Blood And Fire (Star Wolf #4) By David Gerrold - The Last Book In The Series Is Outstanding And Thought Provoking

Blood and Fire (Star Wolf #4) By David Gerrold

All good things must come to an end, and so it is for the Star Wolf series by David Gerrold. Sometime back, I asked the author what he would recommend for a good space opera book by him to read and he responded with Voyage of the Star Wolf, which I immediately downloaded on my Kindle and started to read. I very much enjoyed it and grabbed the remaining three novels. Blood and Fire is the fourth and final installment in this amazing series of tales.

In this story, it is some time after the events of the third book in the series, The Middle of Nowhere. In that story, the Star Wolf had not earned its name and will still known in the fleet as the LS-1187 (LS meaning Liberty Ship), even though the crew and especially the first officer, Commander Jon Korie, knew that they actually had, several times over. Korie also believed that he had earned his captain’s stars as well. At any rate, the ship was devastated by a small group of imps left behind by a Morethan assassin in the second novel in the series. These imps were doing a thorough job damaging the Star Wolf, and came very close to causing the destruction of the ship itself, but also causing the destruction of the starbase that the ship reported to.

Repairs and upgrades have been made to the Star Wolf and the ship gets a new captain, a woman named Parsons. Parsons is an experienced captain that knows her business and holds the respect of the crew and Commander Korie as well, which has not been the case with previous captains of the Star Wolf. The ship has also earned its name between novels.

Star Wolf has been dispatched on a rescue mission for another Liberty Ship, the Norway, which has not been heard from is some time and is in danger of being lost in a binary star system. When Star Wolf arrives at their destination, they find that the Norway is in danger of being destroyed by a ribbon of plasma that is created when one star is taking the plasma from the other. The Norway appears dead, but life signs are detected on board. Commander Korie leads a boarding party to investigate and he and his people run into some nasty trouble when they discover that the ship is infested with bloodworms that have the ability to eat right through his people’s environmental suits, but multiply when an attempt to destroy them is made with a flame thrower.

The landing party, minus one unfortunate soul, manages to escape and locate the ship’s survivors and attempt rescue, all the while fighting a race against time between the bloodworms and the plasma ribbon.

The book, in its entirety, is a great story as one would expect from David Gerrold. There is plenty of excellently written action with characters that are compelling; in short, it has all of the elements that make a spectacular space opera. However for me, the real meat in this book is the third chapter that defines much of what this piece is about. That chapter is entitled “History.”

Please allow me to digress for a moment to Star Trek. As a Trekkie/Trekker, I have come to think of our future among the stars as being rather utopian. According to canon, one day in the future, after a devastating war, Zephram Cochrane takes the first warp drive capable ship on a little jaunt in our solar system which is noticed by an enlightened race who has warp technology. This race visits the earth and it sparks a new era for humanity. According to Trek lore, we eventually no longer feel the need to acquire wealth or possessions, we no longer have wars over ideologies or belief systems, and we solve all of the problems that plague us today and have for all of our history. According to Star Trek, humans are no longer the problem, it is all of those other races in the galaxy that are messing everything up and all we humans want to do is help everyone get along and play nice with each other. Please don’t misunderstand, I am a lifelong Trek fan and always will be, and it is not my intention to bash something I have enjoyed for most of my life, but Trek does have the tendency for not accurately depicting what I feel would be the reality of what it will be when and if we do ever begin traveling to the stars. I think we will take much of our baggage with us as we move among the stars. I have always thought this and am great full to Mr. Gerrold for helping me clarify my thoughts so I can put them into words.

In the chapter called “History,” Mr. Gerrold briefly discusses what we would actually take with us as we move out among the stars. The opening statement of that chapter hit me like a ton of bricks when I first read it and has given me much food for thought. To quote: “Contrary to popular expectations, the invention of faster-than-light travel did not create an age of enlightenment. Quite the opposite.”

In the test of the third chapter, Mr. Gerrold discusses the memes that we will most likely take with us as we move away from our own solar system and travel to others. In today’s popular culture, memes are pictures usually depicting the image of a celebrity with a sometimes clever statement that is intended to be humorous, ironic, entertaining, or to advance a certain point of view (usually in a disparaging way) that appears on social media. One of my favorite memes of this type is this one:

However, this is not the type of meme that the author intends for the reader to think about while reading. According to the definition of the word meme from the dictionary on my Kindle, a meme is a noun from the study of biology which is “an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.” In other words, memes are what we pass from one another in the form of political, religious, economic, and other beliefs which may, or may not be based on fact, as well as being malignant or benign in their nature. History is replete with how memes that are antithetical clash oftentimes resulting in death and destruction on a massive scale. According to the author, often when antithetical memes meet, there is only one result, both sides endeavor to eradicate each other. So, in light of history, and seeing the same thing happening over and over again, I unfortunately have to say, sorry Mr. Roddenberry, I have to go with Mr. Gerrold on this one.

In Blood and Fire, it is the eradication aspect of clashing memes that comes into play as a small group of humans work to create a weapon of mass destruction to be used against the Morethans until something goes very wrong and the weapon works against the people creating it. Solutions to problems have to be found and as more problems arise, more solutions are needed, and sacrifices have to be made.

This book and the three previous installments are all excellent stories that are very compelling to sensitive intelligent science fiction fans and I would place them high on a list of must reads. David Gerrold writes so well in his character development, plot, and voice that I rate his work at least on par with Asimov, Heinlein, Anderson, and other classic masters of the genre. He creates worlds that one can immerse one’s self in and does it in a way that makes reading his stories feel real.

Once again, the books in the Star Wolf series include:

Starhunt

Voyage of the Star Wolf

Middle of Nowhere

Blood and Fire

Well, there it is…

Qaplah!

Starhunt: A Star Wolf Novel by David Gerrold - Space Opera At Its Best

[Starhunt: A Star Wolf Novel by David Gerrold

A few posts ago, I reviewed David Gerrold’s Voyage of the Star Wolf novel. After kind of running out of things to read, I decided to see if there were any other space opera books written by Mr. Gerrold that I might also enjoy as much as I did the first I read, and my search turned up three more books in this series.

Starhunt is actually a prequel to the Star Wolf trilogy that focuses on the first officer of the United Systems Starship Roger Burlingame under the command of Captain Georj Brandt. The First Officer of the Burlingame is Jonathan Korie, a young officer who wants his own command, and is also qualified according to some flag officers above him, but it seems that Captain Brandt is standing in his way of being promoted. Brandt sends requests for transfer to a shore job which are denied while Korie sends requests for advancement to command, and until Brandt gets what he wants, he is going to be sure that he keeps Korie on board the Burlingame, knowing that Korie is a good officer and he has also managed to take a rag-tag crew on a rag-tag ship and keep it running with a good efficiency rating.

The story opens as the Burlingame is chasing an enemy ship with the intention of attacking once contact is made. Korie is convinced that he is chasing a real bogie while there are others aboard who think that because of some incomparable upgrades Korie ordered to the ship, they might be chasing a “wobbly,” or a false sensor reading. On board the ship, there is some discord among the crew as a young crewman who has been inadequately trained is put in a position that puts him at odds with other members of the crew and there begins to be a split.  WHen Korie’s plan of attack so overruled by Captain Brandt, the bogie is lost and the crew becomes further at odds and they begin to doubt Korie’s ability to command.

Korie uses this situation of the crew seeing him as incompetent to once again unite the crew, even though it is against him, but he never doubts that his bogie is out there somewhere. Brandt orders the ship to return home when the wobbly reappears on the scopes, but Korie knows that it is his bogie. There is a battle and the bogie is destroyed; Korie is vindicated and all is well on board, but there was a price to pay that bothers Korie.

I really enjoyed this story; it is one of those that one hates to put down once one begins to read it. The writing style is very much the flavor of some of the classic Sci-Fi writers that I have enjoyed in the past. Nothing is completely certain as one reads and it is quite unpredictable as the reader follows Korie being very confident all the time that his bogie is out there somewhere, but there are times where I doubted it, and I found myself confounded when I believed that Korie was not only wrong about chasing what seemed like an obsession that was slowly driving him farther and farther toward being irrational as a result of having to make a kill at any cost.

Korie trusted his instincts while no one else did and at one point, he had the entire crew against him and looking forward to testifying at his court martial. Even Captain Brandt felt that he needed to reassert his authority, but it seemed that he had forgotten how and appeared as a coward with no will to fight. As far as Brandt was concerned, even if there was actually a bogie out there, they wouldn’t have a chance to win in a fair fight. However, Korie seems to have a good feeling for how to handle people, even those that are stubborn as he managed to unite the crew to a single cause, which at first was against Korie himself; at one point, Korie had even lost the ability to give orders on board and became very sheepish, at least until the bogie manifested itself to be real, and had designs on killing the Burlingame.

With the crew united, and the threat of being destroyed, Korie was able to step in and win the fight.

Starhunt, as far as I am concerned is space opera of the highest order that uses war as a backdrop for not only introducing the reader to a clever character that will carry forward into the following three novels of the series, but shows how careful planning on a writer’s part can make a fun story to read. As mentioned before, this is not a difficult story to digest as there is not a lot of technobabble, however there is just enough explanation of the workings of the ship to create an understanding of the universe that Mr. Gerrold has created. I think even the most demanding reader would enjoy this story.

The remaining novels in the series are, as mentioned, Voyage of the Star Wolf, followed by The Middle of Nowhere, and the series concludes with Blood and Fire.

Well, there it is…

Qaplah!