very good. The League of Planets is an alliance of planets scattered in a bunch of solar systems in the vicinity of Earth in the 22nd Century. Most planets are settled by people from one particular country back on Earth and retain that country's culture. Mankind has a lightspeed-squared drive to travel among the planets. A group called the Guardians attacks and conquers the planet New Finland.
Joslyn and Terrance (Mac) Larson are married members of the League's new Survey Service. Joslyn is from the planet Britannica, Mac from the planet called the Republic of Kennedy (obviously an American planet). On an exploratory mission, they receive news that New Finland, a League member, has been attacked. They are to play a key role in fighting back against the Guardians.
MacBride Allen does a terrific job explaining the science of the day with a lot of juicy detail. His concept of hollowed out asteroids transformed into habitats is clever. He mentions motors in each wheel hub in electric cars. He gives the soldiers laser weapons, but explains their weaknesses. The future history described in the book is interesting. Politics are important to the plot. The book's characters make sense and are reasonably developed. Unfortunately, Allen uses a plot gimmick, in the form of a new scientific discovery, as the basis of the plan to free New Finland. As a side issue, the 22nd Century has faster than light travel, spaceships and laser weaponry, but its computers are not much more powerful than our own. The Guardians somehow never bother with setting up reconnaissance satellites. Other than that, the book is a fun read, with good pace, a lot of action and some suspense. MacBride Allen's writing style is to keep piling on action after moer action. The reader feels that the book will never end -- and is happy about it.
The Guardians turn out to be a right-wing sexist racist organization. Using racists as the bad guys is not an unusual approach in science fiction. See A Small Colonial War, by Robert Frezza. Or see Glory by Alfred Coppel. For an extreme example, see S.M. Stirling's Marching Through Georgia and the other books of Stirling's Draka series. |
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