Love, Power And I.C.E. by John A Brett

Love, Power And I.C.E.by Anonymous

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September 07, 2008: My sci-fi reading is very limited a bunch of Frank Herbert and Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. Oh yeah and some weird John Varley series?Titan 'oh that was so long ago'. Suffice it to say that I don?t have a wealth of sci-fi reading to rub this work against, but Herbert will do just fine, actually. This book is densely layered, like Dune, with plots and subplots 'plans within plans, as Herbert liked to refrain' and will require me to read it one or two more times before I get what all the different factions are about and what their agendas and motivations are. It would be helpful if it came with some kind of diagram or map of who is what and where. It takes place in the distant future, but undistant enough that Earth is still a known planet where there are still places called Maine and Boston. The I.C.E. in the title stands for the Interstellar Code Enforcement Agency, a sort of galactic policing agency within the Council of Planets. Like Herbert?s Dune the book is rife with layered subplots woven around the economic and political agendas of factions, governments and empires, within and without the Council. The main focus of the plot is with the planet Rulantis, a female dominated plutocracy of sorts that is receiving its comeuppance of power within the Council of Planets, and one of Rulantis? heirs to wealth and power named Sash. She is a Viper pilot and commander and is working toward positioning herself, within the traditions of her planet, in such a way as to be freed from arranged marriage and the eventual role as the Zuret of her powerful family, so that she can determine her own future and her own mate, having fallen in love with Earthman and I.C.E. Sargent Max Aero. Max, at the same time, is working at the manipulation of the various politicoeconomic struggles and conflicts within the Council, so as to reap his own rewards, not the least of which is to be with Sash. The story is fast paced, exciting and entertaining. The main characters are pretty believable, have some depth, and are easy to be with. The dialog is plain and real which was refreshing, if sometimes a little bland. Though mostly humanoid, there is a cast of not-so-humanoid aliens, such as the Tubbies, the Kurots and a gravity life force entity known as the Meius Empire. It is from this faction that the reader meets the Prime Decider 'G.W. Bush inspired?'. As the story unfolded it held this reader, to page turning?loosing track of time?wanting to know what was going to happen next in its series of darting turns. There are a couple of tough things to get over, this being the author?s first novel. One is the very poor editing: sentences that make no sense 'chapter 2 in particular' incorrect wording/word choices and towards the end of the book, the tense seemingly unintentionally, goes between past and present. The other is the omnipotent viewpoint being taken on with too much quick bouncing around from one scene to another, that when coupled with the sheer number of characters, ships and locations overall, left this reader pretty confused about the who?s who and the what?s what. That said, it took me more than one reading of Dune to put that all together as well. Nevertheless I would say a trimming down of the peripheral and a deepened foray into the characters' heads, would have improved things a lot. Either that or this 352 page adventure could be more like 500 to 600 without adding much to what actually...