The Price of Peace

Mike Moscoe's "The Price of Peace" is set in a future that is not too far away. The pace is quick, the style is friendly, and the characterizations are believable. Whether it's peace or combat, the book is a page turner for the beach, plane ride, or nightstand. If you like Asimov and/or Clarke, Moscoe is the place to go.

Body>When Lieutenant Terrance "Trouble" Tordon looks at the space ship Patton and at its captain, he questions his good sense for the first time. Captain Izzy Umboto is obviously a loose cannon. He questions her sanity as well, for accepting the Patton, a bucket of bolts which appears to be on its last leg. Still, Trouble is committed to the Marine Corps, so he vows to do his best. Trouble is captured by the slave drivers who have enslaved farmers to work their crops of illicit drugs. On his first night of captivity, he meets a young woman Ruth who embodies everything he does not want, including love and commitment. Enduring torture and humiliation, Trouble and Ruth manage to retain their dignity and their belief that they will be rescued. Meanwhile, Captain Izzy is doing her best to do just that, rescue the men who depended on her. It comes down to a battle, not to win the war, but to maintain the peace, and to exact whatever price may be required. But can peace be worth human lives and dignity? Mike Moscoe's The Price of Peace is action-packed and exciting space adventure, but it's also a love story, an exploration of the lengths to which sentient beings will go to maintain power and to maintain dignity, and it's a peek into the human psyche. The Price of Peace satisfies on many levels, including just plain entertainment.

Moscoe presents a complex and gritty postwar reality where things have to get done with skill rather than brute force. It is a time when the tattered remnants of a former space navy are trying to cover too much territory with too few resources and making up the difference with courage and ingenuity. In the background is a high conspiracy of shadowy movers and shakers who think they can have a war anytime they need to stir up the economy, and may be powerful enough to do just that.

Some compare Mr. Moscoe with current space-warfare authors but I believe his politics and character development harken back to the Fuzzy or Space Viking series by H. Beam Piper. As a military member I like the rah rah attitude of the space navy. It is good fun space opera and I look forward to the next book for the plane flight to Kuwait. I don't read this stuff to learn about physics.

Mike Moscoe is one of those authors that I just buy the book without bothering to read the inside cover. I wouldn't miss one of his novels. His "First Dawn" series is a must read for any science fiction devotee and this series is very good. The characters are well developed and his universe is consistent, with some interesting ideas about how battles could be fought in space. "The Price of Peace" is the second novel of the series and as good as the first. If you like David Drake or Jerry Pournelle, you'd like this series. Good luck on finding Mike Moscoe novels at the book store, ACE doesn't promote him much.