Hellburner

A science fiction written by Carolyn Janice Cherryh in 1993
Reviewed edition by Warner from 1993
A paperback has 390 pages
ISBN 0-446-36451-7

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Deep in its war with Union, Earth launches a secret project to develop a new space fighter, Hellburner. Not having enough expertise, Earth enlists the help of pilots from the Asteroid Belt - but the pilots are deemed politically unreliable and the Earth command insists on having a hand in their selection and assignment. This makes the project a powder keg waiting to burst, with Earth's UDC and the Fleet accusing each other of incompetence over every piece of trouble.

The project is not progressing well - the last major test ended with a ship and crew lost. The tension within the project mounts when a Fleet officer accuses UDC of mishandling the project in front of the commission investigating the failed test. The response of the commission is surprising - even though from Earth, it sides with the Fleet and puts the entire project under Fleet command. There is a catch to it though - the project has to deliver, quick ...

Review

First, a word of warning. The book stands on the background built by other titles from the Alliance-Union universe. For someone not familiar with its realities, the political struggle between the Fleet and UDC might not make sense - better read some of the earlier C. J. Cherryh's books first.

The book is a bit unusual in the way it deals with the political fight that is going on - although it is obviously of large proportions, one never gets more than a glimpse of its chief actors. The book follows actions of relatively minor players - pilots, crew members, station officers - on a background of what might or might not be an attempted murder. This got me a bit unsure on what to focus on - is it about murder or about politics ? In the end, I settled for politics, but I still feel a bit unsure - the feeling of a detective story is strong, especially in the opening part of the book.

What I miss in the book is a visible character, someone that would act instead of being in tow. Dekker (a test pilot) simply keeps his weird image laced with self-pity. Pollard (a friend of Dekker) gets monotonous quickly, always protesting his recall from a good job but never really doing anything about it (he's also a good hacker, so he hacks into computers when the plot requires it - but never to help himself). In terms of displaying spontaneous activity, other characters are even worse than that.

I think the book deserves a rating of average.

Rated as average by Ceres on 1998-09-14

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