Starred Review. Most military SF emphasizes the military, but while Meluch depicts combat and warrior culture as well as any writer in the subgenre, the true joy of this outstanding effort, her first novel since 1992's The Queen's Squadron and the first of a new series, lies in its inspired use of current speculation on the origins of the universe, quantum singularities and even the old chestnut of time travel. In the 25th century, an encounter with a voracious space-faring life-form called the Hive forces declared enemies, the United States and a breakaway colony that styles itself as a reborn Roman Empire, into an uneasy alliance to destroy the common threat. When the U.S. space battleship Merrimack makes first contact with a humanoid race whose star system has apparently been bypassed by the Hive, the U.S. crew is left to ponder how a species that hasn't developed FTL technology can exist in not one but at least three different star systems. Meanwhile, how can an artifact sent by the current ruler of one system exist as an archeological anomaly on another, an artifact 20 billion years old, in a universe only 15 billion years old? Meluch shows particular skill in creating memorable characters while exhibiting a refreshing ruthlessness in subordinating them to the logical ramifications of the plot.
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After a 10-years hiatus, a distinguished military sf writer returns to print with a zany adventure that might be considered a PG-13-rated Star Trek. The U.S. space warship Merrimack roams the stars and engages in battle with the all-devouring, space-faring, semisentient, and deadly Swarm. Her captain is Farragut; his chief adviser is a genetically enhanced "patterner" from a human culture that is striving to reproduce the Roman Empire; the air wing of single-seat fighters (a staple of Meluch's fiction) is flown by marines; and one of the pilots is dispatched to seduce the humanoid ruler of an alien race. Eventually, she winds up in bed with the marine CO, and the Merrimack winds up zapped into a parallel universe, with a Chinese female scientist supplanting the Roman patterner, and the whole adventure promising a good deal for the future of the series, Tour of the Merrimack, that it inaugurates. Those who make of military sf a religious observance may find it amusingly difficult to take; the more sensible will quite enjoy. Roland Green
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