Review: Slightly re-warmed, but still tasty
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 18, 2014
A Light in the Dark follows a recipe that is probably at least sixty years old. But it is a good recipe and Mr. Lowell is a competent short order cook. As a result, we get to eat a meal with familiar taste and aroma, but who can refuse a revisit in mama's kitchen?  The aging, rough but tender space skipper, Gunderson, and his Second Mate, Nancy, pilot a transport spaceship among various planets in the galaxy. A critical situation develops out there in the Dark (during faster-than-light jump, I assume). The outlook is very grim, but Gunderson's John Waynish personality and luck intervene. His former brush with an illegal cabal becomes now solution and rescue. While the legal aspects may restrict him to space alone in the foreseeable future, Nancy's covert coveting of her Captain may lighten the sentence. Very nicely written, though somewhat dated. Mr. Lowell invents future star-mariners' argot which does not jar your palate. Although some solutions not very convincing and more than somewhat vague, a pleasant trip to the origins of the golden age of SF.