King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournelle
Written: Mar 07 '02 (Updated Nov 25 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: plenty of interesting ideas to take away and mull over
Cons: Cheesy chauvinist attitudes
The Bottom Line: Read this book to see a vision of a future where off-earth colonies have had time to lose the technologies they arrived with, and the consequences!
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| snpmurray's Full Review: King David's Spaceship Books |
Jerry Pournelle here hypothesizes that by the twenty-ninth century, human colonization of the galaxy has been going on for long enough that some of the inhabited planets have now become lost completely from the colonizing system, and their technological development has retarded. Slipped so far backward, in fact, that the inhabitants are now back to using pikes and cudgels, and wearing animal skins and weaves.
How could this come about? As usual, the culprit is the petty bickering and squabbling of the opposing kingdoms and fealties between the worlds. While Earth and its close associates still reap the benefit of all those centuries of space colonization, many of the outer lying colonies are now worse off than they were before they ever set out for the outer reaches in hope of a new and better future.
However, slowly but surely, the wars having passed for the most part, order and integration is being restored to our corner of the galaxy. Under the auspices of a Imperial Navy, and a guild of merchants, the worlds are being reintegrated through a process of annexing to the empire, and a network of trade and barter is encouraged.
This sets the background for “King David’s spaceship”. Prince Samual’s World has been completely isolated for centuries, but recently it has been reached again by the Imperial Navy, who are in the process of setting up a base on the world. Their goal is for the world to be re-integrated…but to what degree? Worlds which are currently without space exploration capability are only admitted as colonies, with no independence , basically subject nations. Those with space capability may be admitted as member nations. Since Prince Samual’s world is without space travel technology at this time, they face a grim future where their fate will be decided for them.
Into this scene comes Nathan MacKinnie, mercenary Colonel, and traditionally a despiser of King David, the ruler of much of Samual’s world. MacKinnie is recruited by the King and his men, they see him as the only man who has the skills they need, but is obscure enough to the navy to help them….he must go to the nearby world of Makassar, disguised as a trader. On Makassar, hidden in a monastery and worshipped as a holy relic, lies a copy of the entire library of the old empire. If MacKinnie can steal this library (the natives of this world have no idea what it is), and bring it back to Samual’s world, perhaps it can be used to build a spacecraft, upgrading the world from subject race to member nation
MacKinnie accepts, and accompanied by a small team of specialists both military and academic, he sets out for Makassar. Once there, having fought his way through pirate hoards, he discovers that the monastery is in great jeopardy, from local warring factions, and it becomes necessary for him to fight an entire war before he can gain access to the relics he seeks, with enough time to get them copied!
Can MacKinnie wage and win a war on a strange primitive planet using only pike and cutlass? Can he gain access to the sacred reliquary, and steal the contents of the imperial library for his people? Will the information in it permit his own world to build a spacecraft? These and other questions await your pleasure in “King David’s Spaceship”
So much for the plot. Decent enough material!
So how well does this work? Actually, it works excellently!
I will confess to you, I was less than a quarter of the way into this novel when I realized that it is not really the kind of thing which usually my cup of tea…it was not immediately obvious upon reading the sleeve, that this is a novel of the “military campaign” ilk. I don’t usually go for this kind of thing, as descriptions of large scale battle formations, and gung-ho dialogue don’t really cook my onions for me. Nevertheless, I had, by that point in the novel realized that Jerry Pournelle (this is the first of him I have read) spins a good yarn. And, of course, if you yourself already actually enjoy this kind of book I think you can be guaranteed of an even more entertaining read than I had.
Pournelle is good with ideas. The question central to the story is how would one deal with a civilization which is less advanced than oneself. Pournelle expands this idea, and in this piece we are presented with a universe where really no two worlds are on a completely even keel with each other, and everybody is at a different stage of technological development. This is interesting to observe, and Pournelle thinks the whole thing through splendidly. The protagonist MacKinnie must repeatedly re-evaluate at what level he identifies himself with society. Is the society in which we identify ourselves based on personal, geographical or technological constants? If those are not always the same, which values delineate the loyalties of the individual? MacKinnie finds it not so simple to choose.
Many of the supporting characters in the book, whilst not always as fully fleshed out as they could be, bring the right mix of factors into the story to make the whole thing gel. Pournelle sets up the interweaving hierarchies which all vie for a piece of the empire-building action. I found the overall effect reminiscent of the conquistadors and the invasions of South and Central America.
As I mentioned, there are large portions of the book concerned with the execution of military campaigns. Here, Pournelle spends some time and effort presenting a comparative analysis of how a primitive army would fare against a more tactically advanced opponent. I am not really qualified to vouch for the veracity of what the author is talking about here, but I was sufficiently entertained to keep reading, something I would not normally do when confronted by fifty or some pages of solid war story. The battle is fought on a technological level which reminded me of the movie Braveheart. I can only repeat, if this is something you happen to really enjoy, then this book is doubly for you!
A criticism I would have to throw at this book concerns the authors naïve and childish attitudes towards females. The only strong female character (it is made perfectly clear that this very strength is very unusual in a woman, no less!) is portrayed as being the able and in-control master of…….sigh….the kitchens. Yes, in her element, with men cowering at her every command on how to peel the potatoes, here for me Pournelle fell flat on his chauvinistic face. Here again, we see shades of Heinlein, where even a strong woman must not be too strong, and a clever woman must be clever enough to know her place. Spare me, please!
This book has a thoroughly enthralling ending. How the inhabitants of Samual’s world come finally to deal with the problem of space flight is something I’ve never quite read the like of before, and actually I think the last section of this book would have made a very nice novel all on its own with a little light padding
All in all, an entertaining read , this book, with a compliment of original ideas which the author deals with in an interesting and intelligent manner. Its not as gory as all that, but I’d keep it till the mature teens.
Some of my other science fiction book reviews:
Rama Revealed
Prelude to Space
Stand on Zanzibar
The Demolished Man
The Stars my Destination
Cat's Cradle
The Gods Themselves
Watchmen
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Hammer of God
The Left Hand of Darkness
Flowers for Algernon
Lord of Light
Rendevous with Rama
The Tombs of Atuan
The Dispossessed
I am Legend
The Einstein Intersection
Earth Abides
Peace on Earth
The Farthest Shore
Methuselah's Children
A Call to Arms
To your Scattered Bodies Go
The Lion of Comarre / Against the Fall of Night
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Doomsday Book
Frankenstein Unbound
Batman - The Dark Knight Returns
Imperial Earth
A Case of Conscience
Solaris
The Sands of Mars
The Land of Laughs
Eden
His Masters Voice
Citizen of the Galaxy
King David's Spaceship
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Double Star
The Fabulous Riverboat
Songs of Distant Earth
Way Station
The Fountains of Paradise
The Long Tomorrow
Lincolns Dreams
Alas Babylon
More Than Human
1984
The Forever War
All the Myriad Ways
I Sing the Body Electric
Gateway
Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said
This Immortal
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Recommended:
Yes
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