Star Shot

by Douglas Terman

Shot down over Vietnam, US pilot John Bracken is interrogated and tortured by Lu, a cold-hearted Eurasian KGB agent. Finally he returns home but is forced out of the service in disgrace. Twenty years later a US space shuttle is sabotaged and Bracken is faced with terrorism and his old enemy Lu.

Genres: Fiction

466 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 1979

Reviews

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those old enough to remember, Star Wars (not the movie) or Strategic Defense Initiative (SDi) was a very real program started by the Reagan administration in the mid-1980s. The concept was to fire lasers from space against incoming Soviet missiles – much like the premise of “Star Shot.” But in Terman’s version, you almost want to root for the Soviets. You especially want to root for Colonel Lu who, although ruthless, has a soul and depth of character.
Terman writes as if he is being paid by the word. We appreciate that the author knows a lot about sailing. But he leaves the rest of us landlubbers in deep water with all the nautical terminology. In this 466-page book, over a hundred are devoted to a detailed excursus about the voyage of two ships, the Pampero and the Victoria, that lead to nowhere. Instead, the reader loses the thread of and interest in the plot.