The first episode has John Scalzi reading his story After the Coup, set in his Old Man’s War universe. While the story won’t win any awards (at least if award judges think like I do), it was a perfect story for listening to. I’ve found that stories that are too complicated don’t work as well in audio format. It’s much easier to follow who is saying what and doing what on the printed page.

After the Fire starts off with a multi-person conversation, a conference between diplomats to an alien world and a military veteran stationed on their ship. The diplomats need the veteran and his militarily-enhanced physique to engage in a martial arts competition against one of the aliens’ fighters. Not so much as a substitute for engaging in war with them so much as … well, I never did quite figure out why either side cared to have a champion engage in one-on-one combat.

And the bulk of the story is a blow-by-blow description of the three rounds of fighting between Harry, the former soldier, and an amphibious alien with armor-plated skin.

I did get a little annoyed with the every word I say has to be clever banter between the characters. I’m this mission’s mushroom. I don’t know what that means. It means you keep me in the dark and feed me shit. Every statement in the dialogue is someone trying to be witty. First, people who do that in real life are annoying. Really annoying. We call them douchebags and they wear pink shirts with the collar turned up. Second, that’s the kind of conversation held between drinking buddies or a group of friends at Sunday brunch. It’s not the kind of conversation that professional diplomats and military technicians hold on a diplomatic mission when conducting business. I’d get it if someone tried to be clever every once in a while, but all the time? No.

Despite that paragraph, I still recommend the story for listening while you are going about your day. Good for when you want brain candy and don’t want to think. Biff! Wham! Kapow!

Title: After the Coup
Author: John Scalzi
Narrator: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor.com
Format: MP3 podcast download
Length: 50 minutes

Could someone please tell me what’s happened to Mike Resnick? He used to write great adventure tales set in his Birthright universe. But in the last few years he’s started writing more and more crap. The Return of Santiago, The Outpost, and Starship: Mutiny were not good. Dragon America was better but still less than stellar. I just finished Starship: Pirate and it’ll be the last of this particular series that I’ll read. I’m not going to give up on Resnick just yet, but he’s quickly falling down the rungs.

Pirate continues the story of Wilson Cole, a brilliant officer in the navy of the galactic Republic. Back in Mutiny he pissed off one too many a bureaucrat landing him in the brig for insubordination. His crew busted him out and at the start of Pirate they’ve decided to become space pirates to support themselves. Only thing is, they don’t really know how to be pirates, so they are a bit clunky at first. Nevertheless, the crew of the Teddy Roosevelt successfully dispatches another pirate ship and steals its loot. It takes several tries, but they finally unload it.

The second half of the book begins when they meet a former pirate by the name of the Valkyrie who, while supposedly a good pirate, didn’t inspire much loyalty in hew crew. They ran off with her ship while she was sleeping off a drunk. In return for being taught how to be good pirates and other sundry details, the Teddy Roosevelt agrees to retake her former pirate ship for her.

The basic plot synopsis isn’t bad. The execution is. The bulk of the text is simply the characters arguing. Aren’t they supposed to be a disciplined former military crew? Cole dispenses with military rigmarole. No sirs for him. So his crew argues with him every time he opens his mouth. Mostly this is so Resnick can have him explain the utter perfection of his logic. Except for once in a while when Cole yells at people for questioning his orders. The way Resnick exposes this logic is just irritating. Even once it would be irritating. But it’s just the whole book.

Oh, and Cole is sleeping with his security officer. She constantly monitors all conversations aboard ship, interjecting in bodiless fashion frequently. At least a few times she yells at Cole for raising his voice, telling him she’s already listening in and doesn’t need a higher volume to be heard. How many times does Resnick need to do this? Though she and Cole aren’t in a committed relationship, she constantly bickers with him over the possibility he might sleep with someone else. She also frequently threatens to withhold the sexin’ but changes her mind when Cole calls her bluff. So very tiresome.

I could go on. But I think that last sentence in the previous paragraph sums up the entire novel. It’s just so very tiresome.

Title: Starship: pirate
Author: Mike Resnick
Imprint/Publisher: Pyr / Prometheus Books
Series: Starship ; 2
Publication Date: December 2006
Format: Hardcover
Length: 336 p., including six appendices and an author biography
ISBN-10: 1-59102-490-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-59102-490-3
Subject: Space ships — Fiction
Subject: Piracy — Fiction
LC Classification: PS3568.E698S737 2006

It’s rare that I am disappointed by a Mike Resnick book. Resnick first and foremost tells stories. Along the way he occasionally has a moral. Starship: Mutiny is the first book in a five book series by Pyr a new S.F. imprint from Prometheus Books. New to me at least. The story is set in Resnick’s Birthright universe, toward the end of the Republic era. The protagonist is Wilson Cole, a hero in the Republic’s war against the Teroni alliance. While he’s a hero, it’s always been at the expense of the navy’s image and sometimes against orders. At the start of the book, he’s been demoted and exiled to the Teddy Roosevelt a decrepit ship with a crew no one wants. Theoretically, nothing should be happening in the sector the Teddy R. patrols, but inevitably, Cole discovers something. The captain and first officer are hostile to him, so he takes matters into his own hands, in the process defeating a Teroni incursion onto a Republic world. Things don’t go much differently on the second assignment either. Cole is constantly fighting the brass above the the dereliction of the men below. Resnick writes about larger than life characters. Wilson Cole has brilliant analytical capabilities and manages to turn every situation to his advantage. Unlike in other Resnick books, there aren’t a plethora of other larger than life character and that’s a bit of a change.

Title: Starship: mutiny
Author: Mike Resnick
Series: Starship ; 1
Imprint / publisher: Pyr / Perseus
Format: Hardcover
Length: 286 p.
Publication date: December 2005
ISBN-10: 1-59102-337-8
Subject: Space ships — Fiction
Subject: Mutiny — Fiction
LC classification: PS3568.E698 S735 2005

Eighteen years and one day since I first read this book, I just finished my second reading of John Steakley’s Armor. I vaguely remembered it as a takeoff on Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. It’s a different book though, with the similarity being armored humans fighting insect-like aliens. Only this one is done mostly in flashback mode. A scientist and an outlaw replay the wartime memories of an armored soldier taken from his suit of armor. He’s a machine in a sense, divorced from his emotional self, as he fights the ants. He’s the most fiercesome soldier humans have, and no one believes he’s seen as much action. Mostly they think the number of times he’s been dropped is a clerical error. Only he’s running away from something, the loss of his wife. And also the fact that he’s the ruler of Golden, a human planet, who disappeared after his wife’s death. Sorry for the spoilers folks, but y’all wouldn’t have read it anyway.

Author: John Steakley
Title: Armor
Publisher: DAW Books
Format: Mass market paperback
Publication date: December 1984
Length: 426 p.
ISBN: 0-88677-368-7