A Just Determination

April 15, 2003
Henry's superior military sf novel takes us aboard a modern space warship (as opposed to one conceptually derived from C. S. Forester), the USS" Michaelson," and confronts its protagonist, Ensign Paul Sinclair, more with ethical dilemmas than with risks to life and limb. Not that the latter aren't there, in the form of accidents and a confrontation with a South Asian survey vessel that, when Captain Paul Wakeman believes it is attacking, the" Michaelson" destroys. When Wakeman is hauled before a court-martial for disobeying his orders, Sinclair is called to defend him. The captain, Sinclair insists, shouldn't be scapegoated for actions within the bounds of his orders, even if those orders were poorly phrased, and Wakeman's judgment was flawed. The last third of the book recalls nothing so much as "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial "in an sf setting, and it attains the same high level of achievement. Although Henry probably has too much taste to launch a googolplexology from this book, if he were to do so, discerning readers might applaud. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)