Review: Good pulp fiction with a touch of Heinlein
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 1, 2011
I enjoyed "Temporary Duty" and appreciate how Kindle has made books like this available at low prices, a role the pulps played during the Depression.  In fact, Mr. Locke should have been born a century ago, because this very readable book would have been a great success serialized in the pulps of the '30s.  The first third of the book starts slowly and bears a close resemblance in its mundaneness to the Solar Clipper Tales, except the traders here are aliens whose language and culture makes for an interesting learning curve for the book's two main human characters.  The latter are enlisted navy men who are hired to prepare for a larger human naval detachment that is to accompany the alien spaceship on its trading voyage.  (Minor spoiler alert: actually, only one of those two is the main character, the other being more of a foil.)  The conceit of the book, done to a fault, is that the lowly enlisted man is far superior in character, intellect, and flexibility to the officers who join the voyage.  In fact, the most "pulpy" aspect of the book is the way Mr. Locke's villains are such one-dimensional caricatures.  One suspects the presence of a few moonshiners in Mr. Locke's family tree, because his greatest ire is reserved for "revenooers" from the IRS, followed by any other "suits", officers, and lastly, slavers.  Where this would be a point of fatal critcism in something reaching higher, in the pulps such writing was par for the course and, in fact, part of the fun.The book picks up steam when the voyage begins to encounter other alien members of the interstellar community.  There is action, romance, and only occasionally do things slow down while Mr. Locke gets something off his chest.  In all this, he reminds me a lot of Robert Heinlein.The main character has an undiscovered talent for language, which quickly makes him indispensable, and he is later revealed to be of flexible mind, clear-thinking, quick acting, brave, of high moral fiber, etc.  In other words, he is a paragon whose true worth could only emerge in a different culture.  Although the book has some adult themes that do not make it suitable for younger readers, the main story arc is actually rather typical of many YA books, including some by Heinlein.  Simply substitute enlisted man for youngster.Without giving anything away, I will say that I was a bit disappointed in the cartoonish ending of the book; but I suppose in light of all the comparisons already made with the pulps, it was not altogether out of place.  Be that as it may, this is a book that should appeal to those who like Heinlein (and who doesn't?).  It's not at the level of the master's best, of course, but in terms of bang for the buck, this is one of the best buys I have yet found for the Kindle.  BTW, I received an e-mail offering to substitute my version for a reformatted one.  It is the only such offer I have ever received and I did not act on it because I was not completely sure of its authenticity.  Regardless, there was nothing about the book's formatting to prevent one from reading and enjoying it.