Growing up Weightless by John M. Ford (1993)

Original Cover Growing Up Weightless This one came to me as a recommendation from a “Heinlein friend”.  Several reviews compare it to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; that alone begs a read. It also won the Philip K. Dick Award in its year of publication.

The book reads very much like a YA piece, or in Heinlein-speak, a juvenile.  That’s not an insult. It’s fairly short. One of my big complaints is that it gets to a certain point and stops, after having spent a good chunk of the book ‘on the holodeck’ with most of the main characters.  There are some tantalizing hints of the formative Luna years that I wish Ford had explored.  He passed away in 2006 and it took until 2022 for this book to come back into print.  If you can find a copy, it’s a decent read.

I just had a “smack the head” moment.  The author is the same one who wrote the amazingly funny Star Trek novel How Much for Just the Planet? in 1987, which was one of the best ever written.  That alone raises my esteem of the book.

Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp, 2015

Lords of the Sith coverI was browsing quickly at a bookstore the other day and saw this book. It was new to me and I thought it was a new release, but it’s ten years old! I was able to get it out of the library right away.  It just goes to show how much Star Wars content has been put out there.  This book is trying to show the changeover in Anakin Skywalker to fully embrace his Sith-ness.

Unfortunately, the parallel story with rebellion on Ryloth was as compelling a contrast.  After having seen Andor and Rogue One, this unfortunately comes off as a lesser story. You don’t learn anything major about the Emperor through this story, and Vader’s internal struggle also was nothing new.  This one’s not a necessary read in the SW universe.

Dauntless (Book 1, The Lost Fleet series) by Jack Campbell, 2006

Dauntless by Jack CampbellI’ve had several people recommend the Lost Fleet series to me.  I’m a space opera fan, and space battles/military SF is an “easy read” for me. The books have proven to read pretty quickly.

Campbell has a great hook in this series with his hero, who has to reinstill tactics and an honorable code of conduct within ‘the good guys’.  I’ve actually read the second in this series as well. The first arc goes six books and there are additional series for another fourteen books so I can keep going as long as I can find them!