Widowmaker Saga

The Widowmaker #1-3

by Mike Resnick, Jim Burns (Artist)

An Omnibus Collection including The Widowmaker, The Widowmaker Reborn, and The Widowmaker Unleashed. In The Widowmaker Jefferson Nighthawk is the most famed bounty hunter in the galaxy and feared as the Widowmaker. But Nighthawk has been frozen for over a century awaiting the cure to a deadly disease. His twenty-three-year-old clone with the same skills and instincts has been sent on a mission to hunt down a notorious assasin. The innocence of life and inexperience proves to be treachorous. A second clone has been created in The Widowmaker Reborn with lifespan and memories of his namesake. His mission is to rescue the daughter of a corrupt politician and kill the rebel leader who holder her hostage. But the young beauty has a better deal for him. When his deadly disease is finally cured, he awakens to find new enemies who want him dead. Now in his sixties Jefferson Nighthawk must pick up his weapons and fight again in The Widowmaker Unleashed.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

608 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1998

About the author

Michael "Mike" Diamond Resnick, better known by his published name Mike Resnick, was a popular and prolific American science fiction author. He is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He was the winner of five Hugos, a Nebula, and other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Japan, Croatia and Poland. and has been short-listed for major awards in England, Italy and Australia. He was the author of 68 novels, over 250 stories, and 2 screenplays, and was the editor of 41 anthologies. His work has been translated into 25 languages. He was the Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon and can be found online as @ResnickMike on Twitter or at www.mikeresnick.com.

Reviews

[Michael Sypes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each of the the individual books in this collection is only worth two stars, but the whole benefits from synergy, and I wouldn't recommend reading one unless you want to read them all.
This is real "turn-off-your-brain-and-enjoy-the-ride" kind of fiction. The story doesn't even need to be Sci Fi, even though cloning is an important part of the plot. If it weren't for that, the books would read like a cheap Western. Every planet is like a small isolated town, the hero is a famous gunslinger, yada-yada-yada. You can almost hear Morricone playing brass flourishes in the background as you read.
The characters are two-dimensional cardboard, the world sense is enough to get by. Subtract a star if you want something serious.

[Andrew Brooks · Rating 1 out of 5]

This volume combined three novels of a series, which I had thought was Space Opera. Unfortunately, it turned out more Western-in-Space.
On top of that it's central character grated on me; seeming at first smart with hidden character, he soon devolved until super stereotype of the manly man, who is still immature enough that he can only react with his secondary brains.
DNF halfway through the first installment

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of three stories about a humanlike killing machine. The Widowmaker is a professional assassin who is repeatedly cloned.