The novel is deliberate space opera, but it has its private points. It parodies the military’s paranoia about homosexuality by enforcing weekly mixed-gender sex, with a Tail to match the Head (bathroom) of the Navy. It mixes Army and Navy formations and ranks, with the enlisted personnel being Army and the officers Navy. The specifications for space ships parallel those of ocean ships. Two of the ships are named after the two closest towns in my area: Inverness and Brooksville. And a whistle-blower, the honest officer Gerald Phist, was named in honor of one of the 1980’s whistle-blowers named Fitzgerald. A whistle-blower is one who exposes corruption or ill dealings, and he is seldom rewarded for that; usually he loses his job. What I wonder is why the erring parties are not punished. Why not go after the wrongdoers, instead of the ones who expose the wrongs? I have a lot of sympathy for whistle-blowers, having gotten myself blacklisted for protesting when a publisher cheated me. That was not the same situation, but there were aspects of similarity. In my case, a writer’s organization even tacitly sided with the cheating publisher instead of its members who were getting cheated. One does have to wonder; there ain’t necessarily no justice in civilian life either. At any rate, the subtle corruption in the Jupiter Navy reflects that of the American military, though the cause is not exactly piracy. Promotions and punishments do not necessarily go by the book, though the deals made by Hope’s unit are really not to be believed outside of fiction. The plight of migrant laborers is also shown, reasonably correctly, and it hasn’t changed much in the past two decades. This novel, like the prior one, is rooted in reality, but is not literal.
Some of my readers helped me with this novel. Jim Parker provided valuable advice on certain military aspects, notably the nature and use of the pugil sticks and the organization of a unit. Zane Stein and Jacob Schwarts helped with the planetoid Chiron, which parallels the island Cyprus in its deadly politics.
As I proofread the scanned-in novel, I was also reading a book sent me by Russel McGinnis: Alexander Dolgun’s Story, subtitled “An American in the Gulag.” Written by Dolgun with Patrick Watson, it details his abduction by Russians in 1948, and the years of imprisonment, torture, and detention in central Russia as they tried to make him confess to some imagined crime. It’s an amazing chronicle showing the idiocy and malice of a paranoid bureaucracy that can’t admit error. Somehow this fit the mood of my novel.
The vantage of fifteen years gave me a fresh perspective on my text, and as I went I eliminated some surplus exclamation points and some said bookism. That is, the tendency to use alternatives to “said”; it’s a flaw I chide other writers for, and it’s embarrassing to find it in my own writing. There used to be, in science fiction fandom, a parody of this called Swifties, wherein the qualifiers related humorously to the subject. For example: “I wear a Maidenform bra,” she said firmly. Fun, but not great writing.
As for my current existence on the tree farm as I proofed this novel: uneventful. I live where I like, in the forest, and do what I like, writing. I hear from appreciative readers on a daily basis by regular and email. I am near retirement age, pushing 65, but I have no intention of retiring. My wife and I have been married 43 years. It’s a good life, considering.
This novel was published June 1984; this Author’s Note was added June 1999.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Piers Anthony
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5774-8
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Piers Anthony, Mercenary
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