Starfishers

Starfishers #2

by Glen Cook

Treasure troves of power. They were creatures of fusion energy, ancient, huge, intelligent, drifting in herds on the edge of the galaxy, producing their ambergris, the substance precious to man and the man-like Sangaree alike. In deep, starless space the herds were protected by the great harvestships of the Seiners, or Starfishers - the independent, non-Confederation people who dared to skirt the deadly boundaries of Stars' End and battle the Sangaree. It is with them on the harvestship Danion that Confederation agents Mouse Storm and Moyshe BenRabi have to fly and fight, probing mystery and myth. And where BenRabi, man of many names, must surrender his dreams and his mind itself to the golden dragons of space and their shepherds, the gathering... Starfishers.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Speculative Fiction, Space

232 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1982

About the author

Glen Cook was born in New York City, lived in southern Indiana as a small child, then grew up in Northern California. After high school he served in the U.S. Navy and attended the University of Missouri. He worked for General Motors for 33 years, retiring some years ago. He started writing short stories in 7th grade, had several published in a high school literary magazine. He began writing with malicious intent to publish in 1968, eventually producing 51 books and a number of short fiction pieces.
He met his wife of 43 years while attending the Clarion Writer's Workshop in 1970. He has three sons (army officer, architect, orchestral musician) and numerous grandchildren, all of whom but one are female. He is best known for his Black Company series, which has appeared in 20+ languages worldwide. His other series include Dread Empire and and the Garrett, P.I. series. His latest work is Working God’s Mischief, fourth in the Instrumentalities of the Night series.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/glencook

Reviews

[✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) · Rating 4 out of 5]

☠ Glen Cook We Love Thee Like Murderous Crustaceans Love Bloodbaths Buddy Read (GCWLTLMCLBBR™) with my dear wife Choko, Evgeny the sometimes Wise One, Lee the Ex Noob and Holly the Prodigal Mercenary ☠

Actual rating: 4.35 stars. Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I was going to give this one a 5 star rating, but my friends fellow backstabbing addicts corrupted my soul and all that crap.

The Special Glen Cook Rating System (SGCRS™) applies here. Again. Missed the previous episodes and have no freaking clue what the fish I am talking about? That's so sad. Your life really sucks, my Little Barnacles.

I said it before and I'll say it again: you know something very shrimpy is going on when a Glen Cook book lacks confusion and doesn't make you feel like a complete retard.



Yes, this book is dreadfully unsettling in its disgusting straightforwardness. Okay, so it is as straightforward as a Glen Cook book about intergalactic spies can be. Which is not that very. Straightforward, I mean. Okay, so it is. A little. Straightforward, I mean. It's just that it's not quite as straightforward as a Noddy story would be. Or something. Because this is, you know, Glen Cook. And he is, you know, the King of All Things not Straightforward Even When They Are Supposedly Straightforward and Stuff (KoATnSEWTASSaS™). Besides, one of the many glorious side effects of being a Slightly Shameless Hysterical Glen Cook is a God Fangirl (SSHGCF™) is that you want to be befuddled so badly you end up seeing perplexing twists and cunning manipulations even when there are none to be found. So you end up being confused by the lack of confusion you thought was so not confusing you made up confusing stuff so that the lack of confusion would stop being so confusing. Follow me? No? Don't worry, me neither.



Why this gif? No idea. I'm just the crappy non-reviewer here, it's not like I'm in charge of the interior decorating or something.

Yeah yeah yeah, some of my double crossing comrades would argue that this is Decaf Cook and that this book is way too normal *shudders discretely* for His Gloriousness. And our Lord Shrimp knows I hate all things normal *shuddering intensifies* But Cook is Cook. And Cook is a God. And I am an Ever So Slightly Biased SSHGCF™ (ESSBSSHGCF™). And stuff. So QED. And stuff.

Yeah yeah yeah, some of my delightfully untrustworthy colleagues would argue that this is a kinda sorta filler because very little not much happens and it's mostly about glorious world building and wondrous characterization but because the world building is glorious and characterization is wondrous I don't give a damn whether this is a kinda sorta filler and stuff. So QED. And stuff.

Now let's talk about the real problem here. There are enough revoltingly nice characters in this book to make any Historical Romance author jealous. I kid you not. It's quite repulsive, really. But, hey, at least Cook's characters are slightly unhinged and delightfully conflicted. And they are about as nice as Cook characters can be, which means they still enjoy slightly slaughtering things in their spare time. Still, all this abominable lack of utter viciousness and complete evilness is quite troubling. It's all very fishy, if you ask me, and I think this is one of those Cunning Cook Plans (CCP™) CCP, not CCCP, you Great Russian Revival Freaks (GRRF™). I mean, everything was tied up wayyyyyy too comfortably here. And that ending. Oh bloody shrimping hell, that ending. It's nothing short of a revolutionary concept, if you ask me: a Cook book that ends with a freaking spoiler spoiler spoiler? Let me tell you, my Tiny Decapods, governments have been toppled for much less than that. Which leads me to this undeniably logical conclusion: some very dark evil is at work here, and Glen Cook is a God will get his much-anticipated Machiavellian revenge in book 3.



Yes, my Lovely Arthropods, this hunk here ↑↑ is indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, aka The Babe, aka Hot Stuff.

Okay, almost there. Two more things before I let you go back to your fascinating lives ← this may or may not be a slightly sarcastic comment:

① This book reminded me a little of the Gloriously Glorious Plain of Menagerie (GGPoFM™). Because starfish and sharks and stuff. And that alone justifies a 5-star 4.35-star rating.

② I used to hate space in general and space operas in particular. With a vengeance. Because, seriously, what can be more ridiculously boring and boringly ridiculous than a bunch of nitwits struggling with gravity while wearing repellently unsexy space suits? Apart from a bunch of flamenco dancing barnacles, I mean. Anyone? No one? That's what I thought. I have thus proven that all space operas were ridiculously boring until Glen Cook happened. And that alone justifies a 5-star 4.35-star rating.

» And the moral of this I am Getting Kinda Tired of Trying to Find Highly Educational Morals for Every Crappy Non Review I Write Crappy Non Review (IaGKToTtFHEMfECNRIWCNR™) is:



You're welcome.



Ha.

✎ Book 1: Shadowline ★★★★
✎ Book 3: Stars' End ★★★ ← you never saw this. This never happened.
✎ Book 4: Passage at Arms ★★★ ← are you seeing a 3-star rating here? I knew it. You're drunk again. Damn, how many times have I told you alcohol was bad for you?!



[Pre-review nonsense]

Glen Cook, you kill me dead. Even when your books don't confuse the hell out of me and make me feel like a complete moron. And that takes real bloody shrimping talent, if you ask me. Let's party.



► Full I May Be an Ever So Slightly Biased Cook Fangirl but I don't Give a Freaking Shrimp What You Silly Barnacles Think Crappy Non Review (IMBaESSBCFbIDGaFSWYSBTCNR™) to come.

[Choko · Rating 4 out of 5]

*** 3.75 ***

A buddy read with the Glen Cook mercenaries at BB&B...

The standard of storytelling that I have come to expect from Mr Cook is very, very high! I loved the book, but it felt like Glen Cook light somehow. What I mean is that usually he writes a plot full of various backstabbings, numerous timelines, and endless political machinations, betrayals, and murder! In this book we had some of that, but it actually read like a "regular, normal book". A normal book, guys, and that is just not normal for Glen Cook!!! It made sense straight away, and usually it takes several chapters until you get your bearings and get oriented. Since I expected the most devious of plot twists and got some mostly duplicitous but somewhat acceptable levels of treachery, it was a tad ... normal! Which is just weird.

This story happens about 15 years after the Storm family was devastated and decimated by their enemies and only Mouse is left alive. We get to see the dramatic changes this event has brought to this gentle and caring young man after all this time. It was jarring and very disturbing at times *shudders*

Moishe is a friend and a colleague from the Academy to Mouse Storm and they have been paired together for espionage, information gathering missions for the Federation. We mostly get Moishe's POV and he tends to reminisce about some previous missions which have had an effect on his current circumstances, so there is a bit of back and forth, but it is easy to follow and get caught up in.

The story is still very interesting and the introduction of the star dragons, as I call them, was pretty awesome! The world itself is quite distopian and I am soooooo glad it is not even close to our reality!

Overall, I love the way Mr. Cook can tell a story and build a world with the minimum of description or infodumping, creating some very compelling characters and putting them in situations which bring out the best as well as the worst in them. This Space Opera is worth checking out for the fans of the genre, but it is not related to the Black Company, if this is what you are looking for. I am looking forward to reading the next installment!

Now I wish you all Happy Reading and many more wonderful books to come!

[Eilonwy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What did I just read?

This has the closest thing to a happy ending I’ve seen in any Glen Cook book. And … I liked it.

This is Book Two of a trilogy, yet it almost stands alone just fine. The events take place 15 years after the first book, and the POV shifts from multiple members of the Storm family to consistently following one character, a spy going by the name Moyshe benRabi, but who has been known by many others. The “present” story is woven together with a “past” story that started one year before and which flows into the current plot and shows how everyone gets/got into place for the climactic events that will surely take place in Book Three.

On the one hand, this does feel like a middle book in a trilogy, as it’s a lot of set-up and introduction, with much less of the intricate, convoluted plotting, backstabbing, and neck-breaking twists that usually feature in a Glen Cook novel. On the other hand, I really appreciated how much more lived-in this book felt, with more focus on the characters and their relationships, and expansion of the worldbuilding from Book One. Much of this book takes place on spaceships, as well, and yet it felt a lot less sterile to me. Also, there are many fewer battles, which was fine with me (although this still doesn’t mean any character is safe from annihilation, gulp).

I don’t want to say too much about it, because it’s Glen Cook, which means (a) it’s still twisty enough to be hard to explain, and (b) it should be read without knowing too much. Everything you need to know gets introduced into the story or descriptions exactly when you need it.

If you tried Shadowline and just couldn’t get into it because of all the characters and threads, I’d recommend trying this second installment anyway, because it’s so different. Most of what’s important from the first book gets mentioned at some point. And this book has Space Dragons! Space Dragons! And they are just as cool as you would imagine!

It’s funny, because my first inclination was to rate this three stars. But as I’ve had some time away since finishing the book, I’m actually liking it better. So four stars it is. And now on to Stars’ End!

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starfishers was a bit of a surprise for me. I kind of expect a certain type of writing style when I read Cook and I am not entirly sure that this hits the mark for me. Either; a/ it is Cook lite and a nice and happy story, or b/ Cook just set me up to kick my ass in book 3.

I like to think it is 'b'. Because 'a' just seems all a bit weird after the madness and mayhem of book 1. This story I am assuming is setting up the final two books, because there was a lot discovery of races/classes in this and what was actually just a space flight adventure that wasn't justifiably explained, with questionable lovey dovey attitudes toward the two main characters, known spies and just a general 'lets all get on' type storyline. If it wasn't for the Sangaree woman on board and her backstory.

So not 100% convinced on this book. It was a good story and I look forward to book three, but I am going to have to give this 3.5 Stars because I had too many questions at the end that failed to be answered.

[Eric Wisdahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought Starfishers, the second book in the Starfishers series by Glen Cook, was a pretty good read. It kind of took me by surprise as it went off in a completely different direction than Shadowline, the first book in the series. The series switched main characters from Masato "Mouse" Storm to Moyshe benRabi. This was a little unexpected as it really seemed like the emphasis of the first book was to get to know Mouse and the events which had shaped his life into the wanton hatred he had for his enemies. Instead, we are presented with a man who is at a bit of a loss as to how he came to be in his position, a little ashamed of what he has been forced to do, and all in all more than a little morose. Mouse is still a prominent character, but he is no longer the narrator.

Where Shadowline was about a sense of impending doom, a passing of an era, and most of all the story of characters learning to hate and to soak in the need for revenge, Starfishers was a book which dealt with learning to trust, to feel and to finally fit in.

I'm very interested to see where things go from here.

[Zare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Story takes place years after the great mercenary war on Blackworld. Mouse Storm is back to Confederation Lunar Command and serves as a special operator in the Confed's intelligence service. Here he is paired with his colleague from Academy, man living under so many names that he is on verge of forgetting his real name. Man now known as Moyshe benRabi.

Story starts with Mouse and benRabi entering the service with Sainers, legendary Starfishers, in role of tekkies. Reason is that Seiners need people to help them around their ships for the time being. Result is not that good for Seiners - instead of expected thousands only several hundreds signed in. And in these hundreds majority are members of intelligence services from all over - Confed, Sangaree and various other corporations and mercenary/pirate outfits.

All of these espionage elements have the same goal - find out the secrets of Seiners and how they manage to get to the "gold" from the dragons, "gold" (I truly cannot remember the name of the materiel) that is basis of advanced technology for all species in the universe.

Of course, since we are talking about Mouse Storm, things get complicated with entrance of mysterious Sangaree woman, agent from one of Sangaree Families or maybe the ruling council itself. And here we get a background on the conflict and we are presented with how Mouse fights his own vendetta against Sangarees even while working on other tasks.

Suffice to say (because I do not want to spoil anything, book and trilogy in general is excellent) things get .... problematic (?) .... for our duo and very soon they will come to realize that Seiners are not just dragon herders but there is something more in their actions, actions with which they try to hold something more sinister at bay. And Mouse..... well there is more about him too, but we are yet to found out what exactly is his goal.

As always this is great action SF. Technology is integral part of the story and it is very cyberpunky but it does not run the show. People and story do - and here I have to say author's military background comes to the front - entire plot, action and espionage sound and feel very authentic and real (entire SF setting not withstanding).

Excellent book. Only minus that I see is that it does not have a definitive end (it is book number two after all) and it ends on a cliffhanger.

Now to read that final book in the series :)

Highly recommended.

[Heath Lesjak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable plot, but the writing style was extremely chaotic (clearly intentional, as I've read other Glen Cook which was different), to the point where it almost seemed like poetry at times. The wider universe Cook weaves is one of my favorite things about the series. I got a little tired of Mouse just being amazing at everything, though he does have his flaws (hate much?), and the first book in the series did go a long way to explaining why he's amazing. Overall an enjoyable read, if nowhere close to my favorite stuff by Cook.

This book actually took me months to read because the initial two chapters were so chaotic I couldn't get into it and just put it down for a while. When I finally picked it up again, I had to start over from the beginning and a few chapters in I got hooked and read the rest in a couple of days.

[David H.]

Why I didn't finish this: The first book, Shadowline, was interesting enough, especially with its Ragnarok-but-space-mercenaries setting, but this second book just completely changes the focus to a character named Moyshe (with Mouse from the first book as a secondary character), and I just found myself not caring at all about Moyshe's internal struggles (especially when they're of the "wow, she's hot, I want to bang her" variety). And considering I only liked the first book OK, there's no reason to keep going on, ha!

[Neil Hepworth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Those of you who are giving this book four or five stars: are we reading the same book? I like Glen Cooks's writing style, but...but...this book has no plot. Like, none. No plot. Zero. I read 230 pages and nothing happened until perhaps there were 30 pages left, and by then I stopped caring. If this book were any longer I would have abandoned it.

Sorry. I just don't get this one. Oh, well.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable and a bit less confusing than the first in the trilogy. The Starfishers harvest "ambergris" from the giant transdimensional beings called starfish. The ambergris powers the instantaneous communications equipment and so is invaluable. Mouse and Moyshe join a Starfisher's crew to try to find out more about these very secretive ships.

[Serge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely different from Shadowline and shares little with it, but just as good.

[James Swenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave up on this when, about halfway through, I picked it up and realized I couldn't remember anything that had happened so far.

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy Starfishers as much as I enjoyed Shadowline. Shadowline really conveyed an excellent mood, and a great feel of time and place. Starfishers focuses much more on another character, one mentioned in passing during Shadowline. The character is not really as compelling as any of the ones in the previous book, and the Starfishers really don't feel like the alien society that the first book made them out to be. This book is mainly good as a setup to the third book in the series, Star's End. One of the main characters in the first book, Mouse, makes a reappearance here (and in Star's End) but the character not only feels totally different than in Shadowline, but not even in a fashion that would be considered an obvious progression from the life changes he experiences at the end of the last book. An interesting read, but certainly not the impressive experience I remembered from many years ago.

[Larry Kenney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasnt expecting a ton out of this book, after the first one. It started off a little slow for me, but quickly became very interesting to me. I really enjoyed the espionage in the book. I also really liked the world building, and found the different cultures to be very interesting. In the end, I was rooting for the story to go in a particular direction, which i rarely do. I''m sure I'll be starting the 3rd book today!

[Jesse Mcconnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book ends on a much more upbeat than the previous one in the series, which is a phenomenally low bar to overcome. The mysterious Starfishers barely mentioned in the first book of this series are the focus of this book, and the intrigue and adventure are great.

It ends with a satisfying conclusion, but there are more than enough unresolved questions that you won't be able to wait to read the next one.

[Matt Sabonis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting departure from the first book in the trilogy. It diverts the plot into a portrait of the internal life of a spy who's been partnered with a character from the first book, Mouse. All the "plot" is background material, things that happen whether or not Moyshe (the main character) gets involved. Again, highly recommended stuff.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid sci fi narrative, a far cry from the first book both in terms of narrative reach and complexity. An easier read much more of a serial novel than the first. I had a few significant issues with the book however the focus on two characters did much more for an understandable plot, and the background work of the first novel did much to make the setting a fun and rushing thriller.

[Brian Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a better novel than the first in the series (Shadowline)...which is unusual for a series. Again, strong military science fiction. This novel delves into the mysterious Starfisher society and has much more of an espionage feel than the straight-up military clashes of the first book.

[Mars · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

It's not bad, but two weeks after I've read it I can't really remember anything significantly notable about it - it's mostly just a segway into the third book, which was considerably better.

[George Christie · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not as closely knit as the first book in the trilogy, the conflicted character of BenRabi made to book quite enjoyable, as did the revelations regarding the Starfish. Overall an enjoyable read

[Kermit · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit disjointed and meandering, but it slowly builds and before you know it, you can't put it down.

[Ronald Marcil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starfisher #2

[Grey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent sequel. Really stretches the imagination.