ancient artifact that amplifies Force powers for those who wield it. But there is an Imperial presence on Mimban, and it doesn’t take long for word of the Kaiburr Crystal to make it back to the Empire’s chief enforcer, Lord Darth Vader…

Review: “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye” holds an important position within the Star Wars canon. It is the first novel in what would eventually become known as the Expanded Universe (EU): Star Wars tales beyond those portrayed in the films. (more…)

Story: 12-year-old Jedi apprentice Anakin Skywalker steals away from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant long enough to participate in a dangerous and highly illegal race that makes pod racing look safe by comparison – but this time, an assassin tails him, an alien with a lust for the blood of a Jedi. Anakin’s master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, barely saves the boy, bringing him before the Jedi Council for a disciplinary hearing. Just when Anakin expects to be ejected from the order of the Jedi, a mission is assigned to Obi-Wan, who reluctantly takes the boy along. The two travel to the hidden world of Zonoma-Sekot, a planet on the edge of known space renowned for its organic ship-building technology. Another Jedi was sent there several months prior, and has never been heard from again. Obi-Wan and Anakin are to investigate the ship forges and try to locate the missing Jedi in the process. Unbeknownst to them, however, an unscrupulous Republic commander named Tarkin also wants a glimpse of Zonoma-Sekot…and then he wants to take it over, using the planet’s unique technology as a part of his own grand schemes of conquest.

Review: Holy cow! A Star Wars novel which doesn’t absolutely disappoint and annoy me? My friends, you have no idea how much of a miracle this is. I’ve been underwhelmed about the Star Wars books since Timothy Zahn originated the unique legacy of Star Wars authors getting it wrong in every important way back in 1991. (more…)

Story: Han Solo and his co-pilot Chewbacca run afoul of the Corporate Sector Authority when they try to hook up with a pirate outfit in order to repair the Millenium Falcon. Unfortunately, the proprietor, Doc, has disappeared. But his daughter, Jessica, an old flame of Han’s, makes a deal to do his repairs for free if he can rescue her father. They must team up with a pair of droids and variety of others who have also lost loved ones to try and penetrate the Authority and rescue the missing people.

Review: “Han Solo At Stars’ End” marks the beginnings of the “Han Solo Trilogy”, set in the years prior to the original Star Wars. It sees Han very much in “scoundrel” mode, often thinking about himself above all others. Of course, his heart of gold shows through, too, but for the most part, it is his more ruthless nature that is on display here. (more…)

Story: With her exploits at Basilisk Station having become the stuff of Royal Manticoran Navy legend, Captain Honor Harrington finds her next challenge a bit more daunting. With Manticore’s enemies, the People’s Republic of Haven, trying to gain a foothold in a star system close to Manticore space, a fleet – including Honor’s new HMS Fearless, a massive battlecruiser named in honor of her first command – is dispatched to the planet Grayson to open diplomatic relations and gain a foothold for Manticore as well. The somewhat backward Grayson is primitive both technologically and socially, with its patriarchal society regarding women as the property of men – and when the Graysons see a woman in command of the Manticoran fleet arriving at their planet, the reactions range from curious to openly hostile. Worse yet, the Graysons’ sworn enemies, the government of the planet Masada, are the same, only they hold to a fanatical desire to wipe Grayson off the star charts – and they’ve found a willing ally and weapons supplier in the People’s Republic of Haven. Honor is tasked with a mission to ensure a treaty is signed between Manticore and Grayson, but before long she’s not sure if she’s welcome, or safe, among her new allies.

Review: The slow-building sequel to David Weber’s first Honor Harrington book, “The Honor Of The Queen” shows an evolving universe, evolving characters and an evolving writing style. Compared to “On Basilisk Station”, this book suffers from much less of the momentum-killing tendency to drop 16 tons of exposition and technical backstory into the middle of a gripping battle scene. When things happen in “The Honor Of The Queen”, Weber wisely allows the action to thunder down the tracks on its own steam; the result is a breathless page-turner. (more…)

Story: Commander Honor Harrington, a promising if unconventional up-and-coming command officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy, arrives aboard her new command – the outdated cruiser Fearless, whose armaments have been stripped to make way for an experimental new weapon, the grav lance, which proves to be effective in fleet exercises…but only until its first use, after which the Fearless is pummeled in the fleet’s wargames. As punishment, Harrington, the Fearless, and her new crew are assigned to Basilisk Station – a backwater customs inspection posting on the frontier of Manticore space usually reserved for officers and ships fallen from favor. Worse yet, the ship currently commanding the Basilisk Station operation is due for a refit, leaving Fearless and her limited resources to cover an impossible area of space. When Honor deploys her crew to cover all of the bases and conduct the routine inspections, she is met with protests – apparently, no officer dumped at this posting has ever actually carried out the inspection duties. And that suits the neighboring rival government of the People’s Republic of Haven just fine – they’re planning to take Basilisk Station, the planet Medusa, and Basilisk’s strategically valuable wormhole junction away from Manticore. But Haven’s plan is dependent on Manticore’s long record of lax customs enforcement – and no one counted on Honor Harrington and the HMS Fearless uncovering the invasion plan, much less single-handedly stopping it.

Review: The kickoff of David Weber’s cult favorite Honor Harrington series, “On Basilisk Station” has a lot of ground to cover, from setting up the characters, the universe, their intricate political situation and the history that led to all of the above. The manner in which Weber accomplishes this task is something I would describe as elegant clumsiness. The author has worked out his universe, and why it is the way it is, in painstaking detail; if there’s a single fault, it’s frequently Weber’s timing in putting the story on pause to deliver enormous chunks of backstory. Make no mistake, he picks points in the story where the background information is directly related to the action at hand, but this doesn’t alter the pacing-killing fact that he puts the book’s climactic space battle on hold several times to tell you about, for example, the evolution of FTL travel in the Honorverse. It’s interesting stuff, but it’s appendix stuff (and the book still has an appendix containing more background information!), especially when the voice in the back of my skull is screaming “But there’s a bloody great space battle going on right now! Why are you telling me this now?” (more…)

Story: The writings of the late Douglas Adams (of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy fame) are gathered into four categories. “Life” collects essays by (and interviews with) Adams on the subject of his life, career, and reactions to seemingly everyday happenings; “The Universe” widens the scope to include Adams’ love affair with technology, computers, science and conservation; “Everything” covers everything else (including the author’s fascination with religion and evolution), and “The Salmon Of Doubt” collects the best drafts of the Dirk Gently novel Adams left unfinished at the time of his death.

Review: I think it goes without saying that Douglas Adams left us far, far too soon. I’ve been taking a crash course in bittersweet reminders lately as I’ve alternated between this book and the 3-CD Douglas Adams At The BBC set, which also chronicles his many interviews and early radio work. It’s brought back forcefully my feeling that Adams will go down not just as one of the 20th century’s most influential writers, but in time will be recognized as one of its foremost speculative thinkers as well. (more…)

Story: The original broadcast adventures of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, and quite a few characters who didn’t make it into the novels based on the series.

Review: This recent “10th anniversary” reprint of the complete radio scripts of the BBC’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio shows – which, for those who didn’t already know, predate the books, TV show and Infocom game, by the way – is much more of what I’d like from a script book. The scripts aren’t interrupted by the commentary; the commentary is instead placed at the end of each half-hour script, and includes such amazingly obscure and useful information as what music was licensed for use in each program, how casting decisions were made, and the origins of situations, characters, and so on. (more…)

Story: Coming from a somewhat unexpected source, this book can’t seem to decide if it’s a biography of Douglas Adams, or the definitive history of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” story as told in multitudes of media. But in any case, it would be virtually impossible to write the former without at least temporarily lapsing into the latter, so it’s okay. Neil’s just zis guy, ya know?

Review: Though there are wonderfully large amounts of previously unknown information about the behind-the-scenes machinations of “Hitchhiker’s Guide” on TV, on radio, in print, and – gasp! – on stage, I really have to single out the section on Adams’ fan mail as the most hilarious portion of the book. The fan mail itself isn’t that funny; in fact, some of it comes across as positively disturbing. But Adams’ answers never fail to give me a good belly laugh – especially at the thought that the original letter writers probably turned around and tried to read something into them! (more…)

Story: A variety of authors relate their various disciplines to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy novels, discussing everything from the books’ impact on them to the books’ impact on science fiction to follow, and perhaps even on such real-life things as computer user interface design.

Review: Another entry in Benbella Books’ “SmartPop” series, “The Anthology At The End Of The Universe” targets the breadth and depth of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” saga, cannily timed to arrive at the same time as the Guide’s big screen edition. (That last bit’s actually a pity – one wonders what the various essayists thought of the movie.) The sundry contributors offer their views on the symbology of the towel, the underlying grimness at the heart of Adams’ SF-comedy epic, the place of eschatology in the series, Adams’ literary and SF influences (and his influence on the SF literature that followed him), and whether or not Americans are truly capable of “getting” Hitchhiker’s humor. As always, the spread of topics is admirable, the degree to which the essays explore their chosen premises varies, and you’ll probably learn at least a little something from the proceedings. (more…)