Starship: Rebel-Mike Resnick

Starship: Rebel
Mike Resnick
Pyr, Dec 16 2008, $25.98
ISBN: 9781591026952

After disobeying a direct order that would have killed millions (see STARSHIP: MERCENARY), the Federation throws Captain Wilson Cole of the starship Theodore Roosevelt into the brig awaiting court martial. Knowing he will be found guilty, his loyal crew rescues him and flees to the Inner Frontier where they become pirates then mercenaries.. Cole now commands fifty ships with the home base being Singapore Station

A close friend, the alien Commander Forrice, is tortured and killed because he refused to tell where the Teddy R is docked. Cole blasts the vessel where his friend was executed. Federation ships retaliate by destroying an entire populated planet. Furious, Cole intends to attack the Federation to keep them out of the Inner Frontier where they impress civilians into their navy and do whatever abuse they want on independent worlds. Joining Cole on his quest is warlord Octopus who has hundreds of ships, and Lafferty who foments rebellion inside the Federation. The enemy sends the biggest armada with the greatest weaponry ever known to take out Teddy R and the Singapore Station.

The fourth Starship saga is as fast-paced and action-paked as its predecessors. Though a bit over Mount Olympus with a thin plot, this is fun military space opera as Mike Resnick paints a vivid galactic future that in many ways mirrors present earth with conflicts everywhere. Fans of the series will be in shock with the direction Cole takes us as he decides who the true enemy is.

Harriet Klausner