Greatly Belated Book Reviews: Space Viking

What if I told you that there's a book with more exciting space-based combat and better political commentary than Starship Troopers?

What if I told you that there's a book with more realistic scenarios, technology, and historical change than the Foundation series?

What if I told you that there's a book where space pirates prey on hapless planets whose civilizations have degenerated, who intentionally or not keep civilization alive through their depredations?

What if I told you that all of these books are the same book, Space Viking, which appears to be in the public domain?

The world of Space Viking is a violent, dangerous place, wherein the Space Vikings (yes, they're called that) of the Sword-Worlds raid the other planets of the galaxy, sometimes setting up colonies on them, and generally wreaking havoc. The eye for detail and the concepts within are, while slightly outdated in modern eyes, still very solid.

But the main focus of the book involves drawing parallels between history and events in the book, satirizing many forms of government. For instance, present in the book are two small, planet-based nations called Eglonsby (or something like that-I don't feel like looking it up) and Stolgoland, obvious analogies for the Soviet Union and the United States. (In that order. Yes, Stolgoland is more like the USA.) Both of them are mocked rather mercilessly, and both of them disintegrate within the course of the book thanks to a Space Viking raid.

The biggest parallel, the one that has the most time spent on it, is the coup against the planet Marduk's constitutional monarchy by an externally backed Hitler analogue.

I'd go into it, but it's involved.

Anyway, the truly brilliant part of the book is the space combat. The stardrives in the story are very slow compared to those in many space operas, which makes chasing one's enemies through space all but impossible. Faster than light transmissions are impossible-only big spacecraft, none of which can really be faster than any other, can make long journeys. Replacing the forcefields which are fairly ubiquitous in more recent space operas is a simpler, more believable option-enormously heavy armor made of collapsium. Most weapons are forms of the missiles, guns, and bombs with which we are familiar today-although considerably more effective. (Among the bombs are one called a "hellburner," which sets off a huge fusion reaction that is self-sustaining-imagine if the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had kept burning for days instead of letting out a single blast; and the "planetbuster," which could could kill even the toughest warship or cause significant ecological disasters if actually used on a planet.) Combat computers calculated relative armaments and potential speeds as well as monitoring damage control, and certainly aided weapons in hitting their marks.

Perhaps most remarkable? The main character's ship, the Nemesis, is accurately portrayed on the cover of the book. (If you look on the Wikipedia page for it, the moonish thing in the sky in the background is the Nemesis. And it's correctly drawn as is really possible. I'm kinda iffy on the guys in the foreground, though...)

The only way one could actually bring the whole matter into congruence with how we look at the combat of the future now is if there were point defense lasers and stuff.

I quite enjoyed Space Viking, and since you can get it on Project Gutenberg, well, it's free, so why not try it? It's a pretty quick read and stuff.

Note I haven't even mentioned that the longest-running plotline in the book is that the main character ends up becoming a Space Viking in order to avenge his wife, who was killed within a few minutes of their wedding.

-Signing off.