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Starwolves #4
The Starwolves: Dreadnought
Genetically adapted to rule the infinite night, the Starwolves, outcasts of Earth, must battle an invisible, undetectable alien death machine intent on annihilating all humans and Starwolves.
- GenresScience Fiction
234 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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About the author
Thorarinn Gunnarsson
20 books17 followersFrom Wikipedia: Thorarinn Gunnarsson is the pseudonym of an American author of science fiction and fantasy.
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March 12, 2014
A mildly interesting addition to the Starwolves books: a prequel detailing Valthyrra Methryn's first voyage and the Kelvessans' attempts to save human space from a weapon that is destroying spaceflight capabilities. We get to see the Kelvessan many years before Velmeran's time, before they had even started to concern themselves with their own racial identity. We get to see a good part of the story through the eyes of a Union captain, who is sent as a liaison to the Starwolves after surviving the Dreadnought's attack on her ship. Overall, the book's entertaining enough to finish and had some interesting bits in it, but large swathes fell prey to the plot holes, lack of tension, and oddly one-note characterization that plagued previous books.
As in previous books, the plot fell prey to the "It must be X!" "Yes, yes, it must be!" treatment where the reader is left wondering why it must be X and not Y or Z? This sort of "move along" feel to the story wasn't helped by the general lack of tension. The author managed to suck the tension out of a plot about a giant warmachine. Mostly this was because we never got to see the destruction. Ships and star stations and all the people on them were destroyed, but always at a distance. With one exception early on (when it was fairly obvious that she would not die, as she was a main character), no one whose eyes we ever saw through ever seemed to be in any significant danger. The general phlegmatic disposition of literally every Kelvessan and also Capt. Tarrell made sure that I never was worried because no one in the book seemed to be more than mildly perturbed at any point. Not to mention, the problem of the Dreadnought is solved not by the characters' ingenuity but more by finding several convenient weaknesses. The ending felt pretty contrived, really.
The story also focused on the rather technical plot of how to fight and destroy the Dreadnought to the detriment of (I thought) several more interesting minor plot arcs. Most of these centered around Captain Tarrell, who eventually finds herself respecting and slightly concerned for the Kelvessans that she sees as little more than slaves to the Republic.
Captain Tarrell is on an enemy warship, but we never see her do anything except interact during planning or fight scenes. Nothing about her day to day life, or interacting onboard the ship with the Kelvessan who were supposed to be her enemy, or culture shock or anything. No discussion of what she did with her downtime, or even what the ship was like off the bridge. Hell, I would have loved to see her wandering the halls talking to random Kelvessan. Eating in the mess, surrounded by Starwolves. SOMETHING. Or, for that matter, seeing her aide do the same, as he had his own utterly pasted on subplot that came out of nowhere and would have really BENEFITTED from seeing him actually talk with some of the Starwolves. Instead, Tarrell's personality was cut from the same cloth as every Kelvessan character in the book: utterly stoic and unflappable.
This ignoring of personal stories is a shame, because when explored (briefly), it produced some of the best bits of the book. The highlight for me was a short scene where Valthyrra, having just done something dumb but successful and now unsure of how she'd performed, tentatively asked Tarrell for feedback, and they have an interesting discussion. Also, seeing Valthyrra slowly developing into the prelude to the snarky ship she is in the previous books was a treat. Seeing Valthyrra's first captain slowly developing respect for her was also interesting. But, all of this was a very small percentage of pages, sandwiched in between a lot of workmanlike prose devoted to ships moving from one place to another and trying to figure out how to solve the technical problem the author had constructed that, really, didn't turn out to be all that interesting.
As in previous books, the plot fell prey to the "It must be X!" "Yes, yes, it must be!" treatment where the reader is left wondering why it must be X and not Y or Z? This sort of "move along" feel to the story wasn't helped by the general lack of tension. The author managed to suck the tension out of a plot about a giant warmachine. Mostly this was because we never got to see the destruction. Ships and star stations and all the people on them were destroyed, but always at a distance. With one exception early on (when it was fairly obvious that she would not die, as she was a main character), no one whose eyes we ever saw through ever seemed to be in any significant danger. The general phlegmatic disposition of literally every Kelvessan and also Capt. Tarrell made sure that I never was worried because no one in the book seemed to be more than mildly perturbed at any point. Not to mention, the problem of the Dreadnought is solved not by the characters' ingenuity but more by finding several convenient weaknesses. The ending felt pretty contrived, really.
The story also focused on the rather technical plot of how to fight and destroy the Dreadnought to the detriment of (I thought) several more interesting minor plot arcs. Most of these centered around Captain Tarrell, who eventually finds herself respecting and slightly concerned for the Kelvessans that she sees as little more than slaves to the Republic.
Captain Tarrell is on an enemy warship, but we never see her do anything except interact during planning or fight scenes. Nothing about her day to day life, or interacting onboard the ship with the Kelvessan who were supposed to be her enemy, or culture shock or anything. No discussion of what she did with her downtime, or even what the ship was like off the bridge. Hell, I would have loved to see her wandering the halls talking to random Kelvessan. Eating in the mess, surrounded by Starwolves. SOMETHING. Or, for that matter, seeing her aide do the same, as he had his own utterly pasted on subplot that came out of nowhere and would have really BENEFITTED from seeing him actually talk with some of the Starwolves. Instead, Tarrell's personality was cut from the same cloth as every Kelvessan character in the book: utterly stoic and unflappable.
This ignoring of personal stories is a shame, because when explored (briefly), it produced some of the best bits of the book. The highlight for me was a short scene where Valthyrra, having just done something dumb but successful and now unsure of how she'd performed, tentatively asked Tarrell for feedback, and they have an interesting discussion. Also, seeing Valthyrra slowly developing into the prelude to the snarky ship she is in the previous books was a treat. Seeing Valthyrra's first captain slowly developing respect for her was also interesting. But, all of this was a very small percentage of pages, sandwiched in between a lot of workmanlike prose devoted to ships moving from one place to another and trying to figure out how to solve the technical problem the author had constructed that, really, didn't turn out to be all that interesting.
Displaying 1 of 1 review