Customer Reviews

Midshipman's Hope (Traveller's Bookshelf)

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I have read quite a bit of science fiction in 2002 and "Midshipman's Hope" by David Feintuch is the best by far. It is a swashbuckling tale of the high seas that trades the ocean for the cold vacuum of space. The book is populated by a host of fascinating, well-developed characters.

The book is written in the first person narrated by the by the main character Nicholas Seafort. We first see him as a lowly, insecure midshipman and watch him rise through the ranks. Along the way he must confront more than his share of demons. His character is at times deeply sympathetic and at other times loathsome. However, he is never boring and always compelling.

Another distinguishing aspect of the book is in his depiction of the brutal 18th century style discipline that is employed in Feintuch's universe. It is at oft times quite disturbing. Fans of the movie "Starship Troopers" will certainly recognize the similarities.

Perhaps the finest aspect of this novel is that it tells a complete self-contained story even though it is but the first of many in the "Seafort Saga". This is not to say that it does not leave you wanting more which it certainly does.

"Midshipman's Hope" is one of the best works in the genre of military sci-fi.

As you scroll through the reviews of this book, it becomes obvious that this is a book (and a series) you'll either love or hate. The fact is that Feintuch has chosen to deal with themes such as duty, loyalty and fidelity, and he does so without cynicism. As a result, he's created a central character who is not especially accessible to Gen X readers. Those unwilling or unable to make the adjustment will find these books excruciating.

This first of the Seafort books takes a familiar scenario (in a new setting) and handles it well. Nick Seafort, a young midshipman on a starship, is catapaulted into a command he does not want but is obligated to accept. He suffers agonies of loneliness and guilt as he is forced into acts he himself finds repugnant because the alternative is even worse.

Seafort's simply drips charisma, despite (or perhaps because of?) his vulnerability. His actions as he deals with one crisis after another whilst pulling his officers and crew together to pilot the ship safely to her destination make for a gripping read.

Okay, so like I'm going on vacation to visit the in-laws and decide to bring something to read just in case. I randomly pick up the book and read a comment or two about in the "grand tradition of Ender's Game" (Orson Scott Card) which I loved so I decide to give it a try even though the author is new to me. Man what a story! I could not put the book down. I finished it in like 3 nights. Next day, the wife wanted to go shopping, I give the obligatory groans but inside I'm hoping to find a bookstore. Yee ha! Found one and its well stocked. The 2nd book is just as good. The day before we are due to fly back, I told my wife I'd buy her that new dress... I think I finished the 3rd book as we were landing at LAX. Three books in just over a week. Sure glad we took pictures to remind me what we did during our vacation

Midshipman's Hope is the first book of the Seafort Saga, which follows the adventures of Nick Seafort. It's exciting, male-dominated space adventure as our hero, an officer in the brutal space Navy of a future Earth, advances up the ranks. Sounds boring? It's not. There's enough drama to hold the reader's interest, and Nick is not your typical hero. He's not the brightest or the best, but he does have the knack of being in the right place at the right time and making the right decision.

In Midshipman's Hope, Nick is a midshipman who finds himself catapulated into the rank of captain after a mysterious disaster wipes out most of the senior officers. Despite the doubt of everyone around him, Nick refuses to step down in favour of another midshipman who appears to have more command talent - not because he wants the power, but because he firmly believes that Naval rules and regulations have to be obeyed no matter what.

I'm sure it won't come as a surprise to learn that in the following books, Nick's successes keep coming and his fame keeps growing as he faces one crisis after another, with the stakes (alien invasion and colonial rebellion) getting higher all the time. What sets this series apart (at least as far as Fisherman's Hope - I haven't read the rest of the series) is Nick's self-loathing - no happy hero here. He does what he does out of duty, hating himself ever more as the broken oaths, broken laws and betrayals mount up. He's incapable of judging himself fairly, and by the end of Fisherman's Hope he has the breakdown that had to come. But that aspect does balance out the miraculous twists of fate that let Nick win out even when he doesn't expect to. Do you really want a hero for whom everything always works out wonderfully, whether he meant it to or not?

So be warned. There is a lot of excitement in this series, the setting is good and Nick is an engaging hero. But there is also a dark edge to these books that deepens as the Saga continues, and you may end up like I did - torn between admiration for and utter frustration with Nick Seafort, a man with many problems.

I picked up the Seafort books to satisfy my Honor Harrington craving, and they did give me a quick fix--but they're cheap Jack Daniels compared to Harrington's 25-year-old single-malt Scotch. The stories are good, if a tad over-the-top, but the characters are just short of absolutely unbelievable. Seafort is a complete mess, out of control and utterly mad. Yet the author continually has other characters make excuses for him, as if Seafort's behavior is actually perfectly ordinary to everyone else. In each book Seafort oversteps his authority immensely, only to be rewarded for successes attributable to nothing but blind luck. All of this is excusable in "Midshipman's Hope," but the problem is that it continues throughout the series. By "Fisherman's Hope" Seafort is twenty-five and still unable to control his temper, treat his inferiors properly, or impose upon himself the discipline and manners which he so sternly demands from others. As one reviewer said, he just never grows up. I've never met a main character that I disliked more. Perhaps what I found most objectionable was Feintuch's treatment of women. (WARNING: spoilers) Though the Navy is ostensibly integrated, all of the Captains, most of the officers, and all of the able-bodied seamen are male. When calamity befalls Seafort's wife, she goes insane and kills herself. The next woman Seafort marries also goes insane. One wonders what Feintuch's own personal life has been like. Yet despite all of this, I keep reading. The plots are fun, if contrived. Think "Starman Jones" or "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel." And it's enough to fill my craving for naval sci-fi until the next Honor Harrington comes out. But it's not a book I would recommend to any friends I wished to keep.

A good book for a hammock or a long plane flight. I have no problem with Nicholas Seafort's problems with self-doubt. They are acceptable for a character of that age. The problem I have is the character never grows up during the series.

References have been made about the "Hornblower" series by C.S. Forrester. This is an understandable comparison given the "Officer in Her Majesty's Navy" feel of the series. However, that series was an entirely different level than the Seafort Saga. Hornblower grew up and matured. Nicholas Seafort is just too neurotic and guilt-ridden to have remained sane!

Another thing. What brand of Christianity condemns you for all eternity for breaking an oath? Feintuch isn't much of a Bible scholar.

He also isn't much of "science"-fiction writer or economist. Earth being fed by staple crops seventeen months and 69 light years away? Get real! That's a REAL LONG time to market.

I have also seen some criticize the possibility of a midshipman taking command of a capital ship. My memory may be faulty but during or shortly before the War of 1812, fire was exchanged between the HMS Shannon and the USS Cheasapeake. During the battle, a midshipman rescued his fallen Captain. Afterwards he was court-martialed and convicted. It seems he left his post during the battle. While he was "away", the officers above him in his chain of command were all killed or wounded. Consequently HE was effectively the ship's commanding officer. Since he was not in positon to take command, he could have been executed, however he was dismissed from service because of his age.

He and his ancestors tried to get the conviction overturned for decades. I think Jimmy Carter, a former career Naval officer, pardoned him in the 1970's!

A Midshipman is an actual Naval rank. It is remotely possible(albeit extremely)in an era where long distances and no communication with port is possible, a middie may be required to take command.

Feintuch knows people; at least, he knows their darker sides. Nicholas Seafort, the first-person main character of the 'Hope' series - of which this is the first - is a young officer in a hellishly strict Navy of the future; think 1800s-era Royal Navy on interstellar spacecraft.

Within the first couple of chapters, Feintuch puts Seafort into a situation of responsibility he doesn't want, isn't qualified for, *knows* he isn't qualified for, but can't resign from. From there the book moves episodically - Seafort first has this challenge to worry about, then that one, and then another crisis - without a tremendous amount of relationship between the episodes. It feels almost like a collection of linked short stories, with the same characters in (roughly) the same situation.

At the same time, that's not a real vice. The plot isn't first-rate (outside of the general overview I gave, it barely exists), but the characters are - complex, human, and well-developed. Seafort does some nasty things - but on the other hand, it's a cold universe that he lives in and a cold and brutal, if not actually *evil*, organization that he's a part of.

The later books in the series have more complex plots and more detailed character relationships (almost all of this one takes place on and around the one warship, a relatively small stage with a correspondingly small cast), but Midshipman's Hope is an intense and well-executed start to one of the more underrated series of military science-fiction.

Some reviewers have compared Feintuch to CJ Cherryh. I would disagree with this; unlike Cherryh, Feintuch is *very* readable.

Feintuch's melodramatic sci-fi epic begins here with Midshipman's Hope. I bought this book at the University of Washington book store some years ago and I still remember how the clerk, who had read it, described the book: "It's terrific! It's like Admiral Hornblower meets Star Wars!" The subsequent books in the Nicholas Seafort saga are also excellent, but none of them resonates with the energy and originality of this, the first in the series. Don't miss it!

Midshipman's Hope, and the six novels following it, seem to be planted firmly in the "love or hate " category. On the whole, I am one of the lovers. My gripes are few and trivial.

MH is set two centuries in the future, when war and anarchy have supposedly led to a violent "Laura Norder" reaction, our times being remembered with a shudder as the "rebellious ages" which must never come again. However, when examined closely, the reaction turns out to have been very limited and "patchy", with the most important 20th Century social changes, such as race and gender equality, coming through without a scratch. There is a degree of class antagonism in regard to the "Transpops", but only slightly greater than between ghetto dwellers and suburbanites in today's US. Even homosexuality is still tolerated, and unorthodox methods of reproduction like host mothers are accepted without demur. The only ban is on producing unplanned children, and that is condemned more as irresponsible than as immoral.

So what changes have occurred? The biggest, from where we sit, is the spectacular revival in the power of the Church. There is essentially only one, the "Reunification Church", which is a sort of amalgamation of most Christian sects, formed after the main alternatives to Christianity have been conveniently wiped out in World War III. It has enormous political clout, and the authority of the civil government supposedly derives from it, or at least from Lord God, whom it of course represents. Oddly, though, it doesn't seem to have really made much use of all this power. Blasphemy is condemned, but apparently not homosexuality, or indeed most sexual behaviour which doesn't lead to unplanned pregnancy. Nor does it control education, or seem very insistant on the traditional family unit. In fact, its main concern appears to be suppressing rival Churches. Pentecostalists are given an extremely hard time and can even get burned at the stake on a bad day, but that's about it <g>. The Church tolerates no competitors, demanding recognition of its undisputed authority, yet does hardly anything with it, just holding power for power's sake. Well, not impossible.

The secular side of government, though in form still democratic, has a distinctly authoritarian flavour. This is most evident in regard to the Space Navy (another powerful political force), where a Captain is literally the direct representative of Lord God, with virtually absolute authority, and who may not even be touched without permission, on pain of death.

There is also a decidedly "tough love" approach to child rearing. Drugs and juvenile delinquency are very severely dealt with, while corporal punishment of minors is accepted as entirely normal, a minor being (with some exceptions) anybody under 22. This has generated an amazing amount of heat in discussion of MH and its sequels, despite being quite trivial compared to some social changes that you get in sf. Indeed, outside (some) Western countries it would scarcely represent a change at all. I have the feeling that a slaveholding or cannibal society would have been less upsetting to certain critics than one in which kids get the cane, but feel this says more about the critics than about the book.

(Incidentally, does anyone know how the legend arose that Cadets and Midshipmen get caned on the bare backside? Offhand I don't recall a single instance of this. Given the absence of privacy in the Wardroom, Middies are often undressed in front of one another , so probably get to see the marks of recent canings, but there is no suggestion of punishment being administered that way. I get the feeling some dirty minds have been working overtime.)

The final social change is strangely at odds with the rest. Education is no longer compulsory. The public schooling of our era is remembered as a waste of resources, and it is entirely at a parent's discretion how he/she educates the kids. Whatever its merits, this seems an oddly "libertarian" approach for such a society. Still, inconsistent doesn't mean impossible.

The central character of MH is Midshipman Nicholas Seafort, aged 17 at the start, of UNNS Hibernia. Thanks to a series of accidents, he finds himself in command of the ship, with a lot of difficult decisions to make. It recalls an episode in Master and Commander , where a Midshipman even younger than Seafort is left in command while his Captain joins a boarding party. In M&C, though, the Captain survives - Seafort's doesn't. Resisting demands to abort the mission Seafort deals successively (and sometimes ruthlessly) with rebellious crewmen, a potentially disastrous mechanical failure, mutiny on a space base, social problems at his destination, officers with major character flaws, and last but by no means least, the discovery of a hostile alien race. Listed like this, it all sounds less than credible, and indeed rather corny space opera, yet it is Feintuch's achievement to make it all quite believable, in the contest of his invented world. I was gripped to the end.

Feintuch also does a great job of portraying Seafort himself. The latter, whose upbringing has been stern and Calvinistic even by the standards of his world, has a savagely demanding conscience , fixated on his duty to the service and to Lord God. How he sticks to right as he sees right (sometimes as a minority of one) and successfully completes his mission, makes fascinating reading.

All in all, a great book. If you like Hornblower or M&C, you should love this. Firmly recommended.

If you put Horatio in space then this would be it. This is an honest military science fiction book without any nonsensical dialog or 'fantasy' type bs Just good straight action and adventure with an 18th century british naval flare. It rocks :)