Drakon

Alternate History is one of the most interesting forms of Sci-Fi, the key to which is getting the reader to suspend belief and buy into the different reality. The Domination Trilogy was Stirling’s first published foray into the AH genre, and I kept getting sidetracked when reading the books on historical divergences that I did not buy. Drakon is the work of a more mature writer and it shows. Only once did I stop and question the author’s logic: I couldn’t figure out why one of the good guys didn’t simply put a .50 caliber bullet from a Barrett sniper rifle into her head; they kept trying to kill the superwoman close in.

That is really nitpicking, however. This is a good read and any Stirling fan will enjoy it. It is close to show more being my favorite Stirling novel. The plot is intricate, the writing is good, the characters are realistic, including the featured and minors, and the story does not drag. He makes the interplay between 1999 Earth and the technology of 2442 believable. Good stuff.

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This was my favorite of the series: the Draka gets caught in a time warp and travels back into a more familiar history to the reader. We get the POV of a human homicide detective who I like very much. This story seemed to go better for me because it had heroes who I actually wanted to win. I could empathize with them. I don't like the Draka.

This is about an almost-invulnerable superbeing from a parallel world who arrives suddenly in our world and goes around ruthlessly killing people, pursued by a somewhat more vulnerable adversary from the same parallel world. Sounds familiar?

Well, it’s not the same story nor the same scenario as The Terminator, but there are certain similarities.

Stirling writes with his usual high level of competence, the story flows readably, and there are a few mildly likeable characters. On second reading, I’ve decided to uprate it from 2 to 3 stars, because it does make an exciting story.

However, the attitudes and behaviour of the Draka are basically repulsive; so, if you read any Draka book, be prepared for a strong dose of repulsiveness. You show more have been warned. For large parts of this book, only one Draka is present in the story, but that’s more than enough.

I haven’t read the other books in the Draka series, although I read the free initial chapters of the first one (Marching Through Georgia) as published on Stirling’s website. I don’t feel good reading about the Draka.

I bought this one on whim in 2012 because I happened to notice the Kindle version and it wasn’t expensive.

I like Stirling as a writer, but I’m quite often disappointed at the things he chooses to write about.

In this case, it’s as though he saw a Doctor Who story involving the Daleks sometime, and he thought, “No! Are these pathetic things supposed to be super-Nazis? I could do a much better job of designing super-Nazis.” And so he did. I’m not convinced that the creation of the Draka was useful or life-enhancing, but perhaps it illustrates the human fascination with creation for its own sake. show less