Review: Very enjoyable if lacking some basic science
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 11, 2013
'This Corner of the Universe' has some of the most detailed and gripping space warfare battles I've read, with the 'speed of light' factor being top notch.And the characters are enjoyable, esp. Captain Garrett Heskan, the main protagonist and all around good guy.But a couple of glitches with basic scientific principles marred the narrative:- Missiles exploding in space don't generate that much of a shock wave, so a near miss really wouldn't do much damage to an armour plated spaceship.- A top speed is set on the various ships, but I could not figure out why. So long as there is reaction mass/power, you can inch your way to a substantial fraction light speed, so I consoled myself that I missed some cogent description to make this top-speed plausible.- Getting hit by the rail-gun bullets at the speeds described would do considerably more damage than just ripping a hole through various bulkheads!- The whole radioactive asteroid belt concept was a bit tenuous.But put that aside (and I understand a lot of readers will), because Ringel has given us an excellent military sci-fi adventure with a reasonable enough mystery to be solved to make the whole set up plausible, an arrogant idiot up the chain of command that you wish gets his comeuppance, ballistic ballet par excellence as the ships face off, and oodles of body bags to ratchet up the tension of which characters - including the main ones - might be killed off next.There is also a great sting in the tail (or is that tale?) when you get to the end of the novel.So, well worth a read if you like space warfare based military sci-fi that is action oriented with relatively straightforward characters and plot.