The Mercenary

My reactions upon reading this novel in 1990. Spoilers follow.

I enjoyed this novel a great deal.

It's one flaw was having John Christian Falkenberg marry Glenda Ruth Horton and an implied kingship being set up on New Washington at novel's end. While it wasn't perfunctory, it still seemed to be part of the cliche of the hero/heroine (usually a lone, solitary hero/heroine) needing a signifcant other. (It's interesting to note that Pournelle enters Robert Heinlein territory when Horton wonders why she's only attracted to Falkenberg. Heinlein spent a great deal of time trying to reconcile evolution with morals and human psychology. Here Horton wonders if there isn't an atavistic streak in some women that makes them love warriors. In a show more similar vein, Leo Slater in Pournelle's West of Honor wonders if man isn't naturally attracted to war and violence since even pacifists talk of war's horrors and not peace's glories.

Pournelle doesn't mock civilians, but he shows the soldier as a breed apart with their own virtues and vices fighting when civilians mess things up. They deserve respect, but they are no substitute for civilian rule and civilians are needed to build civilizations, soldiers to protect it. Granted it serves Falkenberg's political end, and he suspects the CoDominium won't last much longer. I don't know if Falkenberg (and, thus, Pournelle as some critics have it) is endorsing feudalism. All I know is tht Falkenberg is saying a monarchy on New Washington will bring order. As Falkenberg says earlier, soldiers aren't very concerned with justice but they do bring order. A monarchy will also protect civilization, a cause near and dear to Falkenberg, in a sense the reward of his mercenary.

Falkenberg certainly delivers a well deserved jab at New Washington's "egalitarian democracy" when he says democracies are "quite unable to accomplish anything that takes sustained effort". I know, from his essays in the Imperial Stars series, this is a personal statement of Pournelle's. It's interesting to note tha,t in most of these Falkenberg stories, there is an outsider who lives with the effects of political changes by Falkenberg while Falkenberg (usually because of the plot in which he springs a surprise) remains aloof.

Here this is changed by the book's opening, where we learn something of Falkenberg's beginnings, and the end story where we see something of his interior life. (I wish Pournelle would have resisted the cliche of the wife in the past who left him.)

These really are very political books. There are many political machinations and fast moving descriptions of battle strategy and tactics, but little attention paid to technology. Pournelle rationalizes the almost contemporary technology in terms of colonial development and CoDominium stifling of research. Interesting use of computers is made for battle administration, but apart from mentioning, in passing, nuke standoffs and stardrives and regeneration therapy, there is little in the way of technological extrapolation. It certainly isn't because Pournelle doesn't know his tech. He just chooses to emphasize other things.

I have read the middle portion of this novel before as the novella "The Mercenary". I found it's ending even more horrifying and moving this time. Massacring a stadium full of people is very bitter medicine for an ailing world. (A world that is specifically said to be reverting to feudalism, so I doubt Pornelle endorses the idea.) The second part of this novel involving Grand Senator Martin Grant (and, peripherally, Falkenberg -- whose cashiering is one more price to be paid for CoDominium survival) was grim and depressing. I suspect this was the section entitled "Peace With Honor" -- a title with quite deliberate echoes of Nixon and Vietnam. It was a memorable story of the United States and the CoDominium devolving into corrupt, tyrannical entities, a political order where, interestingly, "taxpayer" has become an aristocratic title. John Grant is forced into reprehensible, corrupt, distasteful actions to try to save man via the CoDominium. And it ultimately costs him the love of the one person who does not fear this CIA man: his daughter. I liked the President too. He is willing to break the law to stay in power because he must to save the CoDominium. But he will only go so far. He won't start a nuclear war to stay in power. In his own way, he is principled. Grant and the President, like Falkenberg, serve the CoDominium and man and civilization as best they can and pay a high price. show less

Fairly average mil-SF, but not too bad for all that. This is set in Larry Niven's Mote in God's Eye universe, one of the tales of the CoDominium. Chronologically it appears to be the first, starting shortly after the US/Russia treaty of 2030 or so.

As the title suggests it deals with the establishment of a Mercenary company lead by one Falkenberg. His troops are all from his prior CoDominium Marine force. We don't get to experience Falkenbergs rise through the ranks, merely his induction to the already weakening Fleet, followed by the politicking that requires his dismissal from his post at full Colonel. The story then jumps to his first engagement on a world called Hadley. Always out numbered, often out-gunned, and frequently in poor show more tactical terrain, the one thing that sets the Merc units apart from the enemies is the rigid discipline and within troop loyalty. They have nothing else - apart from a brilliant commander of course. Against them there are also the political issues, because nothing is ever simple.

Short and fairly direct, Falkenberg is the focus of course, which means we are spared much of the nitty gritty details of way, shots fired whites of their eyes stuff. However we also don't get to experience much of Falkenberg's thoughts, only rare glimpses show how (or whether) he is concerned over the actions he takes to complete his contracts.

There is a little bit of insight into the societal models around though - not just the straight capitalist of the US versus Russian Socialism, but more nuanced views of looking at Independence and bureaucratic inertia and corruption. There is a grander over-arching scheme, but it is only revealed towards the end, and I'm curious to see how the rest of the series builds (or doesn't given the publishing order) upon it.

Worth reading for Mil-SF fans, and probably of interest to anyone who likes space opera style SF. show less

First, it's Jerry Pournelle. Therefore, it will be -- at worst -- above average.
Second, I really don't care for war stories, but it's Jerry Pournelle so it has its attractions.
I used to see him at meetings of LASFAS, Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, and he was always fun to listen to or even talk to -- he was very approachable, a charming and interesting man.
Anything by Jerry Pournelle is worth reading. I recommend him and his entire body of work.

Millitary-style SF is not generally my thing, although I did enjoy the Dorsai books.
Very enjoyable.

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