dm%BBN-UNIX@sri-unix.UUCP (12/12/83)
From: Dave Mankins <dm@BBN-UNIX>
Alexis Gilliland, bureaucrat extraordinaire author of "*
{from/for/of} Rosinante" has returned with another novel, set in
a different future history from that of the Rosinante books.
The new book called "The end of the empire" is about the last
gasp of the Holy Human Empire (which like its name-sake, is
neither holy, nor totally human, nor an empire any more). It
details the adventures of Colonel Karff (a Hero) in the Imperial
Secret Police as he tries to "underraise a government" on an
anarchist out-world, in order to
a) give the last of the empire (mainly just the imperial
family and their entourage) a place to hang out.
b) protect the people of the anarchist back-world (as well
as the last of the empire) from the clutches of the
even-worse-than-the-empire rebels who are in hot pursuit.
Gilliland writes about politics and political machinations in a
way that feels realistic, believable, and entertaining. Through
the first three quarters of the book I was planning to give a
copy of it to all my Libertarian friends in revenge for all those
ridiculously naive Libertarian Utopia science-fiction novels that
have been appearing of late. But toward the end the book
develops two flaws:
1) Karff, an honorable, competent, and intelligent man gets all
misty-eyed about the death of an empire he is too smart
to be fooled by. I mean, Gilliland just spent 150 pages
showing us how much political-savvy this guy has, and
then in the last 20 or so pages he acts like someone who
BELIEVES all that propaganda he learned in imperial
civics class in high school. This was somewhat disappointing.
2) The government Karff underraises, as my Libertarian friends would
say "reveals it's true gangsterish nature." (Sigh, I think those
Libertarian friends, after gnashing their teeth for 150 or
so pages, would finally find something satisfying. Rats. Back
to my Christmas list...) Why, he almost had ME converted
to believing in government there for a while...
Nonetheless, it's a pretty good book, though I don't think it's as
good as the Rosinante books.
By the way, the Rosinante books:
The Revolution from Rosinante
Pirates of Rosinante
Long Shot for Rosinante
appear to be coming back into print (yay!). They are about how
you keep a "mundito" (read: "Oneil space colony") going despite
the machinations of national and international politics in the
next century. These books combine political savvy, brilliant
engineers, artificially-intelligent computers with a penchant
for Humphrey Bogart and Yoshiro Mifune imitations to make a
damn fine read.