Second Star by Dana Stabenow

After my comments on the previous Kate Shugak book, I decided to investigate first hand and determine if Stabenow's SF efforts are in fact an undiscovered gem. The endnotes say "Her first science fiction novel, Second Star, sank without a trace, ..." and go on to tout her success in the mystery and thriller genres. I would say that it justifiably sank ... - I can only conclude that her success in the other genres is the only thing that got her two sequels to this book published.

About the best I can say for it is that she took the masters as her models. Her space station is very heavily based on Clarke's Rama space traveler. One of the plots is clearly based on Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and not just the one of the sentient computer, here Archy (from archy and mehitabel) instead of Mike (from Mycroft Holmes).

Whole incidents are lifted - the formation of the government at Copernicus on the moon is almost plagiarized from Heinlein, down to the reason for the one vote against "I've always felt that if everyone is for a thing, there has to be something wrong with it. So I voted against it."

She continues her homage to her friends and relatives (I assume) in the names that appear in this book. Since it was a bust, she reused them freely in the Kate Shugak books. Marisol made an appearance as the derelict "no-namer" in the Shugak book I just finished, and Kate herself is a minor character in this effort. Star's sister, Charlie, is the spitting image of Kate Shugak. All that is forgiveable.

It think the fatal problem with the book is that it is boring. Derivative, I can excuse; pedantic, not so much. My father's fatal flaw in writing fantasy and science fiction was that he was determined that everyone should see what he saw and described and explained his stories to a dusty death. Stabenow, in this effort, falls victim to the same syndrome - with a heavy side dose of "baffle them with bullshit." She confesses in the foreword to falling into Heinlein's definition of a subhuman - "one who cannot cope with mathematics" - and then proceeds to innundate the reader with pseudo-engineering. Inevitably, one of the problems of leaning heavily on engineering to support a story is that within twenty minutes of publication the parameters have all changed, and within a remarkably short period of time all that tech talk/explanation/description just sound silly - especially when they are largely founded on bs to begin with.

The other major issue with this book is the lack of plot focus. Had I neglected to mention that she has thrown in a first contact scenario in addition to the military take-over of the habitat and the sentient computer? And that she allows the heroine to calmly send her seven-year-old niece and two kittens off with the alien entity without even consulting or informing the child's parents? And then there is the romantic subplot (very sub, barely romantic) - we come away uncertain whether her lover/husband-to-be even goes along on the next adventure - out to mine the asteroids.

I suppose it is unreasonable to complain. The mysteries are lots of fun - and I will probably give the thrillers a try at some point. I don't think I am likely to read the other two books in this series. After all, like Stabenow, I have already read the classics of SF.