Valiant Dust

September 11, 2017
Baker has built his writing career primarily in the Forgotten Realms gaming franchise, and the hand of the dungeon master is heavy in this military SF swashbuckler with clunky racial politics. In the year 3102, the galaxy unironically recapitulates 19th-century Earth politics: technologically sophisticated, multisystem “great powers” play colonial games with traditionally religious states racked by insurgencies. Sikander Singh North is a prince of Kashmir, vassal to the interstellar Commonwealth of Aquila. He serves as gunnery officer on the CSS Hector, a cruiser assigned to protect and evacuate Aquila’s citizens in the Gadiran system, which is dissolving into chaos. The Dremark empire is represented by the provocateur of that chaos, Otto Bleindel, who’s busily wresting control from Gadira’s current overlord, the Montréalais. The narrative is cratered with data dumps that add little to the plot and nothing to the notably weak characterization. Baker knows a lot about software but has little grasp of technology trends overall; for example, in the 22nd-century diaspora from Earth, he portrays Indians as technologically inferior to Europeans. Baker claims that citizens of the “cosmopolitan powers” ethnically “blended together long ago,” but if he believes he’s thereby eliminated Eurocentric ideas from his novel, he’s sorely mistaken. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Associates.

October 15, 2017

As a representative of his small home system of Kashmir, Sikander Singh North knows he will always have to prove himself. Royalty at home, he is simply the new gunnery officer on the Commonwealth starship Hector. When the ship is sent on a mission to the planet Gadira, he finds a kindred spirit in Ranya, the daughter of the ruling sultan. But Sikander and the rest of the ship's crew get caught in the crossfire between a rebel uprising against the sultan and a conspiracy by outside forces to gain control of the planet. Author and game designer Baker ("Forgotten Realms" series), has a good feel for the military elements in this space opera series opener. Having a Sikh protagonist struggling with class and imperialism and a colonial planet that is largely exploited by greater powers of the galaxy adds interest to what is otherwise a fairly standard adventure. VERDICT A good choice for fans of Jack Campbell and Charles E. Gannon. [Previewed in Marlene Harris's "Galaxy Quests" sf/fantasy preview, LJ 4/15/17.]--MM

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