Impulse-Dave Bara

Impulse

Dave Bara

DAW, Feb 3 2015, $24.95

ISBN: 9780756409968

Centuries ago the Corporate Empire of Man expanded to almost a thousand planets, but corruption and incompetence led to a devastating eight-decade civil war.  The Corporate Empire collapsed with most of the former member systems turning inward.  Not too long ago, Earth Historians began reaching out to other systems offering technological support that led to the forming of the loose Union.

In the present, word arrives on one of the original rebellious planets Quantar that their lightship HMS Impulse, allegedly on a first contact mission in the Levant system, was attacked by a hyperdimensional wave leaving several dead.  Quantar Royal Navy Grand Admiral Nathan Cochrane informs his son Lieutenant Peter Cochrane that the latter’s girlfriend died in the attack and that the real mission was to investigate whether hyperdimensional anomalies in that sector threatened the Union.  Finally he promotes and reassigns Peter from leading teams on the HMS Starbound to take charge as the senior naval officer on board the Impulse to continue its secret mission and prevent the vessel from retaliating against any remnants of the First Empire.  Nothing goes right as he, his supervisor Commander Dobrina Kierkopf and others are under assault from former empire’s technology while an Earth Historian takes control of the Impulse.

Anchored by complex outer space multi-systems, a primogeniture hierarchy and an intriguing civilization history focused on the effects of war and the renaissance, the first Lightship Chronicles is a hyperspeed very entertaining military science fiction.  Filled with action and in spite of the reader anticipating almost every critical time how the hero will react to the dangerous scenarios he confronts, fans will want to join Peter on his mission. 

Harriet Klausner