Customer Reviews

Eagle Against The Stars

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I disagree with some of the earlier comments. I found "Eagle Against the Stars" a pretty fair space opera, reminiscent of Raymond Jones' classic "This Island, Earth" (the book, not the movie, although the movie wasn't bad) with its alien contact theme and the role the humans end up playing in it. So what if the author has an agenda? So do novels ranging from Patricia Cornwell's police stories to "The Destroyer" series. The question is: are they engaging enough to entertain or enlighten? I enjoy White's political incorrectness, even if I disagree with bits of it. As for the woman being the lesser character because she is identified by a perky nickname, she seemed to me more dominant and sensible than the male lead. This book was fun.

Eagle Against the Stars (2000) is a standalone SF novel. It is set several decades from now on Earth. Aliens have appeared and all man's technology cannot touch the Lokaron ships. Man is not alone in the universe nor is he superior to the aliens.

In this novel, Ben Roark is a former CIA operative. He lost his woman during an operation against the Lokaron. Now he is vegetating on Grand Cayman island.

Henry Havelock is an executive within the Company. He deals directly with Kinsella.

Colleen Kinsella is Director of the Company, reporting directly to the president. She is working on getting a position in the ruling Central Committee.

In this story, Havelock travels to Grand Cayman to offer Ben a job. Although Ben is not initially interested, Havelock mentions that it would target the Lokaron. Ben cannot refuse that offer and goes with Havelock to the airport.

As they are approaching the Company plane, four men attack them with automatic weapons. One of Havelock's guard is hit, but the other returns fire. Then a fuel truck is hit and bursts into flames.

Havelock uses a Lokaron laser weapon to take out the attackers. Then he kills a witness and they board the Company plane. Havelock is going back to Washington, but Ben will change planes in Miami and fly to Area 51 to be briefed on the operation.

Havelock meets with Kinsella and convinces her to continue the operation. Afterward, he returns to his rooms and appears to go to sleep. But later he sneaks out for another meeting.

Meanwhile, the Eaglemen underground is infiltrating the Company. The Lokaron have an human informer in their custody. And one group of aliens is planning a coup d'etat.

This tale follows the machinations of Havelock in promoting his own power. Then Ben meets someone who he thought was dead. He also meets a Lokaron and learns that the situation is not what he thought is was.

This story is action packed, but shallow. The alien situation is lifted from human history and fleshed out with xenological details. Yet the tale held my interest and cost me some sleep.

Recommended for White fans and for anyone else who enjoys armed combat, political intrigue, and pragmatic warriors. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

I enjoyed this book with NO apologies. Comments about it being slowly paced have me wondering whether other reviewers even read the same book. What I read was something like Tom Clancy meets "Earth: Final Conflict," with some great, slam-bang space opera riffs thrown in toward the end.

I found some of the tone of "Eagle Against the Stars" reminiscent of 40s & 50s Heinlein, which I consider a strong compliment since most of what Heinlein wrote from "Stranger In A Strange Land" on isn't much worth reading anyway.

The political commentary is a bit heavy handed at times, but that doesn't mean it's off target by any means. Political satire always exaggerates the essential truths about a candidate, a movement or an institution, which is probably why those on the Left will find endless reasons for hating this book, couched of course in criticisms about pacing, character, action, etc. Don't believe it. This is an entertaining, fast-paced SF action/intrigue story for those of us who still believe that turning this nation into a politically correct, Green-dominated, social-democratic paradise would pretty much suck what's left of the American spirit out of our society. Thank God the Lokaron arrived when they did.

Having been a fan of science fiction for over 50 years and having read thousands of sci fiction novels, I found this book at least as enjoyale and interesting as most other books I've read over the years and definitely better than most of what passes for sci fi nowadays.

It seems that some of the negative reviewers didn't like the political point of view of the author and judged it more on that basis than on whether he told the story well or not.

Considering that a LOT of recent sci fi is filled with the other point of view, I guess it depends on whose ox is being gored.

There is an old saying.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Looking past the politics, the book is well written and tells an interesting story and is well worth reading.

I was upset when I read this book. The author's premise is interesting. The aliens show up at a time the Earth First! people have triumphed. What you are supposed to swallow is that the USA would become a distopia under a radical Green agenda and that all the entrepenuerial spirit of the USA would have been beaten out of us. In addition, ALL the power brokers of the time could be taken in by a fast talking con artist.

What I also found upsetting was that the pace was so SLOW. For an action book, this is a dud. The characters are good, but the plot is just so bizarre that it makes the book hard to take. You have a situation where the author is pushing a political agenda at the cost of good storytelling.

Today I read Eagle Against the Stars, by Steve White. I picked it up at Uncle Hugo's in MN, because it was next to the Sector General books by James White, and looked interesting. (Whoever wrote the back cover for this one was really good at what he does.) I liked it for what it was- a first contact story, with unexplored- or inexpertly explored- depths. The ending in particular seem well-thought-out and deep.

In the main plot points of the book, the intricacies of who was betraying whom- although less confusing than a Stephenson plot and less Byzantine than a Stross plot- felt like a repetitive nightmare. There was some "telling" instead of "showing" in key areas of the book, especially in regards to how the aliens were different from humanity and from each other. The alternate social and economic structures of the aliens were pretty cool, if not as clearly explained as they might have been. I'd have liked a chart, personally. The whole alternate economic structure thing reminds me of Heinlein's work, although White's is a lot more diluted than the hardcore poking that RAH did at the then-current social conventions.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of sci-fi action novels that are good for an evening's entertainment. They read fast, the plot is shallow, and the characters wooden. You aren't disappointed because you didn't expect much.

This pretty much describes Eagle Against the Stars. Yet, I was disappointed. White had a chance to take a major theme, the meeting of two cultures, one more advanced and do something interesting. Sort of a Science Fiction version of what happened to Japan when it met the west in the 19th century. I could see a fat book chuck full of details that could keep me busy for weeks.

Unfortunately he took the easy way out and wrote a libertarian space opera complete with shallow characters, snide anti Liberal asides and predictable plot. As space opera, its worth reading. Yet, it coulda been a contender.

J. A. Schroeder Seattle, WA

Nominated for this year's Prometheus Award (it lost to Smith's somewhat better Forge of the Elders), this book helps demonstrate the problems with literary prizes that reward political views, rather than literary work.

I'm a little bemused that White has been writing for nearly ten years, as this reads like a first novel. Most of the thematically important material is related through background narration or several painfully direct dialogue scenes. Every time the theme and the plot threaten to interfere with each other in interesting ways, a monkey-wrench gets thrown into the works, spinning them far away from each other for another fifty pages (except, as stated, when the plot stops altogether so that one character can tell another character the theme of the book at length). And none of the characters attain much in the way of depth. Though the plot machinations show some ingenuity, the characters acting them out are seldom more than cartoons.

Which is a shame, because there is more than adequate material for a good book here. Fighting against aliens who aren't exactly good, but are far less evil than the humans facing them poses many interesting questions -- none of which are dealt with. In fact, the game of Musical Antagonists ends with a big space battle against one faction of the aliens, utterly undercutting the most interesting parts of the book.

If Mr. White had taken more time with this, if he had made his enviromentalists and statists actually sound like they believed what they were saying, and if he hadn't sloughed off most of the work of antagonism onto the evil faction of the aliens, this could have been a much better book.

As is, it remains a mildly amusing waste of a few hours, if you don't disagree with his politics too vehemently.

I went into this book with relatively low expectations -- I was just hoping for some light, action-oriented science fiction adventure -- but even those low expectations weren't met.

The other reviewers here have largely covered the book's (thin) plot, so I won't rehash that here. Suffice it to say, the characters are wooden cut-outs and/or stereotypes and the plot is trite and banal. The pacing was slow and extremely predictable. I was badly disappointed in Mr. White's work here, and I probably won't be giving him a second chance.

The author's political views are presented in a very heavy-handed fashion that jar you out of the narrative every time one of his mouthpiece characters begins a new diatribe. Don't get me wrong, I think Clinton and the Kennedys are despicable (as Mr. White clearly does), but I don't need to be constantly reminded of this in a science fiction novel.

Frankly, I'd advise you to take a pass on this one and read something else, even if you're just loking for a light read.

I was willing to give the author a chance based on some of his earlier work. Big mistake. He took a promising setup, and turned it into a boring pseudo-techno-thriller, filled with political messages that have the subtlety of a raging bull.

Starting with the dreadfully hackneyed hero drinking himself into oblivion in the Caribbean, going on to the villain who lacks only a twirled mustache to be Snidely Whiplash, and finishing with some of the most implausible characters ever, I hated this book from start to finish. I kept thinking, "It has to get better. It just *has* to...", but I was wrong. It only gets worse.

There are so many things about this book that are just *annoying*... the constant slaps at Clinton and the Kennedys and anything non-right-wing; the patronizing tone used toward any woman mentioned (all the characters are referred to by last names, except for the female lead, who is known by the perky "Katy", despite her years of covert ops work); the "Eaglemen" who abandon lifelong ambitions of throwing the aliens off the planet based on being told that, hey, some of these aliens are our *friends*!; the blithe dismissal of the entire rest of the world as less important (I'm sure the Europeans were happy to hear that); "good" aliens are *blue*, while "bad" aliens are *green*, get it? GREEN!;... the list could go on for pages.

I believe it was Samuel Clemens who said, "This is not a book to be put down lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Amen to that, brother.