What happens in the universe that Piper wrote of after the last page of Space Viking? I have often wondered, and waited for the rumored sequel that Pournelle was supposed to have been given the rights to craft.

And yet Carr is the man we turn to, and see what has come forth. Carrr is suffering in his skill now. Having stretched Kalvan out so that we don't even see that heroic persona in his books any longer, he has become used to not telling a tale in a book but making the decision that all are to be series of stories. And not complete stand alone stories either.

Our hero, many long years after Lucas Trask, has a mission within his own mind, and begins to work towards it. Difficulties are placed in his way, yet never as hard to overcome as Piper presented Trask with, the death of his wife moments after they married.

Here the difficulty of being in the profession of Viking seems a little bit far fetched when the hypocritical ambition is that to setup one or more planets on a quicker return to civilization as the real money is made from living on a world capable of not only space flight, but of having ship years, just as Trask saw in the original book.

So we should have conflict, and struggle, but even with some there, again Carr wants to stretch things out, making the whole vignettes that shift you around, with terrible editing throughout. What could have been the opportunity to expand on a classic of Science Fiction, (A story I have read a dozen times) is an addition that needed dedicated readers to point out the flaws to make strong. And for the authors to hear and make corrections. This effort loses points for the lousy editing errors, and the flaws in craft. ( )