Burnt Ice / Steve Wheeler

Burnt Ice
by Steve Wheeler
A Fury of Aces (1)

science fiction

copyright 2012
read in March 2013

rated 7 /10: well worth reading

Shades of Doc Smith space opera ! Truly heroic heroes and heroines ! (Okay, that last -- heroic heroines -- is very much post-Doc Smith.) Building bigger and ever bigger spaceships ! With more and more powerful weapons !

What a lot of fun !

On the down side... It's often rather difficult to work out just what is happening. Or why. Here's my guess:

This is Wheeler's first book. As a first attempt, he wrote too much. To get published, he deleted whole chunks of text... and lost the plot continuity. Well, that's my guess... Could be that he simply skipped the explanation in favour of fun :-)

Because this book is fun...

A range of characters, it took me a while to separate them in my mind. They are all part of one team, so their stories are closely linked. Nearly all appear at the start of the book and are gradually given more depth. (Well, more detail. Depth may be too strong a word.)

I really do dislike books where new -- key -- characters are continually introduced. It smacks of an author who has no clear idea of what is going on. None of that in Burnt Ice: the author clearly knows what's going on... just forgets to tell the reader !

Then there's the space opera science -- a lot of fun ! Especially the "aces" of the series title. Not that the science is (within science fiction) either new or unique. Yet its implementation is so... nice !

Some of the good guy's team are rather mysterious... but you know that they really are "good". Remember Avon from Blake's 7 ? "Avon possesses genius-level intelligence, and is an aloof and sardonic computer expert found guilty of an attempt to embezzle five hundred million credits from the Terran banking system." (from wikipedia) But there is never any doubt that he is a good guy. And there is never any doubt that the Burnt Ice team are all good guys. (Do I need to say, and gals ?! )

Lots of fun, action and high adventure. Likable characters and enjoyable application of future science. A fun plot which leaps discontinuities with a single bound...

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. If it's a first book -- well done ! The plot may be hard to follow... but the book is easy to read. And very easy to enjoy.

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Jan2023: Read it again

... and much the same opinion: this book is a lot of enjoyable fun :-)

Okay, there is a lot still to be told, sometimes that annoys me, not this time: all the not-yet-explained stories are less important than the current action.

The back cover says, "Move over Star Wars!"

... Yes, I can see that. This is a world where ACEs (droids), AIs, augmented humans... and more... are all an accepted part of the world.

And yet... In this book the droid-equivalents are so much nicer, so much more interesting than those in Star Wars.

And more: Every person (and AI and ACE and etc) -- every one of them is a strong member of the team.

They work together, they support each other -- and they enjoy each other's company.

The space opera is fun. The characters are all likeable.

An easy book to read, still hard to follow, still an easy book to enjoy.

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