Profiteer (Hostile Takeover #1) [Paperback]

S. Andrew Swann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1995

The enforcement branch of the Terran Confederacy, determined to take control of a government-free planet, targets Dominic, the head of a successful business empire, and the man in charge of the takeover plots his own personal revenge. Original.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: DAW (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886776473
• ISBN-13: 978-0886776473
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,155,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Come and conquer!, July 30, 2000

By 

Cees Jan Mol (Eindhoven, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Profiteer (Hostile Takeover #1) (Paperback)

It's still possible to find tiny little undervalued gems in sci-fi land. This is one! (Trust me) It's your average tuff-hero-runs-into-big-trouble little sci-fi, but a precious one. With a very nice hero and a nice bunch of friends. With a bad brother on his tail. With a huge dooming fate hanging all over him. But you'll love it. This is just the first one of three and I bet you won't be able not to order the other two once this one is in your hands...!

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Anarchies in Science Fiction, December 18, 2009

By 

Randy Stafford (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Profiteer (Hostile Takeover #1) (Paperback)

Nature abhors a vacuum, and governments abhor competition. The loosely welded Terran Confederation is starting to show some strains, and some of its blocs think things would be better if something was done about the anarchic planet of Bakunin. Existing outside of the Confederation, it's a place that allows everything the Confederation doesn't including the "heretical" technologies of nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence. Everything except a central state.

To Bakunin comes Colonel Dacham, officer of the Terran Executive Command - the real power in the Confederacy, an organization routinely willing to kill thousands to preserve the governments of its members. In tow are several Confederation Marines under his command. What the TEC wants on Bakunin is unclear. But Dacham's personal motives aren't. He wants to destroy Dominic Magnus, a local arms dealer, and anybody working for him. And one of those marines is increasingly uncomfortable with the lengths he's willing to go - in an already legally unprecedented operation - to do so.

Throw in a computer hacker caught up in the TEC's mission of destruction, a bored alien looking to put his encyclopedia knowledge of space navies to use, a safecracking lawyer and ex-revolutionary, a junkyard operator and his robot, and you have most of the cast. Again, Swann exhibits a near-perfect sense of pace in his tale of political intrigue and military action that, in its final phase, turns out to be a heist plot. Swann stretches his revelations out just long enough build suspense and doesn't try our patience by trying to hide mysteries the reader has already guessed.

But the real star here is Bakunin, the setting. It's not an anarchic, libertarian utopia. It's full of extortion rackets, violent religions, street punks, and mercs. But it does plausibly, if violently, work after its own fashion. Along with Donald Westlake's Anarchaos, it's one of science fiction's most vivid anarchies.

The chapter headings and epigrams, real and fictitious, are also a big reason I like this series, like it enough to re-read it.

The Hostile Takeover trilogy takes place after Swann's moreau books, but you don't have to read them first. However, I have a feeling that the ties between this series and Swann's new series that opened with Prophets: Apotheosis: Book One will be more significant.