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Firejammer
Having dropped an alien-contact anthropologist on a newly discovered inhabited planet to establish a relationship with the aliens, starship *Richard M. Nixon* and its crew returns two years later on a trade mission. The corporations of the Tripartisan Economic Combine are eager to buy the aliens' epoxy glue, which is among the best ever seen in known space. Vincent Icehall, the starship's young shuttle pilot, has little to do during the mission but hang out with what he assumes is the alien community's jester and village idiot. Icehall can't pronounce the alien's name and dubs him "Turkey," but slowly begins to realize that Turkey is anything but. Ignoring all of Turkey's warnings for the crew to leave the planet immediately, Icehall stumbles on a plot by the anthropologist and the aliens' chieftain to steal the Nixon's shuttle for use as a weapon of war.
93 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 22, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 3, 2019
Full disclosure: Jeff sent me a review copy of this book, so I didn’t pay for it, and we wrote a double novel together a few years back.
There was a time before science fiction was gritty. Perhaps that time has come ‘round again, because Jeff Duntemann’s Firejammer, an homage to Keith Laumer’s work of the 1960s through the early 1990s, is a breath of light, funny fresh air in science fiction today. Firejammer has profoundly inhuman aliens who eat rock and excrete the best two-part expoxy in the known galaxy. Naturally, the Tripartisan Economic Combine (Earth and its allies) would like to trade with them. Miscommunication and misunderstanding abounds on both sides, and the Rockchompers are not above appropriating Earth technology for their own purposes as well. They’re not, after all, stupid. For all the fact that the story is light and short, it still carries a king-sized dose of the best science fiction trope of all – making you think.
There was a time before science fiction was gritty. Perhaps that time has come ‘round again, because Jeff Duntemann’s Firejammer, an homage to Keith Laumer’s work of the 1960s through the early 1990s, is a breath of light, funny fresh air in science fiction today. Firejammer has profoundly inhuman aliens who eat rock and excrete the best two-part expoxy in the known galaxy. Naturally, the Tripartisan Economic Combine (Earth and its allies) would like to trade with them. Miscommunication and misunderstanding abounds on both sides, and the Rockchompers are not above appropriating Earth technology for their own purposes as well. They’re not, after all, stupid. For all the fact that the story is light and short, it still carries a king-sized dose of the best science fiction trope of all – making you think.
December 22, 2019
Firejammer: Pulpy Planet Hopping
Joseph Schwartz
Author of The Crossover Test, The Crossover Brand
The Crossover Test
The Crossover Brand
Jeff Dunteman’s Firejammer offers a funny, often intense sci-fi ride on an exotic planet where the indigenous creatures eat rock, spit valuable super-glue, and make life difficult for Icehall, the resourceful shuttle mechanic thrust into a series of deadly encounters. Accompanying the hero is his sidekick, the wacky Turkey, the Rockchomper with a penchant for finding the funniest phrases in the most unusual circumstances. This character’s secret adds to the novel’s abundance of clever surprises.
Dunteman packs the short novel with rich detail, furious action, political intrigue, and some of the best-named characters this side of Alpha-Centauri. But the super-glue that hold the story together is the relationship between Icehall (ironically named) and enigmatic Turkey. Their exploits alone are worth the time.
The readers are encouraged to read the Author’s Afterword; the novel was written in a time where planet-hopping tales were sci-fi standards and names like J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon covered headlines. Older readers will smile at the nod. All readers will enjoy Firejammer.
Joseph Schwartz
Author of The Crossover Test, The Crossover Brand
The Crossover Test
The Crossover Brand
June 4, 2019
I've been a fan of Jeff Duntemann for some years. I read his latest book, Firejammer, over the past two days. It's really good.
The story is told from the point of view of Vincent Icehall, shuttle pilot assigned to the Tripartisan Economic Combine's ship Richard M. Nixon. They are in the process of negotiating a trade deal with an "unconsolidated" alien race on a world with a really bad volcano problem. Unconsolidated races are ones in which the planet doesn't have one unified government, and our aliens are at roughly an Iron Age civilization. But they are biological chemical factories who eat rocks and excrete a really superior adhesive - something that the Nixon's crew can sell.
Icehall had made friends with one of the aliens in a previous visit, and he renews the friendship. Then, in an action-packed last third of the book, he discovers that these aliens are really different in a number of non-obvious ways. He also discovers that their world's volcano problem is much worse then thought.
Many science fiction readers also read mysteries, and I think they do so for the same reasons. In science fiction, the question isn't WhoDunIt but HowDoesTheWorldWork. Jeff creates a very interesting world with very interesting humans and aliens. Well worth the read.
The story is told from the point of view of Vincent Icehall, shuttle pilot assigned to the Tripartisan Economic Combine's ship Richard M. Nixon. They are in the process of negotiating a trade deal with an "unconsolidated" alien race on a world with a really bad volcano problem. Unconsolidated races are ones in which the planet doesn't have one unified government, and our aliens are at roughly an Iron Age civilization. But they are biological chemical factories who eat rocks and excrete a really superior adhesive - something that the Nixon's crew can sell.
Icehall had made friends with one of the aliens in a previous visit, and he renews the friendship. Then, in an action-packed last third of the book, he discovers that these aliens are really different in a number of non-obvious ways. He also discovers that their world's volcano problem is much worse then thought.
Many science fiction readers also read mysteries, and I think they do so for the same reasons. In science fiction, the question isn't WhoDunIt but HowDoesTheWorldWork. Jeff creates a very interesting world with very interesting humans and aliens. Well worth the read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews