The Other McCain

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The great work of constructing shelves and unpacking boxes full of books continues, and as it does, I keep finding books I haven’t seen in years – and, unfortunately, quite a few books that I’d forgotten I already had, which in the meantime I’d bought additional copies of. Some of them I’m going to keep -for example, the original DAW edition of Jerry Pournelle’s A Spaceship For The King with the Kelly Freas cover, even though it’s since been expanded into King David’s Spaceship. That’s the exception rather than the rule, though, and I may well wind up having a garage sale of the surplus volumes by the time I’m done sorting everything out.

Among the recently unearthed long-lost literary (sic) treasures is Robert Frezza’s McLendon’s Syndrome. Not everyone does humor in SF well, but Frezza carries it off in this amusing tale of Ensign Ken McKay, the tramp freighter Rustam’s Slipper (more commonly called the “Rusty Scupper”), interstellar drug smuggling, vampires, and the backwater colony of Schuyler’s Planet, where all the children are below average and their parents aren’t so hot either. Also, there’s His Rotundity Bucky Beaver, heir to the Rodent throne, his indispensable sidekick Cheeves, and the unfortunate matter of the Rodent-Human war that Ken accidentally sets off. Hilarity, deranged nurses, and occasional romance ensue. Another case where you can’t believe it’s not available on Kindle.

Speaking of Kindle, Vox Day’s Castalia House is in the process of reissuing the series of There Will Be War anthologies edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr back during the Reagan Administration, starting with There Will Be War Volume I. The cover art is a little different, but the stories and non-fiction are the same, and there are some damn good stories in these collections, including Pournelle & Niven’s “Reflex”, which was cut from The Mote in God’s Eye; the original version of “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card; “Cincinnatus” by the late Joel Rosenberg, and many, many others. Some reviewers have complained that the fiction and non-fiction alike are a bit dated, but personally I think of the whole series as a nice collection of period pieces which reflect the times in which they were written.

And speaking of period pieces, there’s Robert Moss’ fine political and military thriller Moscow Rules, which tells the tale of a young GRU officer who resolves early in life to destroy the Soviet system in the only way possible – with a pitiless coup by the Soviet Union’s own deadliest soldiers, the spetsnaz. I think Moss does as good a job as any Westerner of depicting the gray, depressing life of the average Soviet citizen and how corrupt the system was – and how tempting it could be to defect. Young lieutenant Preobrazhensky remains true to his purpose, though, accumulating allies in the strangest places before finally dropping the axe. Alternate history now, of course, but still a fascinating tale. Was available on Kindle for a while, but not at the moment.