Hidden War the

by Michael Armstrong

Thanks to the wonder of the hide, no one starves or freezes or gets sick on the perfect worlds of the Solarian Alliance. Like a synthetic skin, the hide protects and heals, and can transform people into anything they want to be. Nothing threatens this utopian existence until an extraterrestrial message of unspeakable horror is received. An evil race terrorizes the galaxy, and it's coming toward Earth. . . .Into this world, the Solarian Alliance frees Krim, the last survivor of the Beat asteroid known as the Jack and a prisoner since he saw his world vanish into that strange other space known as Ur. Disgusted with this utopia, Krim enlists in a distant fight at the edge of the solar system, the battle no one on Earth may know about, lest it disrupt their perfect peace . . . the Hidden War.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Michael Armstrong is a 30+ year veteran of the shopping centre industry in Australia, but his time hanging about in shopping centres began as a child when his father was appointed as the first Centre Manager of Phoenix Park shopping centre in the seventies, and then in his teens when he ran the family ice-cream shop.

He began his career leasing shops in Perth as a 20-year-old, rising through the leasing ranks to deliver multiple shopping centre projects, eventually rising to lead the retail leasing teams at Jones Lang LaSalle and Mirvac nationally.

He ultimately ran Jones Lang LaSalle’s national shopping centre business and Mirvac’s national shopping centre division prior to becoming a property consultant. Since then, he has leased shopping centres, helped revitalise The Rocks, and represented the government on the new Sydney Fish Markets development.

The Mall is Michael's first novel. He is finalising the follow-up, Siren, for release in late 2025.

He currently works as a Property Consultant.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good military sf space opera. It's a little on the obscure side because the publisher, TSR, was known almost exclusively for their Dungeons and Dragons and Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms products, and the few original (non-game-related) novels they released got lost in the shuffle both by readers and, I suspect, their marketing department. Too, TSR was collapsing in financial difficulty at around this time (leading to their subsequent purchase by Wizards of the Coast), and I don't believe this one got wide distribution. (It lived up to its title, one might say.) In any event, fans of space opera with a military bent might want to give this one a try if they happen to spy a copy.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2682354.html

I gave up on this one after fifty pages; it's a rather routine mil-sf story about a soldier with wonderful technological device working to overthrow the invader, clunky in style, and obvious where it was going from the first few chapters.