Temporary Duty [NOOK Book]

Highly recommended

I bought this book two(2) days ago and read it in two days straight. It keeps moving, keeps you into the plot, and makes you impatient to see how it all comes out.

Although it is almos 1400 pages long, they move. It didn't seem that long as I was reading it. As a matter of fact, at 3AM this morning, my wife begged me to get to sleep as I had to get up early today.

Elliott Starr

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Okay, I give. Where did this Ric Locke come from? I thought I ha

Okay, I give. Where did this Ric Locke come from? I thought I had read all the good authors and this guys is WAY up on the list. I can hardly wait for the next book. THis book is well worth your time and money if you like entertaining and interesting books.You won't be sorry. Buy it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Recommended! Kinda like mid-career Heinlein without the preachin

Recommended! Kinda like mid-career Heinlein without the preaching...
I am awaiting at least one more with these characters.

I liked it. slow at first but then picks up. cant wait for the n

I liked it. slow at first but then picks up. cant wait for the next one.

wow this book was such a great find. thanks to all who recommen

wow this book was such a great find. thanks to all who recommended it.
They made it sound good but it is great. The view from the guy who has
to put up with everything and still makes good is inspiring. Ric Locke
.................WRITE MORE............!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A good book I would love to see more by this author.

It has an interesting primes and the story is ingrosing.

Very good

A+

Excellent Read!

One of those books you can't put down. Anyone who has ever served as an enlisted man in the Navy will find this book particularly enjoyable. Fast moving, lots of action, it has aliens, girls, spaceships and evil IRS agents!

I'm looking for more from this author!

I have been looking for a book like this, an author like this. Glad to find them.

If you liked the early Heinlein, Cherryh, Norton, McCaffrey and others, the ones with aliens and adventure, you will like this book. I agree with others that the first half or so is the best and freshest. In the latter part of the book, I kept checking page numbers to see if I had inadvertently skipped ahead (which is too easy to do in a Nook.) Relationships had changed and I didn't know why. Tempo changed without serving the plot.
Nevertheless, the book is well worth reading. I am looking forward to more of this author. Try the book.

Entertaining and definitely space opera esque

Temporary Duty starts off well--Locke creates a very nice sense of the alien ship and world through the day-to-day-ness of the first quarter to half of the book. The two main characters, lower level military, are subject to a number of fairly mundane experiences, but it's actually quite refreshing, as you get a very detailed/nuanced sense of the environment and culture. A few things start to ring strange (like the inability for aliens who have advanced travel technology to communicate wirelessly, etc,) but all in all, it is a great start.

Half way through though, the plot jumps a bit--it's as if the author realised that a space opera needs drama and set pieces, and then everything goes a bit pulpy, with abductions, space wars, and multiple attractive female aliens for our protagonist. Perhaps the book also ran a bit longer than necessary.

Overall, however, quite entertaining, and can't wait for the next!

Redneck boy makes good, in Space!

Ric Locke's Temporary Duty (TDY) is a really solid read - one of the best I've had in several years. It's about John Peters, a junior enlisted person in a believable near future U.S. Navy, who volunteers to swab decks on an interstellar aircraft carrier//interstellar trading ship, crewed by aliens, Mankind's first contact. Peters' America is one where the poor don't get school, the vote, or much chance to make something of themselves. It isn't a glass ceiling, it's more of an adamantium barrier. Wealth and privilege are birthrights of the wealthy and privileged, and American society has become a caste system in all but name.

But, all of that is backdrop, and Locke dribbles the info in over hundreds of pages of fun space opera.

Peters' adventures in space are engaging, his cynical attitude well earned, and his ability to rise to any occasion seems to flow naturally from the character. As a retired Coastie pilot, with a pinch of army warrant officer pilot in my past, I found that all of the human technical language was familiar to me, and the sort of interactions Peters has with fellow enlisted and officers generally rang true to the real world, with the exception that the behaviors Peters experiences in the officers of his story are behaviors that would have got me cashiered if I had acted that way during my military career. This isn't unreasonable, given the premise of a much darker, very hierarchical U.S. social structure. Almost any of the worst behaviors the officers and senior enlisted personnel in Peter's unit display are things I saw happen at some point in my career - but most of the time by people who got to experience civilian life within a couple years of doing whatever they did.

Another reviewer commented that this isn't a military action book, and that is true. But fans of military SF, who know what they're looking at, will really love this book. Fans of Andre Norton's Interstellar trader stories will really love this book. Fans of Heinlein's "Between Planets" or "Citizen of the Galaxy" and his other early adventures with sideline social commentary will really love this book. I even think that fans of the recent BSG will love this book. Fans of C.J. Cherryh's alien worlds will really love this book, for its interesting alien cultures and environments. Fans of John Carter of Mars will love this book, especially the last half. You've probably got my drift. One other thing - while this book reminds me of many things, it is uniquely Ric Locke's creation. I'm really glad that I read it.

One of the things I love about TDY is the fact that it isn't a simply premised adventure. Peters' life changes, and the nature of his adventures change over time - a lot like real life. The man who we meet at the beginning is still there at the end, but is only a part of the whole. I think that the Gatekeepers of Modern Publishing can't accept this thing because they can't define it in a two minute pitch. Buy it. Read it. You'll probably tell friends to buy and read it.

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