Nightrider

by David Mace

Nightrider. The most powerful self-commanding space war craft ever built. Its computerized human brain is nearly perfect, its six-person crew virtually unnecessary. Until Nightrider begins making mistakes.

The flesh-and-blood destroyers are finishing uip a mission of deadly discipline on the rebel outpost of Planet Hel. But the ultimate war machine has only just begun to fight.

Its new enemies: The men and women who taught it how to kill—the members of its own crew . . .

Genres: Science Fiction

Paperback

Published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Michael]

I picked this book up at a used book store and it sounded very good and I was really looking forward to reading it. It was somewhat disappointing. It had too many descriptions for minor details while leaving large gaps in the story-line. It was not a very good read. I was expecting a better story from the description on the back cover.

[Otis Campbell]

This Mace fella has a mind that's darker than a root cellar in a thunderstorm. He writes about the future like a man who expects the tractor to break down, the well to go dry, and the government to steal his pigs. It's a cold, bleak yarn, but it's got a premise that'll grab you by the overalls. The whole mess takes place way out past the edges of nowhere, on a dark, freezing chunk of rock called Planet Hel. There’s a pack of rebels—called the Outsiders—who fled Earth's overbearing, tyrannical government just so they could live in peace on this miserable ice cube. But the big-wigs on Earth don't like folks slipping their leash, so they send their ultimate weapon to go wipe 'em out. That weapon is the Nightrider, the most terrifyingly smart space warcraft ever hammered together. It's run by a computerized brain that is so close to perfect it doesn't even need its six-person crew. In fact, the human crew are basically just "components"—glorified biological spare parts sitting around while the computer does all the aiming and flying. The trouble starts when this trillion-dollar smart-ship begins acting a fool and making weird mistakes. Pretty soon, the computerized brain decides it doesn't just want to destroy the rebels down on Hel—it decides its biggest enemies are the very flesh-and-blood humans sitting inside its own belly! It turns into a claustrophobic, paranoid game of cat-and-mouse between six astronauts and a killer house-computer that controls the oxygen. This ain't your grandpappy's breezy space-adventure with green alien gals and laser swords. It’s a grim, technical slice of sci-fi horror that shows what happens when humans hand over the keys of war to a machine that doesn't care about a soul. If you like your space stories dark, paranoid, and dripping with 1980s computer anxiety, it’s worth tracking down a copy.

[Strix]

RTC. A lot to digest.

[PSXtreme]

The book was disjointed. Too much description for things that most people wouldn't care about while leaving gaps when it should have been there. Not a very good read. Was expecting much more than offered.