I enjoyed this book and found it to be a relatively fast read. Star Soldiers is actually an omnibus of two books set in the same universe -- Star Guard and Star Rangers. The first book is set some time after Earth has ventured into space and made contact with the rest of the galaxy. It turns out that Earth is somewhat late to the party – space is already populated by a diverse population of space-traveling aliens, and things are fairly civilized with rules in place to help keep it that way. The agency in charge deems humans to be too disruptive and aggressive to be given free rein in space, so the only way they’re permitted to travel into space is as mercenaries for hire by other planets to help them fight wars. This premise was questionable to me. After all, if these other races needed mercenaries, then they clearly weren’t very peaceful either, right? Maybe the idea was that the hiring races were also barbaric and aggressive and not part of the inner circle of aliens allowed to travel space freely. However, I'm pretty sure we were told that humans were one of the few species being restricted in this manner. This basic premise was covered within the first couple of pages and was never fleshed out to my satisfaction.Nevertheless, this was a pretty fun story if you can overlook the poorly-fleshed-out premise and the lack of a detailed setup for the current political situation. We’re reading from the perspective of a single character, Kana, who is a new recruit on his first mission as a mercenary. His team was hired by rebels on a remote planet about which little is known. Naturally, things go horribly wrong, but the threat isn’t what you might expect. I found Kana to be a pretty likeable character, as were several of his teammates. The story was an entertaining adventure that started off with a bit of a mystery as to just what was going on and why. There’s some military action, and the characters struggle to survive in harsh terrain with enemies hot on their tail. There are also several previously-unknown native threats which take them by surprise on the unfamiliar planet.I enjoyed the story all the way through, but I started to get even more caught up in it toward the end. As the true nature of what was going on became apparent, I grew increasingly eager to learn about just how things would turn out. The story wrapped up the main action, but it left a lot of questions at the end about what would happen next. Additionally, I didn’t think the details were fleshed out well. There was a lot of action, but not much in the way of world-building. We’re told things are a certain way, and we just have to accept it without knowing why. I like to understand the motivation and history behind things, so this lack of detail bothered me. I was hopeful that the second story would answer my questions about what happened next and perhaps flesh out some of the details. I had the naïve expectation that the second book would follow up where the first book left off.As it turned out, the second book took place 4000 years later and the universe had changed a great deal. There was a very brief prologue that summarized the current state of affairs in general terms, but the immediate aftermath of the first story wasn’t discussed. Things do kind of tie back to the first book eventually, but this second story had a completely different and separate plot.Despite my initial frustration, I became interested in the second story pretty quickly and soon relinquished my frustration over not seeing the first story continued. The second story is also told from the perspective of a single character, Kartr, who is one of a handful of survivors from a crash landing on an unknown and distant planet. The story begins immediately after the crash. This book had the more interesting characters out of the two stories, I thought. The crew of the starship consisted of people from a variety of planets and there was more interaction and banter between the characters. This made the second book more enjoyable for me even though I also thought it was the weaker of the two in terms of logic and consistency. The conclusion of the story was pretty satisfactory, if excessively coincidental and convenient, and it served as a nice wrap-up for the entire omnibus.The second book, however, did have some significant flaws. Some of the characters were telepathic, but there weren’t any clear and definite rules about how the telepathy could be used. It seemed to me like the telepathic abilities evolved throughout the story to meet whatever the current situation was. It was constantly being used in some new way, and its usage was not always consistent even when taking into account that different characters had different levels of telepathic skill. I also thought that, in both books, there were aspects of the stories that weren’t fleshed out or explained in a very believable way. In general, it seemed like the author freely introduced things as a convenience to move the story in the desired direction and didn’t pay too terribly much attention to whether or not they were consistent or logical. Most of these instances were small, niggling things that I might have been able to overlook if there were only one or two. But they accumulated until I was feeling rather frustrated with it by the end of the omnibus. Another issue I found, especially in the second book, was with explanations that were provided in a wishy-washy manner. When the characters were trying to figure out why something had happened, they would throw out different ideas until suddenly the main character in whose head we were living would be certain that the most recent speculation “felt right”. From this point, future events or discoveries built on the assumption that this speculation was in fact true even though there wasn’t any concrete evidence to prove it true. In the real world, sometimes people think things “feel right” (or “feel wrong”) but they’re often proven completely wrong when the facts are uncovered. In this fictional world, the main character apparently possessed an omniscient gut.Due to some of its flaws, I think the rating this book really deserves is 3.5 stars rather than 4, but I enjoyed it enough that I don't want to drop it down to 3 stars.
I’ve enjoyed a lot of Andre Norton’s stories during my lifetime. I wish this were one of them. Or two of them, I guess.This is an omnibus edition of Star Guard and Star Rangers, two novels set in the same universe but with several thousand years separating them.The first book, Star Guard, is theoretically Military SF, with humans only allowed in space as mercenaries to keep us locked off from the galaxy at large and from becoming a threat to galactic culture. And I say theoretically, because the story starts that way. It just doesn’t stay there.Along with a reminder of her lifelong theme of tolerance and acceptance which runs through her work, the writing is solid and the universe well realized but both books in this omnibus were published in the early 50s, it shows. Not just in its presented technology, but in the forgettable nature of Star Guard. It’s a bland and boring story, which saddens me to say about anyone’s work. Star Guard is a book I keep waiting for an ending in, partly because it tries to be too many things. It’s Military Action Adventure SF, first on a primitive world, then in space, then on Earth, with situations and species introduced and gone too quickly. Too much happening, and too much of it easily resolved without much, or often any, character development. But my real issue is that the POV seems to just be along for the ride while stuff happens to and around him, and more competent people take care of whatever comes up. He only makes a couple of small contributions to the events going on.I power through to the end, with some difficulty, but Star Guard didn’t rate very high for me at all, and I hoped for a better second act with Star Rangers.Which I got, in the form of a more or less straight forward adventure story, ostensibly in the same setting but a few thousand years later. Far off the frontier, a poorly equipped scout ship crash lands for the last time, and the survivors of the (beset by problems since it launched) vessel have to continue to survive and adapt. It turns out there’s another, civilian, ship marooned here from a previous mishap, and that group of people has somehow let itself fall into a small scale totalitarian state and the adventure now becomes about corrupt leadership and race relations (between humans and bemmies, i.e. aliens). This is a better story than the first, but still drags in places and many of the characters are fairly static.Overall rating: 2 Stars. A lot of Ms. Norton’s work stands up really well from a storytelling perspective, but I’m glad Star Soldiers was a free download. I’d throw my recommendation behind Breed to Come as one of the best entry points to her work. Post-apocalyptic in a way, but with a long term positive outlook and some cool takes on future evolution in our absence. Or Crossroads of Time, an early exploration of alternate worlds and history.
What do You think about Star Soldiers (2002)?
Kartr and the Rangers have left the city behind. They track down Cummi and he dies. Unfortunately he has turned the natives against the Rangers. They withdraw and decide to track the natives to their summer camp. Here is a spaceport and the home of the space races, terra.A Ranger ship crash lands being chased by pirates. A Space Patrol officer launches and draws the pr=irate ship in. When caught he explodes his ship destroying the pirates.on the ground the Star Rangers and the fresh refugees agree to keep away from the city and start life afresh in the wilderness.
—James
Heroes have one-dimension, courage. Opposition includes hostile nature and fellow humans. Aliens are friends and foes. Different struggles united by common theme, brave soldiers get optimistic endings/ futures. Star Guard 1955Kana 18, fresh from training, joins mercenary troops, the only way alien rulers Central Control, allow humans to travel space. Leaders are shot in the back, flamed to a crisp, except for dying warning. Hansu leads survivors across hostile planet Fronn, fighting, then negotiating off-planet with hooded alien Venturi. Why decommission the first flamer they find when they might need it later p 47 and toss away sharp Grace knife used for fatally wounded? As X-Tee extra-terrestrial specialist, Kana assembles kits for first contact: "food, adornment" p 75 - easy when fighters carry wealth as jewels on armor. Frequent reminders of Maori-Malay-Hawaii heritage distract - explains courage and fortitude as genetic? Term Horde for good guys misleads, suggesting overpowering number of Mongol warriors. His first two pals, Mic and Rey, stay supportive. Human Zapan Bogate is personally a bully, but professionally a competent colleague.Detecting enemies, furry Llor and greasy woolly Cos, by "ominous reek" p 99 could be done more often. Cos natives loose rock fall and floods. Alien creatures are lion-like ttsors, and carnivorous frog-like tif, ancestors of Ventur race. The great number of illegal weapons and soldiers means Central has to know, so returning to Prime on Earth just puts Kana and Hansu back in their enemy power. (view spoiler)[ Kana escapes, found by Hansu, to learn that humans formed underground resistance soon after first meeting aliens three centuries before. Hidden colonies are now too widespread, as are allies, to be overcome. (hide spoiler)]
—An Odd1
This is a collection of Norton's two Central Control novels, Star Guard (1955) and Star Rangers (1953). It's currently a free download on Amazon so I decided to give it a try. I only read Star Guard so far, and it's a pretty good old fashioned military sf yarn. Nothing terribly original, but it gets the job done. Standard plot: plucky rookie ends up helping save the world. Some of the plot - an Earth hemmed in by hostile aliens, people can only go to space through military channels - reminded me a lot of Old Man's War by John Scalzi, and I'd be surprised it this was not an inspiration. The rest of it is straight from Xenophon's Anabasis.
—Rob
