Imagine, if you will, a Firefly that did not suck, a Firefly written by early David Weber.
Then you would get Torchship by Karl Gallagher
The Story
The crew of the Fives Full are making their way in the universe. After AI went full Cylon and took over Earth, technology has needed to fall back a little.
We cover five missions / stories, but they all build on each other. The opening deals with a bunch of tourists ... which turns into a cat and mouse chase among asteroids, a shoot out, and some additional SCIENCE!
Events that take place during #1 lead to the next mission with Terraformers ... called “Kitty Chow.” Yes, really. Trust me, you won’t see this coming.
“Kitty Chow” leads to several bits of business in the next arc of stories, with Pilgrims, the Treasure of the Sierra Madre .... IN SPACE ... and then Hitchhikers. How do you have hitchhikers in space? Heh heh heh.
There are several interludes that take place in between the missions of the torch ship in question, and they both add to the narrative, and provides some exposition. This is important, since there is little in the way of exposition here. There is just enough data here to get you through the story, but nothing else. “The Fusion worlds” are paranoid about technology, because the AIs revolted. Why did the AI revolt? No idea. We don’t need to know. We just need to know that they dislike humans.
But dang, this was fun. Granted, we don’t have the scene-chewing, over the top characters from Firefly, but we also don’t have some of their angsty BS. The crew of the Fives Full are ... generally well-adjusted individuals. The story doesn’t leave you wanting, but it does leave you with a desire to know more about the world, and what happens next to our heroes.
On the one hand, I would say that this is hard SF — our heroes plot courses with slide rules, we have terraforming, AIs, genetic engineering and using elements for fuel. I think the only thing that isn’t merely an extension of current technology is translating through space via various and sundry portals. But Karl Gallagher has planets listed with their gravity well intensity. Who does that? Answer: an MIT grad with an engineering degree.
However, to say that this is hard SF would be terribly mislabeling it. Much of hard SF is so techy, you’d be hard pressed to find character or culture among the people and places. Here? Here, there is something for everybody. There are multiple systems of government, from an auctionocracy (yes, they auction off seats, it’s half the tax income for the year) to representative government, et al. The cultures are clear, and unique, and varied all over the place. It’s a wonderful array of stuff here, and it’s obvious that Karl has put in plenty of time contemplating ... everything.
One problem I have with this particular novel: why are they broken up into short stories instead of chapters? It reads continuously. Also, the opening few pages (less than five) are disorienting. They do feed into the story, and any confusion from the opening is resolved by the end, so no worries there. It may make it a little difficult for some people to get into the novel initially. Don’t worry about it, just push through the first five page (okay, more like page 5, 6, and 7) and you’re good.
Is it Superversive? Hell yes. That’s the easy part. Is it Pulpy? Well, that’s according. You see, there’s a romance going on here, a spy story, a thought problem story, with multiple types of adversaries — the ever present man versus nature of hard vacuum, man versus man, man versus self, and man versus society… Only without any of the pretention that my wording makes it sound.
The World
Each planet and people have their own unique ethnic makeup, political and moral philosophy, and is well-developed here. And they get more developed as the books go on.
Politics
This has all of the politics. And all of the political systems. And the crew desperately tries to avoid all of them.
Content Warning
One of our characters is a spy who operates via sexpionage. It’s still relatively PG. 80s PG, but PG.
Who is it for?
Did you like Firefly? This is better.
Did you like the new Battlestar Galactica? This is much better.
Did you like Honor Harrington? This is … similar, but much less meandering than Honor Harrington became.
Why buy it
Firefly fighting the Cylons in Honor Harrington-level conflicts.
It's a good read. I own most of Mr. Gallagher's books in paper. The stories are eminentlt re-readable. He's puts shorts up for free on his substack: If you enjoy them, you'll enjoy his longer fiction.
I have read stuff. several of the Torchship books and want to read the one I have missed. Good stuff.