Mutineer's Moon (Dahak Series)

Being involved in law enforcement and having been in the military it is a pleasure to be able to escape with someone who knows what they are writing about, humans performing at their best under stress. The ideas in this series are fun but the individual characters and their loyalties are even better. Thanks.

Mutineers' Moon (1991) is the first novel in the Dahak series. During the Fourth Imperium, 51 millenia ago, mutineers have almost taken the Imperial battleship Dahak and the captain has issued orders to evacuate the ship, to flush the internal spaces with chemical and radioactives, and to only re-admit the mutineers after all surviving crew have returned aboard. Fleet Captain (E) Anu, leader of the mutineers, had then sabotaged the power rooms and fled the ship in sublight parasite warships to the nearby planet. The loyalist crew have also evacuated in lifeboats to the same planet, Terra, where they have become the "indigenous" population. Sometime in the near future, circa 2040, Lieutenant Commander Colin MacIntyre, USN, is on a routine survey flight of the Moon as training for the first interstellar flight, but his survey systems are showing anomalous readings: the data indicate that the Moon is hollow! Then a bogey appears out of nowhere, pulls a 90 degree turn, overtakes his spacecraft, and grabs it with a tractor beam. When Colin hails the bogey, he gets no response, so he fires three missles at the other ship, but they all just vanish in thin space. Then the bogey stops dead, with no signs of exhaust, and zips back toward the moon with Colin's craft in tow. They enter a minor crater, through a suddenly revealed hole in the surface, into large tunnel, through dozens of huge hatches, and into a very large hangar. There the ship's artificial intelligence introduces itself, in English, as the Dahak, a 52 thousand year old warship disguised as Luna, the Earth's moon. It tells him that he cannot leave, briefs him on the mutiny and its aftermath, and informs him that he is now in command of the vessel. After hours of arguing with the computer -- a useless task at best and you might make it angry -- Colin gives in, undergoes a regime of "biotechnic enhancment", and, after the truamatic results of that, an extended training period in his new capabilities. However, time is at a premium, for the Achuultani, an alien species, are coming again for their periodic destructive visit, as they have been doing for 70 million years. Colin must help the Dahak to overcome the mutineers, who have spent the millenia in stasis, before they escape in Terran built starships. The Dahak has speculated that the mutineers have some sort of link with NASA, so Colin returns to Earth to find the contact. This novel has a lot in common with older SF tales, such as the stranded spacemen in Wilson's The Time Masters and the buried starship in Norton's Galactic Derelict. Moreover, the lost empire plot is similar to that of Van Vogt's Null-A series. The use of technological details is very similar to, but more up to date than, E.E. Smith's Skylark and Lensman series. Nevertheless, Weber's use of these familiar SF elements results in something very exciting to read. Recommended for Weber fans and anyone who enjoys technologically rationalized space opera.

Mutineer's Moon and the entire Dahak series is an excellent bit of si-fi writing. In my opinion, it's even better than his much more acclaimed Honor Harrington series. The action is intense and the characters well developed. Some of the best strategy around.

All I wanted was something to keep me awake while waiting around in an airport. Like most of David Weber's books, this one also kept me awake till - you don't want to know hwen - to finnish it. And I don't even like military stories. Usually.But what would you do if a fifty-two thousand year old starship with no crew and a computer trapped by conflicting orders kidnapped you and asked you to save the world? When a NASA astronaut is unexpectedly diverted from a routine training flight, he is as unprepared for a galctic view of history as any reader. The stretching of his/our horizons is undeniably hilarious, but could any of this actually be true? It is unusual to find a work of Science fiction with so broad and original a basic premis. And it could almost be true. Almost, I hope!

This book just drew you along till the end, with just enough information to keep you guessing and wondering, could it be real?