Subject: Review: PARTISAN by S. Andrew Swann

From: [email-masked] (Wayne Throop)
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 20:26:29 GMT

[As a review of the second book in a trilogy, this might be something of a
spoiler for the first volume.  --AW]

This is the second book in the Hostile Takeover trilogy.  As is usual for
middle books in a trilogy, more details of wider theme are laid out, some
threads left dangling from the first book are tied off, and new ones are
unraveled to be resolved by and by.  A satisfying book, perhaps, but not the
rush of a new story unfolding as in a first one, nor the sweep of resolution
as in a final one.

But despite the problems a middle book is heir to, there's a good solid
adventure story here, and plenty going on to keep the reader involved.  You
can read the book stand-alone, before the first one, but you'll be missing
out on a lot of detailed background, so some of the quick interleavings will
make less sense than they would otherwise.

The adventure story is simply the continuation of the conflict set up in the
first book, between ex-spook Dominic Magnus, and his still-spook brother
Klaus Dacham, who is obsessed with hunting down Dominic, and killing him.
The reasons behind this conflict slowly become clearer as more details are
revealed across the span of both books, and we see looming behind the scenes
many hidden layers of related events, both fallout from and motivation for,
the simple foreground conflict.

Wheels within wheels, the personal conflict is wound up in a political
power-play to force the anarchistic planet of Bakunin to join the
Confederacy (which it so far has declined to do), which in turn are wound up
in succession politics in the Confederation executive branch, which in turn
affect the balance of power between multiple planetary alliances, both human
and alien.

And the intricate political setting is complemented nicely by a rich
technological background, as humans have many high-technology artifacts, but
have intentionally shied away from the Vinge Singularity, having been burned
by nanotechnology and AI disasters.

Swann does seem to get a bit more polished and adept with each book.  He's
written a trio of books (a bit more independent than a trilogy, but just
barely) about the frank/moreau era in the same universe as this trilogy, and
he has the touch of laying out an intricate background and setting amongst a
deftly told story that I most like about the SF genre when done well.

So, while not strictly necessary, you may want to get the first in this
series, to read it in order.  But the series in general, and this second
book in particular, are well worth the read.  I'm eagerly awaiting the
finale.

%A S. Andrew Swann
%D 1995
%G ISBN 0-88677-670-8
%I DAW
%C New York
%O $4.99 paperback
%P 342 pages
%S Hostile Takeover
%T Partisan
%V 2

Wayne Throop   [email-masked]
               [email-masked]