From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Nov 30 16:55:44 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!hookup!uwm.edu!chi-news.cic.net!simtel!news.kei.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news!nobody From: "Stephen M.G. Hodge" Subject: Review: Challenger's Hope by David Feintuch Message-ID: <627833998wnr@sloth.demon.co.uk> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author= Stephen M.G. Hodge Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Reply-To: hoj@sloth.demon.co.uk Organization: None Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 19:46:07 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 52 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:861 rec.arts.books.reviews:985 CHALLENGER'S HOPE by David Feintuch Warner, ISBN 0-446-60097-0, 1995, 406pp, UKP4.45 A book review by Steve Hodge (hoj@sloth.demon.co.uk) It is not easy to articulate why I found Challenger's Hope by David Feintuch such a peculiarly awful book, one which I disliked almost from the first page, but carried on reading in horrified fascination right to the end. The story is a 'Space Navy' saga somewhat in the style of the Horatio Hornblower novels and later imitations (the full title of the book is 'Challengers Hope, being the second voyage of Nicholas Seafort, UNNS, in the year of our Lord 2194'). It concerns the trials and tribulations of 'the youngest Captain in the entire UN Navy,' who has reached this happy state as aresult of his adventures in the first book of the series 'Midshipman's Hope,' which I have not read, and do not propose to. Most of the book concerns the relationships between Captain Seafort and his fellow officers, with a number of cardboard characters (including Captain Seafort's unfortunate wife) and some comic strip aliens making bit part appearances as a back drop to the main action. By the end of the book it is clear to the reader, but not perhaps to the author, that virtually all of the officers, and in particular Captain Seafort (who tells the story in the first person) are clinically insane, and that the UN Navy is not an organisation to which it would be wise to entrust the defence of the planet. In fact I suppose this is the problem - if the book is about anything it is about how a Space Navy might be organised and function effectively - and at the end of the story you come to the conclusion that the organisation described most closely resembles a machine drawn by Maurits Escher (very complicated and it would never work), while the motivations and emotions of the people in it seem to have a lot in common with those prevalent in a nursery school for disturbed children but little relevance to grownups. This wouldn't matter too much - at least to the true sf afficionado - if the story was good, or the science interesting or the backdrop well drawn or the aliens thought provoking but unfortunately Challenger's Hope has almost none of these merits. Overall the book has a lot in common with Starship Troopers (including a distinct uneasiness with male/female relationships, and a certain relish for gratuitous male/male violence and sadism) but Mr. Feintuch is not yet in Robert Heinlein's class in the areas of story and science. There are some tantalising hints that the author may have a better book in him provided he sticks to space opera and eschews any further attempt at character studies (after all, I did feel the need to get right through to the end), but on this evidence he has a fair way to go even to achieve this limited ambition. %A Feintuch, D %T Challenger's Hope %C New York %D 1995 %G ISBN 0-446-60097-0 %I Warner Books Inc %O Paper back UK Sterling 4.45 %P 406 Pages From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jan 2 13:18:06 1996 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!news.seinf.abb.se!norconnect.no!news.ece.uc.edu!babbage.ece.uc.edu!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!nobody From: cash@worm.convex.com (Peter Cash) Subject: Midshipman's Hope, by David Feintuch (a review by Peter Cash) Message-ID: <4ba2en$d9r@icarus.convex.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author= Peter Cash Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: The Instrumentality Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 00:17:28 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 98 MIDSHIPMAN'S HOPE A book review by Peter Cash [spoilers begin midway through the review, after a warning. Therefore, I am putting the reference information up front so people wanting to find the book do not need to go past the spoiler mark to get the info. --AW] %T Midshipman's Hope %A David Feintuch %C New York %D 1994 %I Warner books ("Aspect Science Fiction") %O paperback, US $5.50 %G ISBN 0-446-60096-2 %P 391 pp For reasons that I will not speculate upon, future societies that are conservative, or in which Christianity plays a significant part, are a great rarity in the science fiction genre. The presence of both these elements in David Feintuch's MIDSHIPMAN'S HOPE (and the rest of the books in this series) is enough to mark them as unusual. What makes these books _sui generis_ is that this society is not viewed by either the author or his characters as being particularly evil--or even undesirable. Throughout, the author's viewpoint is non-judgmental. The society in Feintuch's books is presented as a reaction against the chaotic "age of rebellion" (presumably our times); by the end of the 22nd century, the world has been united under a "Yahwist Reunification Church", the political arm of which is (so help me) the United Nations. Feintuch understands that liberal and reactionary trends alternate in history, and doesn't make the mistake of so many SF writers who merely assume that the social mileu of the future will be characterized by the _laissez faire_ morals of our own. As a Christian, I have to say that Feintuch's "Yahwist Reunification" is far too legalistic for my taste--I have no desire to live in a theocracy, and especially not this rather grim one. However, it's refreshing to read a SF novel in which prayer and faith are an ordinary part of life. I suspect that the social background was necessary for the kind of story Feintuch wanted to write. According to the cover blurb, he's a student of Napoleonic-era British naval history. It was plainly Feintuch's desire to write a story with a setting as close as possible to that era. To do this, he didn't need to set up a theocracy, of course (Britain was never one)--but he did need a very hierarchical society in which strictest discipline, including corporal punishment for minor infractions was plausible. The socio-religious background is more than just a stage setting, however. Faith in God and an absolute devotion to duty are integral to setting up the motivations and conflicts of the major characters, particularly Midshipman Nicholas Seafort. So far, I've read two of the "Seafort Saga" books--MIDSHIPMAN'S HOPE and CHALLENGER'S HOPE. A third--PRISONER'S HOPE--waits on my nightstand to be read. The cover blurb to one of the books mentions that this is a four part series, and that all the books were written before the first was published, so we should have the fourth novel--FISHERMAN'S HOPE--in our hands soon. Minor spoilers follow. You have been warned. Nicholas Seafort is a seventeen year old midshipman--the most junior officer grade possible--aboard a large space craft heading toward a colonial outpost. Due to a series of accidents, all officers senior to Seafort die, and he is forced by the laws of his service and his sense of duty to take command of the ship--despite his unshakeable conviction that he is not qualified to do so. At first, I thought this was going to be a kid-becomes-hero juvenile novel, and I almost put it down. I was soon surprised, however, by the complexity of Seafort's character, and by some surprising plot twists. Seafort is anything but an archetypal SF space opera hero. He lacks all confidence in himself, and suffers dark torments of conscience for every misstep--real or imagined. While those around him see Seafort as a hero, to himself he is an abject failure, and he cannot believe that everyone doesn't see him for the fraud he thinks himself to be. In the second book, things turn considerably darker than the first. Instead of a functional ship, Seafort spends most of CHALLENGER'S HOPE as captain of a derelict, trying to hold together the mutinous and desperate crew and keep the ship capable of supporting life--despite his own conviction that they are all going to die. Sometimes, things got almost too grim--I was often left wondering how things could possibly get worse...until they do. Seafort becomes more despotic and erratic as conditions get worse, until he is driven to the ultimate extreme--a choice between violating a sworn oath or saving his ship from destruction. This oath is no light thing--it is sworn to the Lord God personally, and violating it means to spend eternity suffering in hell. This is not a dilemma familiar to any of us; yet Feintuch makes it painfully real in this story. I've found these two books captivating and refreshing, and can't wait to read the rest to find out what happens to Seafort. It's a tribute to Feintuch's writing and originality that I really can't tell whether Seafort will wind up as a hero or as a dog in the end. I do hope he discovers that God is more forgiving than he has been led to believe. | Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist. | Peter Cash | (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein) |cash@convex.com