Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

John McClain’s ancestors in: Die Hard 23
By
Trevor Curtis
Staff Writer

Military SF usually falls into two categories: those trying rewrite Heinlein novels, or those trying to bore us to death with the technical details of their spacecraft (see David Weber). Thankfully, Vigilante by Laura Reeve falls into neither category.

Vigilante is the second in a series, the first being called Peacekeeper. It’s set in a universe where humans have reached the stars, using something called an N-space drive. Their only interaction with aliens seems to be with a race called the Minoans, apparently called that due to their resemblance to the Minotaur of Greek legend. The Minoans have a series of buoys they use to navigate N-space, and tend to treat humans like their inferiors. Humanity is divided between the Consortium of Autonomous Worlds and the Terran Expansion League, apparently over who should pay for cleaning up Earth after the Yellowstone volcano finally goes boom.

Our hero, Ariane Kedros, is a hard-bitten pilot, formerly of the Consortium, but still working intelligence for them. She’s haunted by her actions during the last war, when she completed a mission using what’s called a Temporal Displacement weapon, wiping out an entire star system. Because this still haunts her, she’s pretty much a functioning alcoholic. Apparently in the first book, she was tortured by Terrans, and forced to give up some mining rights.

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Image copyright Penguin Publishing Group

The book starts with the heroine going to a system called G-145, where ancient alien ruins have been discovered. Unbeknownst to Ariane, a group of fanatics have stolen a TD weapon and are planning to blow up one of the Minoan buoys, effectively isolating the system, and wiping out the inhabitants. Complicating matters for Ariane is the arrival of the Terran prince who tortured her in the last book, the fact she has an illegal AI on her ship, and said prince has not kept his word about keeping her identity secret. So, needless to say, she’s got a lot of problems to solve before books end.

I enjoyed this book. Ariane is a nice change from the usual over-achieving heroines of most SF. It was nice to see someone screwed up and haunted take the center stage. Also, Reeve has set up an interesting universe, one I’d like to see more of. I really liked the sense that Ariane is a regular lady who keeps finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Minoans are interesting, if a little overused as deus ex machina at times. I also think that the author’s background in treaty negotiations and the military added a sense of authenticity to many scenes.

Now, there were some negatives. Like a lot of hard SF, this book took a little while to get into. A little more background in the beginning would have helped a lot, as this was the second in a series. Also, the villains were a little too stock, and were pretty much the space version of Wahabi fundamentalist Muslims. A little more humanity to them and a little less rhetoric would have been welcome.

That said, Vigilante is a great gritty adventure, so much so that you can almost feel the dirt coming off the pages. It manages to come across as a mix of noir and SF genres, and seems to mirror our times, which is something the best fiction accomplishes.

Final Verdict (out of 5):

With Forever War being a 5, and any of Weber’s space battle scenes being a 1