Torch of Freedom

2009

Although this book covers some of the same events already seen in At All Costs, the opening action focuses on the planet Torch, its young queen and her advisors as they come to terms with the creation of their new nation.

The action segués to a location 'somewhere in space' where a small clan suffered the indignantly of an occupation by slavers that was slowly crushing them from existence. However, with the arrival of what appeared to be an otherwise normal(!) slaver, things are about to fundamentally change for the clan.

Quickly back to Torch for the destruction of the Peace Conference, which brings up a lot of discussion about the place of the Mesan trans-stellar corporates in a normal economy - nowhere; they should have gone bankrupt centuries ago. This gets Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat all excited and planning an insertion right into the heart of the enemy camp - Mesa itself.

We're also granted a look at Mesan society, especially the Gamma Project headquarters where an increasingly disaffected Jack McBryde found himself trying to ride herd on the definitely disaffected Herlander Simöes.

And, finally, from the Solarain League's Office of Frontier Security we get to know Ruiz Rozsak and his boss the Governor of Maya Sector, who are planning some big changes in the way things are going to be run round there.

---

As the above may indicate, this starts off having quite a few threads that need to be woven together and there were a few places where I wondered just what was going on and how they related to the main flow of the book. It's to the authors' credit that the book does finally gel. Now, both authors are credited and there's certainly pieces of Weber in this book, but I am willing to put a fair bit on most of this book being Flint. Not that this a problem - Eric is a great author in his own right and he has developed the character of Cachat all by himself and all of what we love about Anton comes from Flint's tales.

I didn't find it quite as engaging as earlier books in the series but it was OK and while still over six hundred pages, I didn't find it too long and it sets the tone for the next set of mainstream Harrington books quite nicely.

---