Second Chances
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In a departure for this very well-reviewed fantasist, Susan Shwartz has returned to her science fiction roots with a riveting novel of honor and its loss, love and its betrayal, and the exploration of what it means to be a true hero.
What Susan Shwartz has done is to take a well-loved tale and it in an unconventional setting. Second Chances is nothing less than an homage to Joseph Conrad-think of Lord Jim in space. Just as Conrad explored in great depth the perplexing, ambiguous problem of lost honor and guilt, expiation and heroism, Shwartz has created in her Jim a man haunted by guilt over an act of supposed cowardice and his lifelong efforts to somehow atone for that action-whether or not he merited the disgrace.
As Conrad's Jim was a tragic and ultimately noble hero, so too is Shwartz's Jim. A professional soldier whose time has passed, Jim is stationed about the corporate BioShip Irian Jaya security for a commercial venture critical to humanity's continued survival. The war that sundered whole worlds is over and now he's just another "tin soldier," a prop for the military to look good to war-weary civilians. But he's never stopped caring about those who scorn him and the ideals that he still clings to. That caring is tested, however, when he is thrust into a scandal not of his making. He chooses to carry the burden of guilt, no matter what. Because of his pride . . . . and maybe because that's the one thing he has left. Out of this madness will come the biggest battle for his honor and his soul.
And perhaps, a promise of a second chance.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although better known for fantasies such as the Byzantine Cross and Crescent, Shwartz returns to her roots with this solid military space opera influenced by Conrad's Lord Jim. Shwartz's Jim is an Alliance weapons officer without a proper mission, like so many other spacers after the devastating Secess' war and its ambiguous conclusion. Loaned out to a civilian ship carrying valuable biological specimens eggs, sperm, zygotes and cryo-slept "shipsicles" Jim struggles with an unfamiliar chain-of-command and a distressingly mercenary crew. When piratical scavengers attack the ship, Jim's heroic actions are nullified by a single bad decision that brands him as a deserter and coward. Fortunately, Commander Caroline Marlow, a fish out of water herself thanks to decades as a shipsicle after suffering a serious war wound, helps Jim find work on a distant world where he can avoid the limelight. When Jim's selfless actions in a crisis draw unwanted attention, he runs again, taking an even worse post on a plague ship responsible for dealing with quarantined vessels. Jim's circuitous route to restore his personal honor is long, and at times his guilt-tripping becomes more annoying than sympathetic. Shwartz's detailed setting and lively pace, however, will hold readers' attention throughout this lengthy examination of guilt and heroism. Fans of the military SF series of Elizabeth Moon, Lois Bujold McMaster and David Feintuch are bound to enjoy this novel.
