La missione del tenente Truant

by Gordon R. Dickson, Mario Galli (translator)

Il soldato che perde la memoria dopo un combattimento è un caso abbastanza frequente, in guerra; ma il tenente Truant, che ha espugnato alla testa del suo reparto una città su un pianeta ostile, non è uno smemorato. Ricorda tutto, di sè e degli altri: nella sua mente c'è solo un piccolo vuoto di poche ore. Che cos'è successo in quel breve intervallo? Che cos'ha fatto? Che cosa gli hanno fatto? È per trovare la risposta a queste domande che Truant tornerà nell'esercito spaziale e darà un nuovo indirizzo alla sua carriera e alla sua vita.

Copertina di Karel Thole

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Adventure, Military Fiction, Military Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

130 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Gordon Rupert Dickson was an American science fiction author. He was born in Canada, then moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota as a teenager. He is probably most famous for his Childe Cycle and the Dragon Knight series. He won three Hugo awards and one Nebula award.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out promising. Hal was part of an occupying force on a planet because that's what we do. Just ask the American Indians. The aliens were trying to fight humans off and this time having success. Things looked bleak for our occupying forces. To maintain planetary dominance we were going to have to commit atrocities, and break our truces, all just to survive. Then suddenly Hal wakes up in a hospital off-planet with 16 hours of his memory gone.

Cool premise, right?

Then this 1961 book takes a left turn to try to outdo Heinlein's Starship Troopers, published in December of 1959, but ends up being nowhere near as funny. Light spoilers ahead. Instead of trying to figure out what happened to his memory, Hal joins some Peace Corps branch and goes through Basic Training again to be indoctrinated to the ways of peace and good will to other cultures. The story meanders away from there with Hal learning how aliens have value and how difficult it is to convince soldiers to be tree-huggers, I mean alien-huggers. We get some watered down, didactic message on embracing other civilizations instead of conquering them, how it is better we go naked to the stars rather than carrying guns and subjugating aliens. Oh, and somewhere in there we find out what happened with the missing time, but by then we don't care because it's just to make us realize how we should never mistreat well-intentioned alien cultures.

Gag! I rate this novel 5 stars for the promising premise, 4 stars for the interesting characters created, 3 stars for the lack of humor, 2 stars for the meanderingly, botched conclusion, and relative overuse of description for dialog, 1 star for the trite, cliched moral of tolerance for other cultures. That is an average of 3 stars.

Edit: I reduced the rating further. Three, by Goodreads' written standards, means you liked the book.

[Jesse Whitehead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gordon Dickson is one of the few authors to ever make enough money writing science fiction that he didn’t have to do anything else supplement his income. Over the years he proved himself to be immensely versatile. He wrote military science fiction, exploration stories, first contact stories, stories about religious fanatics, about libraries, about dragons, about teddy bears, about war and peace and life and death. He wrote serious, hard fiction. He wrote light and humorous comedic fiction. He wrote epic fantasy and heroic fantasy. Among all his books some are obviously better than others. Dickson knew a lot about telling stories. He knew how to make characters flawed and conflicted but still likable and competent.

His book Soldier Ask Not is one of the most powerful stories on the effects of war that I’ve read. The Forever Man is a powerful story about first contact with aliens that and the confusion that comes when two groups of people have no means with which to communicate.

Naked to the Stars is mostly forgettable. It’s a good book because Gordon Dickson almost always wrote good books but it will not change your life. It is the story of a young soldier who is wounded in battle, loses his memory and is forced to leave the military. He struggles with his feelings of inadequacy and a growing sense that the Human habit of conquering every planet by force is not as justified, as he had formerly believed.

The story is powerful, the ending exciting, but when it’s over it’s over. It doesn’t live on like some stories do.

[Neil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thots while reading:
"Alexander of Macedon," said his father, "and Jesus of Nazareth both founded empires, Cal. Where are the hosts of the Alexandrians today?" (31 - 32). Jesus founded an empire? In what universe did this happen? Did this guy [Dickson] ever read the Bible? Or, did he just decide to spew the drivel of lies that so many authors seem to like to propagate in their writings by making a statement like this?

I cannot quite decide if the comment "the present veteran-dominated government" (31) is a slam aimed at Starship Troopers or not. I have seen other 'experts' indicate this book was written as a result of Heinlein's book, but I still cannot decide if this is truly the case.

The 'hero' of the book remembers the first flogging he had to witness (34), which is similar in nature to the flogging in Starship Troopers (in that the soldier is disciplined for conduct unbecoming a soldier and then dishonorably discharged). The key difference being, Cal does not pass out or throw up after being forced to watch the flogging take place (35).

"...the Combat outfits look after their own" (34). Wow! So similar in nature to the AWOL cap trooper who was captured and then hanged; the comment made in Starship Troopers is that the Mobile Infantry takes care of its own, and that they will not let civilian authorities clean up a mess made by an AWOL trooper. Maybe the 'experts' are more correct than I gave them credit for being about this being a riff of Starship Troopers.

Cal also has an argument with his father, just as Johnny Rico did with his. Unlike Johnny and his father, Cal is unable to reconcile with his father because his father dies. Really? And the author makes Cal so hard-hearted about it, so unlikeable! I'm not sure who's the bigger jerk in this situation, the author or Cal.

The Progs only outnumber the human soldiers a mere 600-1 (99), and this is somehow supposed to impress us? That's pathetic. The Bugs outnumbered the human soldiers far worse in Starship Troopers.

How odd - the author compares [equates] God with a derogatory term for blacks (120)? What happened to him, to make him write such a derogatory thing about either God or Negros?
---------------------------------
Wow! That was an incredibly...stupid? weak? lame? book with an especially crappy ending. Cal's 'epiphany' [if you want to call it that] was pathetic and seemed like a dream caused by delirium as opposed to an expansion of one's mind and ...whatever. It sucked. The character development sucked. Some [but not all] of the characters sucked. Some of the plot sucked. Most of the situations and concepts sucked. It was an all-around suck. Unfortunately, though, I did 'like' parts of it. Why did I finish it, if it sucked so bad? Because I have a pathetic weakness in that I will finish a book in hopes it gets better.

It had potential. It truly did. I liked the concept raised by Scoby, that the Contact Services be kept separate from the Armed Services and be sent in first to see if peace could be obtained sans fighting and killing. It is a nice concept; no doubt about it. Too bad it ignores reality.

I thought Cal's 'nuclear blackmail' to obtain peace was more-than a little funny. It just seemed so...either paradoxical or ironical or...something. It's just funny - "I'll kill everybody if both sides don't stop fighting and agree to a peaceful resolution to this disagreement!" I realize extreme times call for extreme measures and all that, but it really felt like Dickson was overreaching by this point in the story. The ending was not quite a Deus ex Machina ending, but it was pretty close.

Calvin, in no way, shape, or form, was a sympathetic character. I had no sympathy for the guy, even though he did kind of grow on me and I was rooting for him in the end. He is a jerk towards practically everybody, including those he considers his personal friends. He gets insulted and hopes he never runs into his 'old friend' again after the insult, because the level of insult requires he kill his 'friend' the next time they meet (74); he takes it exceedingly, extremely personally. He is a jerk to new cadets when he has to repeat basic training to be a part of the Contact Services. We find out that part of his 'amnesia' has to do with some bad [wrong?] choices he made after being awake for sixty straight hours in combat in which he shoots some unarmed civilians in the back as they are trying to flee. This ties into a 'pet peeve' I have about the book [specifically, it's back cover]. It lies to the reader! It misrepresents both Cal and the book!

How does it do this? On the back cover, it says "Discharged for the potential danger those lost hours might have programmed, Cal Truant made it his fixation to uncover the mystery buried in his mind - to find out what happened during those missing hours - and block the peril it might represent to his fellow troopers, to his war command, and to the planet for which they fought - Earth." Ooooh! It sounds so thrilling! So exciting! Too bad it's a complete and utter lie!!! He does not waste any time trying to find out what happened during those lost sixteen hours. He is offered three or four chances TO FIND OUT WHAT MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE HAPPENED, AND HE CHOOSES NOT TO FIND OUT! He prefers to live in ignorance. Cal joins the Contact Forces because the Armed Forces will not have him back until he gets his Psyche Evaluation straightened out, which he refuses to do.

I cannot quite decide if I am 'happy' I read this or not. I think I would say "I am happy I read it" because now I know how bad it is and that the idiots who positively compared it to Starship Troopers are half out of their minds. It is nowhere near as good as Starship Troopers. I read this partly because The Forever War has also been compared to Starship Troopers, and it turned out to be better than I thought it would be. So I felt those comparisons were fairly right on between the two books. To compare this drivel to Starship Troopers is to give this story more credence than it deserves. And I have already spent too much time on it. Thankfully, it was a fast read, so that means I only wasted about two hours of my life reading it that I will never get back.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

Section Leader Calvin Truant of the 91st Combat Engineers has not slept in two days, his unit is at less than half strength and their translator is dying, and all the officers have been killed, leaving Cal in command. The truce with the alien Lehaunan is about to end, and it looks like the village they’re stationed near has been getting reinforcements all night. So it’s understandable that Cal orders an attack as of the official end of the truce.

The 91st takes the village, only to discover it undefended beyond a few mine guards. Cal abruptly wakes up in an ambulance ship sixteen hours later, with wounds he doesn’t remember getting. The physical injuries are healed with future medical technology, but the missing hours are still a blank. The brass won’t let him re-enlist for a combat role unless he undergoes a psychiatric probe, but Cal fears that they might find something that would bar him from service forever, and being a soldier is all he knows.

A recruiter offers a way past this impasse. While Cal is barred from combat, he could become a Contacts Officer, a non-combatant medic/translator/diplomat embedded with the troops to win alien hearts and minds as the humans conquer them. It’s not an admired profession, but someone’s got to do it, and it’s a way to get back in uniform. Cal reluctantly agrees, and completes the training just in time to be assigned to the war against the Paumons. There, he may be able to confront his daddy issues and the horror that lies within the missing hours.

Gordon R. Dickson was best known for his Dorsai novels, military science fiction about futuristic mercenaries. This book takes a different tack, as Cal must confront the fact that winning a war isn’t just about conquering the enemy militarily.

It’s interesting to compare this book to Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, also published in 1961. Both feature societies where politics is dominated by military veterans, with public flogging, and extensive sections set in boot camp. But where the Heinlein book had the troopers protecting a largely apathetic citizenry from aggressive aliens who sought only to destroy, in this book, the government suppresses dissent by violence, and is engaged in expansionist colonization with preemptive attacks on technologically inferior aliens on flimsy pretexts. The books are also almost polar opposites on pacifism, with one discarding it as useless passivism, while the other sees it as a better way forward.

As mentioned above, Cal has issues due to his difficult relationship with his father, who he chose to blame for the death of his mother. He also has what we’d consider untreated post-traumatic stress that causes him to detach himself from those around him. This being the kind of novel it is, most of this gets resolved by Cal having epiphanies, rather than therapy. It also makes him rather unsympathetic in the middle section.

Cal’s relationship with nurse Annie Warroad is somewhat disjointed; much of its development is off-stage, but at least it’s clear that it does develop (as opposed to the usual 50s/60s SF thing of “love happens because the hero gets the girl.”) The difficulties in the relationship realistically come from Cal’s emotional issues and tendency to push people away.

This is not considered one of Mr. Dickson’s stronger works, in part I think because it has an agenda that plays against the grain of the subgenre. And given that the Earth is more or less the bad guys in this one, it may not sit well with some more jingoistic readers. But it’s got some interesting ideas, and is probably available in a used book store near you, or even your library.

[John Loyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise has an imperialistic Earth going to the stars, guns blazing, to further human expansion. Unfortunately we never see, not even mentioned, a planet where humans have colonized. And evidently this culture has no concept of trade partners or academic study. Put that ridiculousness aside, what we have is Cal. He's a grunt (mulebrain is Dickson's term) mostly OK with humans coming to these planets and subjugating the natives. He's injured taken to a hospital back on Earth given a field commission. When he recovers he can't rejoin the service because of a psych hold. But they will let him sign up for the Contacts Services. Now he's kind of on the side of reason.

I loved the Childe Cycle and Dragon novels. In a generous mood I'll give this one three stars. How many people are in this universe? The nurse that was with them when Cal got hurt on Lehaunan, is taking care of him during his recovery in Denver, and she also gets assigned to the mission out to Bellatrix. General Harmon and General Scoby who seem to be stationed on Earth, also end up at the new conflict. I don't think it's held up from sixty years ago. Thinness of the premise. Earth has faster than light travel, yet they're fighting battles with ground troops.

[Manfred Kodila · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for adults

This book was readable, but never really developed into a page turner. The characters never flesh out into three dimensional believable humans, they remain two dimensional throughout. Unlike the believable and engaging people in the Heinlein juveniles, they never come 'alive'. There is much that is contrived and I really had to stretch myself to plod on through the story. Mr. Dickson was really off his game with this one.

[Philip Athans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, probably of value only to military SF super-fans/completists.

[Carson Porter · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.4/5

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dickson, Gordon R. Naked to the Stars. 1961.
Naked to the Stars is one of those books that goes in and out of print with great regularity. I read it in a Tor Double from 1990, but these days I imagine the Kindle edition is the easiest way for most readers to encounter it. It is a book that almost 60 years on still has something to say to us, perhaps more than it might have to its original readers in the gap between Korea and the Gulf of Tonkin. Our protagonist Cal is a professional soldier with unresolved psychological issues from his childhood who is fighting for an Earth that is unabashedly expansionist. When he is badly wounded and unwilling to undergo treatment for what we would now call post-traumatic stress, he joins a noncombatant “contact service” charged with negotiating with the forces of the defeated aliens. Although this is a science fiction novel set in an expanding galactic empire, the issues of the story could have been presented in any historical war in which a powerful army conquers less well-armed opponents. In a phrase that would become popular a few years after the novel was published, it seriously examines the difficulties we will encounter if we want to “give peace a chance.”

[R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't a great military science fiction book but it was far from bad and putting it in context and the time period is important which I feel that a lot of the detracting reviewers have failed to do.

This book was originally published in 1961 and so it is one of those from the Vietnam War generation of books that draw on the experiences of the times. Dickson himself was a U.S. Army World War 2 veteran having served from 1943 to 1946. Both of those wars and world events no doubt influenced the writing of this book. Dickson actually showed some amount of prescience with a fictional account of the science fiction My Lai Massacre considering this book was published a full seven years before the massacre actually happened.

That said, it wasn't exactly action packed, but it compliments Haldeman's Forever War and Heinlein's Starship Troopers to round out your classic military science fiction genre quite nicely.

Not recommended for people who were looking for the next mindless Aliens vs Predator style of science fiction.

[Mdaly · Rating 2 out of 5]

A science fiction story set in a future where the Earth are aggressively attacking and subduing alien races in a galactic form of lebensraum. Within that framework a not wholly convincing story of one man, Cal Truant, a former Army officer, who recognises the immorality of their latest Expedition and sets about doing the right thing.

[Samuel Lubell · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mostly forgotten novel (these days, more like a novella) about a former military officer who joins the non-military Contact Service and begins to question the way the military treats aliens as beings to conquer. It's sort of the flip side to his Dorsai books and nowhere near as good.

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

NOTE: I read a different edition--ACE Books, first paperback edition--1980.

With Naked to the Stars, the cliché is correct: “You cannot tell a book from its cover.” Enric, the comics illustrator most famous for the “femme fatale” known as Vampirella, must have churned this cover out on a very tight deadline. The most detail is an open-collared uniform on protagonist Cal Truant that looks like a mash-up between a red-shirt Star Trek character and an Indian officer during the height of the British Empire. The diminutive rendering of the nurse in the foreground looks like a throw-back to WWII-era nurses (the kind of uniform my grandma and aunt wore in the ‘50s). The green-hued alien, offset from Truant doesn’t resemble any of the aliens described in the book, and the tiny inset of soldiers on the move lacks the kind of detail one would expect from Enric Torres-Prat.

One doesn’t know what to expect from the book by looking at the cover. Author Gordon R. Dickson is known for his novels told from a military perspective and Naked to the Stars is no exception in that regard. However, for a novel originally copyrighted in 1961 (though my edition was the first Ace printing from 1980), it seems to capture what was to happen later in the ‘60s and early ‘70s (with the Vietnam Conflict) quite accurately. I remember reading about the attempt to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people on one side while the old-style military mindset kept concocting strategies doomed to drive the Viet Cong into guerrilla warfare with ever higher stakes.

Naked to the Stars is the account of a hardened military man (“mulebrain” as they called them in the book) who becomes part of that cultural/diplomatic mission to win the hearts and minds of the aliens his army had heretofore been trained to kill. As a result, the conflicting emotions of the veteran turned cultural liaison becomes fodder for some nice philosophical musings. In the next paragraphs, I’ll share a few of my favorites.

“Death was the brittle final ultimate of any weapon; and death shattered pointlessly upon the spirit of anyone who paid out his life in honest coin up to the moment of death. For the first time Cal felt a little of the great strength that moves men of faith, no matter what that faith may be.” (p. 92) Later, thinking of a friend, a “mulebrain” who just wouldn’t quit, Cal thought: “He would force the mirage to be real. He would force his cause to be just, his fighting noble, his life, when it came to an end, to be a worthy price paid on a purchase of value. And all the time he was doing this, the undeniable realization grew stronger and stronger in him that his god was an empty shell, his purposes false, and he faced no final dedication.” (p. 147)

In speaking of his father’s pacifist (called “Societist” in the novel) philosophy which he had always hated, came begrudging post-mortem acknowledgement: “He had been right about the uncertainty of that thin line that marks off the soldier from the murderer, that thin line that is also the edge of the precipice over which the spirit of a man falls to its final destruction.” (p. 173) Cal also considers the illogical idea of “giving up” in juxtaposition with consideration of suicide: “To say, if I can’t be perfect there’s no point in my being good at all…If I can’t shoot par, I won’t pick up a golf club. Wrong. You stick by what you believe, and go on doing what you can in your own clumsy, imperfect way, trying to hack out Heaven by next Tuesday, …” (p. 174).

Such insights made trudging through the unnecessarily slow pacing of Naked to the Stars seem worthwhile. This wasn’t the novel I thought it was going to be, but I’m glad I read it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title's "nakedness" refers not to being unclothed, but rather, being unarmed-- i.e. weaponless. The title comes from the musings of the title character at the end of the novel.

A decorated soldier, recuperating from a severe wound, is refused entrance into combat troops because of a psychological "hold." There is a segment of time in the last battle that he cannot recall and if he would submit to a psych exam it would be cleared up. Fearing what they might find, or the 1 in 100 chance that it would render him permanently unfit for service, he opts instead to join another branch of the military called the "contact corps." This group is part corpsman/medic, part P.O.W. custodian, and part diplomat to work out issues with a conquered enemy. These men are despised by the combat soldiers and called "gutless wonders."

Dickson uses the novel as a bully pulpit. First, it reflects to an extent, the military's treatment of Native Americans, though the parrallel is never actually stated. Cleverly, the author suggests such a reflection by the naming of some of the alien enemies. The story and dialogue certainly is very pointed as it draws a distinction between the military mindset and those who prefer a more peaceful (Think Star Trek's Federation) approach to encountering alien cultures. The military says conquer while the diplomat says practice diplomacy. The author clearly feels that there is a time and place for both-- it isn't really anti-military as much as it is suggesting that the military need to have a more balanced approach to future space exploration and settlement.

In between the preaching and posturing, there's a pretty good Science Fiction novel.... not a great one.. but it was worth my time and effort.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting (and very short) science fiction novel from early in Dickson's writing career. It confounds expectations: the nakedness in the title has nothing to do with nudity.; the opening chapters are not, as they appear to be, the start of a militaristic SF story like Starship Troopers. Given the date of publication, it seems fairly clear that the story is inspired by the events of the Vietnam War; it is about empathy and recognition that those who fight on the opposing sides are basically similar people, no matter what they believe about the soldiers on the other side. And it fits in with Dickson's Dorsai novels in the way it uses science fiction to dissect aspects of military thinking. It is not without flaws: there is little of personal growth among the characters; the aliens are perhaps too human-like; while there is one important female character, it is a male dominated story. But well worth a quick read.

[Matteo Recrosio · Rating 3 out of 5]

È un buon libro di military science fiction come ormai non se ne vedono più. Una storia che ha a che fare con la guerra, le gerarchie militari e gli alieni mescolandosi per raccontare l'essere umano e il suo rapporto con la violenza e la conquista di tutto quello che non conosce. La storia ha senso dall'inizio alla fine e non si conclude bruscamente o cambiando completamente direzione. Molto interessanti gli alieni simil procioni e le descrizioni sui pianeti, così come la critica alla guerra e al pensiero militare. Non penso fosse nelle intenzioni di Dickson di scrivere qualcosa di memorabile ma piuttosto qualcosa che riflettesse sulla guerra e che sapesse intrattenere, senza grossi picchi narrativi ma comunque con fermezza e onestà verso i suoi personaggi e chi legge. Un buon modo per avvicinarsi alla fantascienza e a come la guerra, anche di fantasia, sia sempre guerra. Bello constatare ogni volta come la fantascienza è da sempre al passo con i tempi, nonostante questo libro sia stato scritto negli anni 60.

[Arthur Buswell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better answer

Most of the negative critical assessments I’ve read of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers are similar to Moorcock’s Starship Stormtroopers article, in that they reveal the authors to be either illiterate or brainwashed to the point of being unable to comprehend clearly written expository prose. (Brainwashed applies to Moorcock. He had, at least at the time he wrote that dreck, such strong political prejudices as to be incapable of comprehension of viewpoints not supportive of his politics.)

What Dickson did was take a fictional government that hypothetically originated in a manner similar to Heinlein’s in Starship Troopers and show it going seriously awry, in a manner at least as credible as Heinlein’s story. It may be more credible. There have been a lot of military governments over the centuries. Some have been failures, some arguably successes, but I can’t think of any that were small government libertarian utopias.

[Paul M. Speer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Read

I’ve been reading Dickson my whole adult life. I’ve spent many wonderful and exciting times with Dorsai. I don’t know how I could have missed reading this book.

[Claudio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Un libro sulla guerra vista dal punto di vista di un soldato. Interessante ma non avvincente e per nulla fantascientifico. Totalmente noioso e privo di humour.

[Regine]

Zealous.

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not tremendously interesting in and of itself. The storyline is ok, but there are a good number of loose ends and plot holes that would bother the really astute reader.

What makes this book somewhat interesting is reading it as a Cold War piece. The backdrop of the novel is that humanity engages in a series of wars to conquer various planets out towards Bellatrix, in Orion. There is a conflict in the official military ideology of expansion through conquest and armed conflict, and the Contact Services--a type of diplomatic corps--conception of negotiation and cultural communication. To me this seems like a commentary on Cold War strategies as both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. tried to expand their influence through military conflict and subversion.

[Scott Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A military style book. Great story, lots of philosophy on whether or not we should make peace or make war. The main character Cal is a solider who becomes part of a bigger plan to negotiate with the enemy rather than annihilate the enemy. Did not care for the excessive foul language in parts. But other wise I liked it.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great prose, great length, a complexity and nuance of thought that add a lot of texture, and strong thematic elements--let down by a cliched and boring second act. Perhaps basic training montages were new and exciting in 1961, but they're terminally damaging now. Besides that, a solid but not great pacifist manifesto wrapped around a surprisingly thoughtful tale told well.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think the optimal (and narrow) audience is military veterans. This spoke to my insecurities, my worries, my fears. A favorite passage:
"He had been right about the uncertainty of that thin line that marks off the soldier from the murderer, that thin line that is also the edge of the precipice over which the spirit of a man falls to its final destruction."

[Erik Graff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forgettable science fiction novel by Nebula award winning author, Gordon R. Dickson.

[SciFiOne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Grade F.

[Keith Fitzgerald · Rating 1 out of 5]

meh

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good short story read.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somehow didn't grab me like other Dickson books

[Luís Baixinho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melhor do que esperava.
Apesar de ser claramente um livro militarista, a personagem consegue crescer e converter-se com algum realismo. As dúvidas apresentadas pela personagem são credíveis apesar de difíceis de entender em algumas passagens.