The Ship Avenged (Brain and Brawn Ships Series #7)

by S. M. Stirling

Overview

The sequel to The City Who Fought, in which Joat, one of the youngest commercial ship owners in space, is commissioned to transport a deadly breakout disease by Belazair of the Kolnari.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780671878610
Publisher:	Baen
Publication date:	01/01/1998
Series:	Brain and Brawn Ships Series , #7
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	298,782
Product dimensions:	4.19(w) x 6.75(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

S.M. Stirling is the New York Times best-selling author of the Draka series, the Lords of Creation series, and the Emberverse series, among others. With David Drake, he is the author of several novels in the General series. He cowrote novels in the Falkenberg's Legion series with Jerry Pournelle. A former lawyer and amateur historian, he lives in New Mexico with his wife, Jan.

S.M. Stirling is the New York Times best-selling author of the Draka series, the Lords of Creation series, and the Emberverse series, among others. With David Drake, he is the author of several novels in the General series. He cowrote novels in the Falkenberg's Legion series with Jerry Pournelle. He lives in New Mexico.

Editorial Reviews

Writing solo in this sequel to The City Who Fought (which he coauthored with Anne McCaffrey), Stirling (the Draka series) proves that the space-opera appeal of the Ship books continues even though the series' original concepts have long been subsumed by stories focusing on evil galactic overlords and deeds of technological derring-do. The earlier books (The Ship Who Sang, 1969, etc.) focused on the powerful emotional link between the human/machine hybrid "brains" of the eponymous spaceship and the counterpart "brawn" of her fully human pilots. Stirling's plot, however, keeps the previously established brain/brawn pairing of Channa Hap and Simeon offstage, instead concentrating on their adopted daughter, Joat Simeon-Hap, and her efforts to free Channa's lover, Amos ben Sierra Nueva, from the clutches of the evil Belazir t'Marid, War Lord of the Kolnar. Joat must also keep terrible bioengineered plagues from being unleashed on Bethel. Clever technological toys, cute AI programs and really nasty biochemical poisons abound, but several characters unbelievably fall in love. Stirling avoids writing confrontational scenes, leaving much of the important action to minor players while the main characters are unconscious or elsewhere. This is a surprisingly unsatisfactory read for those longing for personal revenge against abusive uncles and evil galactic overlords, but it does offer possibilities for many more sequels, if anyone wants them. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Another entry in the Brain/Brawn series created by Anne McCaffrey, and a direct sequel to the paperback The City Who Fought (McCaffrey and Stirling); "brains" are humans wired directly and immovably into their spaceships, "brawns" their mobil human partners. Planet Bethel bigwig Amos ben Sierra Nueva and his daughter Soamosa are kidnapped by the evil mutant, Belazair of Kolnar, in revenge for a previous defeat; Belazair plans to infect Amos with a contagious brain-destroying virus and then send him back to Bethel. So, after some arm-twisting by secret agent Bros Sperin, spaceship Wyal (brain: Rand; brawn: Joat Simeon-Hap) speeds to the rescue, though Joat and Rand don't yet know about the virus. But then Belazair's kindly son, Karak, refuses to torture Soamosa; instead he falls in love and escapes with her. Joat, meanwhile, discovers that one of Belazair's key associates is the drug-ruined uncle who, when she was a small girl, sold her into slavery in settlement of a gambling debt. Not to worry, though: In McCaffrey universes, the good guys always win in the end.

Pretty good ersatz McCaffrey, despite the feebly unconvincing love story.

Kirkus Reviews