Just Finished Reading: Nightrider by David Mace (FP: 1985) [242pp] 

They knew they had been hand-picked for a dangerous mission. A resurgent Earth, slowly recovering from decades of internal fighting and political instability, was moving deeper into the Solar System again. But the Outers, the rag-tag survivors holding on to Mars and the Belt region, had to be put in their place. For far too long they had been left to their own devices. Thankfully, for Earth, they had been unable to use their resources to threaten the home world – until now. The discovery of a dead twin star, complete with planets, within reach of the outer planets changed everything. With those resources, and the planets as a future base, the Outers could finally challenge Earth as to who would ultimately control space. The ship ‘Nightrider’ was the answer. Originally designed for deep space exploration she was repurposed to investigate the new star and to destroy any Outer facility discovered. Fitted with the latest AI learning computer mission success was of the highest priority. Although every effort would be made to bring the crew back alive and unharmed the mission was the focus and casualties, if suffered, were secondary. As Nightrider approached its destination a mistake was made. At first the AI was happy to offer advice – if sometimes unsolicited. Soon, it began to argue with the crew although always eventually taking orders from them. But when human decisions began to threaten the mission, a decision needed to be made... The mission took priority – the crew... Expendable. 

First (to get it out of the way) this had zero to do with talking cars, questionable dialogue or more questionable hairstyles. I read it as part of an intermittent set of SF novels in the vague area of Man Vs Machine. Given the blurb on the back of the book I was actually surprised at how little role the AI – which honestly reminded me of HAL 9000 more than a little – played in the plot. It did play a role – and a reasonably vital one – but only for a short time and only towards the end of the book. But saying that didn’t distract too much from the book itself. The start was unfortunately rather slow – building character development and dropping hints about the various Inner societies that the crew came from. A lot of effort was expended trying to make things as realistic as possible with talk of thrust vectors and acceleration tolerances etc.. This was a world without ‘inertial dampeners’ or anything else Star Trek. If required you strapped in a took the G forces you could cope with without blacking out. Likewise, with combat on the airless low-G surface, a bullet that didn’t kill you could still damage your suit enough to result in explosive decompression – long before you ran out of air! Overall though this wasn’t that bad. There was some sex (occasionally moderately explicit) and some rather cinematic violent episodes but these were interwoven with some interesting political and social speculation and some interesting interpretations of space combat – never attempted before by either side. Worth a read if you can find a copy.