PG's Books

This is a quite nice little novella in the Warstrider universe. I have to say that I am not sure why the author, if he wanted to revive this series, opted for “just” a novella. At only around 150 pages it is indeed more of a short story than a full book. It has all the qualities of the rest of the series but it really leaves me wanting more.

I would say that this is fairly hard-core science fiction, both in the science department as well as in the military department. The book starts of with quite a bit of Warstrider action. Action that leads to the core of the story. It ties in pretty well with the rest of the Warstrider books and continues the story in a logical (and interesting) way.

The book spends quite a bit of time on the aspect of a huge god-like artificial intelligence. I am generally not a fan of these, almost philosophical, discussions but, want the heck, I am a computer engineer after all and I have to say that I quite liked it.

Our old friend Cameron is no longer present in this book expect in terms of a few references. Normally I would feel that something is missing when the main hero of a book series was not present but, strangely enough, I cannot say that it detracted from my enjoyment of the book this time.

I would not say that the book closes any unclosed threads from the last book in the series. It answers a few questions maybe but it feels to me that it rather opens up the avenues for further adventures. Even though the action is localized to a single, confined, point in space the actual scope of the story is huge.

I am not sure what the author wanted to achieve with this “short story”. Just get a few bucks or probe the possibility of spending some time to write a “real” continuation of the series? If it is the latter, well then I vote YES, please do continue the series. It is a book with good, and I mean GOOD, military action, it is fairly hard-core sci-fi, it is intelligent and as a computer geek, the story definitely appeals to me.