Review 110: Starstrikers by Ken McConnell

Starstrikers
by Ken McConnell
Createspace/Kindle
Copyright 2008
ISBN 1438206372
348 Pages
$14.95 Paperback

First, I have to admit I haven’t read (and thoroughly enjoyed) any space opera-type Science Fiction since Restaurant At the End of the Universe which I read back in grade school.  Though I loved the movies, I’ve never been a fan of the mass market books that supported the Star Trek and Star Wars enterprises.  So, Ken McConnell’s Starstrikers was both a surprise and a pleasure for me.

Starstrikers begins with a prologue that I can just see gliding across a screen in white letters against a black sky background that’s dotted with stars, the letters getting smaller and smaller as they get farther and farther away, finally disappearing into the black.  I almost think McConnell intended the book to begin that way because the entire story itself is written in true space opera fashion, embracing the stereotypical plot lines of planets feuding with one another against a backdrop of outer galaxies and traditional space characters that are all too predictable but never boring.

We begin by learning about three worlds that are at peace. Selene has modern technology and lots of natural resources. Ursai is exotic and industrial.  Then, there’s Drexel which is covered in water and sea people. Each world is governed separately, but enjoy “free trade” with one another under an agreement known as the Federation. The Federation begins to grow and explore outside worlds, spreading itself too thin too quickly.  A group called the Alliance forms to formulate a new government to protect the ideals of the first three worlds. Military units are set up.  Meanwhile, outer threats step in to try to conquer the new worlds and a great Galactic war breaks out.

And all of this happens in just the first two pages.

What follows is an outer space war story following the fleet trying desperately to restore order, filled with fascinating and extraordinary technology and beings that were surprisingly very easy to understand.  I love a good story that challenges my imagination, but I don’t want to feel like the only reader in the room who has no idea what’s going on. McConnell writes in a matter-of-fact way which keeps the story moving and is not over emphasized with the mechanical details of his vision.

We know from the opening sequence of Star Trek that voyages like this take us “boldly where no man has gone before.”  That’s quite a big task for an author who can pull it off. And I think Ken McConnell has done it. Each chapter is introduced with a quote from one of the characters from a speech or from an interview published in the “Warfighter Journal” or from a Captain’s Autobiography. To me, this really gave the story a “larger than life” persona that expands far beyond just the story on the page.  I also liked the fact that most of the chapters are short and the action moved at a nice pace that kept me intrigued in subject matter I probably would not have read if he had not requested a review.

Kudos to Ken McConnell for creating a space saga that is both new and unique but also embraces the themes we’ve grown to love over the years in movies, books, and television.  Starstrikers is indeed out of this world!  I look forward to seeing it succeed, and to the next book in the series.

Read a preview of Starstrikers here!