simplerich

Starship: Mutiny and Starship: Pirate by Mike Resnick were books one and two in a series. I’m a big fan of space opera. I thoroughly enjoyed Dune, and include it in my list of books I would take to a deserted island. E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensmen series was hugely influential. The Honor Harrington Series by David Weber is also one of my favorite series ever. I like strong characters and bigger than life conflict. I’m a sucker for lantern jawed heroes who are almost super-human in their abilities.

Starship: Mutiny introduced us to a military man who was too smart for his own good… too smart for the military. He kept getting in trouble and demoted twice for doing great heroic things that showed off his genius while rubbing his chain of command in how much smarter he was than them. I could totally identify with that. After all, I’m a genius right? Just ask me. I’ll tell you. And, as in the book… I will go on to explain over and over again why my reasoning is right, why my compatriots should trust me, why everybody else is stupid, and why, in painstaking detail both before, during, and after, my plan will succeed. Wait. No, that’s not me. That’s the protagonist of Starship: Mutiny, Wilson Cole. By the end of the first book I was really tired of hearing him explain himself over and over again. I get it… you’re smarter than everybody else. So was Lazarus Long and everybody on the Gay Deceiver (Deety, Zebediah, Jacob & Hilda) but Heinlein didn’t constantly beat me up with it. He let them ACT intelligently without constantly blowing their own horn.

Wilson Cole came across not intelligent and witty and urbane. He came across over-bearing and arrogant. That was the first book, which I mostly enjoyed. I don’t mind arrogant that much if there are other redeeming qualities. By the time I got to the second book, Starship: Pirate I was tired of the arrogance and tired of how Resnick used the supporting characters as foils for Wilson Cole. I felt like he, Resnick, could have allowed the other characters to have a brain too. Every time a decision had to be made in book two there was an argument where the supporting characters fought with Wilson Cole only to have him bulldoze them into accepting his way of doing it and in every case he was right. Seriously… if they’re that stupid why would he be friends with them?

The head of security, Sharon Blacksmith, isn’t just a strong woman who is head of a hugely strong security department and who is incredibly competent at her job and amazingly smart at her job is, for some reason whenever she gets around Wilson Cole, a giddy slut who can only talk about the previous night’s sex and their future sex that they may or may not have depending on if they’re getting along at the moment. She does this all the time, in person, by hologram, in front of other members of the crew, just whenever Resnick needs to try and break tension. Instead of coming across flirty or flirtatious it comes across trashy and wrecks her character for me.

By the end of the second book in the series (Starship: Pirate) I was done with Wilson Cole and his supporting crew. I liked the story and really wish I didn’t hate the characters so much. I won’t read books 3, 4, or 5. This is saying a lot since I already bought book 3 on audible.com. I’d rather listen to nothing than subject myself to more of Wilson Cole bullying his “friends” and telling us how smart he is and how blind and unobservant his crew is.