Fallen Dragon

Lawrence plans to rob a colony of their fabled gemstone, the Fallen Dragon, to get the money he needs to buy his place in a better corporation. However, he soon discovers that the Fallen Dragon is not a gemstone at all, but an alien life form.

This hefty novel of interstellar war and alien contact in the 25th century, a sort of Starship Troopers as if written by Charles Dickens, ranks as one of Hamilton's best. Though he's a mercenary for the Zantiu-Braun corporation, which gets its profits by periodically looting old interstellar colonies, Lawrence Newton has his eye on picking up a treasure trove of alien technology not on his employer's approved list of loot. When the Zantiu-Braun Third Fleet descends on the planet Thrallspring, the invaders unexpectedly find the inhabitants, who have access to some of that lost alien technology, prepared to fight back. After several hundred pages of well-depicted action and intrigue, the technology of the "dragons" makes the war superfluous, a definite victory for all opponents of the corporate pirates. It also makes it possible for Newton himself to travel in both time and space, and to put right the mishandling of a youthful love affair that forced him into exile in the first place. Ignoring conventional wisdom about expository lumps, flashbacks and viewpoint shifts, Hamilton (The Reality Dysfunction) nicely develops character while he also does some fine world building that's as good as it gets in space opera short of Lois McMaster Bujold. Despite the somewhat uneven pacing, the book is undeniably a page-turner and should provide many absorbing hours for the author's existing readers as well as a salutary introduction to a major SF author for a new audience. (Mar. 11)Forecast: With a five-city author tour and national print advertising both mainstream and genre, expect this one to rack up strong sales.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

In the twenty-fourth century, Zantiu-Braun and other greedy corporations dominate space exploration to conduct "asset realization" (piracy) on colonial worlds. As a current board member's son, Lawrence Newton is in line for a seat on one corporate board but aspires to explore the universe instead. After a scandalous breakup with his girlfriend, he flees to Earth and joins Z-B because of the opportunities for space exploration it offers. He works his way up through the ranks, serving in Z-B's security forces on asset realization missions, which brings him twice to the colonial planet Thallspring, where Denise Ebourn, aided by mysterious technology far superior to anything available from Earth, leads a resistance movement against Z-B's raiders. Hamilton's rather complex novel features so many flashbacks and viewpoint changes that one is constantly rereading parts of it to catch all the details. Touching on moral themes in a manner similar to that of some Star Trek episodes, it is nearly as philosophical as it is entertaining. If its complexity slows reading, it also makes for an epic-movielike experience. Bryan Baldus
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In a far future, where interstellar trade has devolved into legitimized piracy, the Zantiu-Braun Corporation sends an elite troop of Skins, nearly invulnerable soldiers, to the planet Thallspring to collect their periodic dividends. The residents of Thallspring, however, have different ideas, as well as a secret weapon that has the potential to change not only the future but the past as well. The author of the "Night's Dawn" trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, The Naked God) offers a standalone novel that combines personal drama with high-tech military sf and political intrigue. Hamilton has a knack for complex, believable characters; his heroes have flaws while his villains act according to their own codes of honor. A good choice for most sf collections.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.