The Trophy

I have been a fan of The Helmsman series by Bill Baldwin for nearly two decades. The series is a fast-paced space adventure. I have always loved the main character, Wilf Brim. His simple modesty despite his great accomplishments against powerful personal and professional odds has caused me to return to the series time and time again. When I heard about the Director's Cut novels in 2004, I was both surprised and excited and overjoyed to learn that the story would finally continue with the Turning Tide. "The Trophy" is the third director's cut released. It has changed significantly from the original version; however, the changes add much more depth to the story. They also resolve the story of Anna Romanoff who appeared in this book, yet never appeared again afterwards. I enjoyed this new version. It was cleaner and stayed true to the spirit and flare of the story. The only problems I had with the book was the lack of justification of the font. The letters were spaced a bit far apart. I am not sure if this was an error, but it suddenly corrected itself toward the end of the book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. If you love military science fiction and a plain old adventure story, then you will love this novel and the series itself. Voot's Greasy Beard, the Trophy is a thraggling good ride!

Finally Bill Baldwin produced the next book in his "director's cut" series. Too bad he waited so long. His customers got screwed over by timberwolf press that purchased the entire series. Hope the new publisher doesn't do the same thing. Aside from that I enjoyed the book very much.

Like others in this series, this book is an enjoyable read, with what I found was a little more humor than the other books in the series. Baldwin continues to tell the tale of Wilf Brim, however the book starts out with Wilf out of the Fleet. The reasons for this are given quickly, but this style of having events happen between books reminds me of the original three star wars movies. (Don't worry, I'm not putting the two things on the same level) The plot line is that during a lull in the War, the different factions focus on the privatly sponsored Mitchell Trophy Race, for the fastest starships in the galaxy. Baldwin uses this time well for a quick step up in technology for the ships later in the series.(I'm also curious what references the other reviewer is talking about. I'm intereseted, please email me at [email protected])

The Third novel in the Helmsman series has ex- Fleet officer Wilf Brim down on his luck. But as luck would have it, his friends and enemies combine to allow Wilf to become the fastest pilot in the Universe. Though by this time the reader is starting to see repeat paragraphs of descriptions, the writing is good enough to allow one to escape into an adventurous tale of racing and derring-do. Though the end of the book is entirely too predictable, the descriptions of technical detail and flying prowess are entertaining in their own right. I hope they reprint this book as it is part and parcel of a fine series. Besides, how many references to material in the Helmsman series have you seen in recent Sci-Fi movies and TV shows (8 by my count). The writers are reading