Reviewing books, especially when you’re trying to write your own, makes you a bit self-conscious. When you’re asked for an opinion, you have to approach each title as a reader who is looking for a good escape. That self-conscious feeling only gets worse when I review works written by people I know. I want to give an honest opinion–but if I don’t like it, the friendship is irrevocably marred. I was feeling particularly self-conscious when I picked up The Dark Path, Walter H. Hunt’s sequel to The Dark Wing. Now, I liked Dark Wing, but I was on edge as the last two books I read were just nothing less than awful, and one of them written by a friend of mine. I didn’t want to write a bad review of a book written by friend.
Well, I’m not. The Dark Path provides a terrific follow-up to Hunt’s debut novel.
As The Dark Wing was set a few hundred years from now with the Solar Empire reaching into the depths of outer space, The Dark Path is set about a hundred years after the close of the first book. The humans are co-existing, more-or-less, with their one-time arch nemesis, the Zor, a bird-like race that at one time believed the humans to be an effrontery to their existence until Sol Empire’s Admiral Marais took an active role in the Zor’s religion and mythology. Now, humans and zor are working together to explore strange new worlds. Sounds nice, huh?
Well, it is?until a fully-armed Imperial star cruiser goes missing the farthest-charted region of the Sol Empire. A rescue is mounted, and that fully-armed Imperial star cruiser goes missing. In steps armchair Admiral Tolliver who heads out to the remote outpost of Cicero station, the “last stop” for the Imperial Navy before heading into unexplored, deep space. At Cicero, Commodore Jackie Laperriere and her zor assistant Ch’k’te receive Tolliver and his guest, Sergei Torrijos. Looking over the evidence, Jackie, Ch’k’te, and Sergei all agree a rescue is a bad idea. So what does Admiral Tolliver decide? Mount yet another full scale rescue and salvage operation, this time with several fully-armed-to-the-teeth-with-fingers-on-the-button battle cruisers. So Jackie, Ch’k’te, and Torrijos watch Tolliver head off into deep space, thinking “This is a really bad idea.”
They have no idea how right they are.
The Dark Path starts out of the box strong and keeps a breakneck speed in its storytelling, throwing you one situation after another; and you as the reader wind up turning pages well into the wee small hours of the morning. If you have read The Dark Wing, you can’t help but enjoy Hunt’s Dark Path as a cleaner, sharper, and smarter book. Yes, smarter. Hunt’s first book is what you expect from Military SciFi. You have good humans, bad aliens, and stuff blowing up in outer space. (He also throws in a smattering of political intrigue to make things interesting.) The Dark Path holds itself to the high standards that Hunt set for himself in his first novel, and he still provides good humans, bad aliens, and stuff blowing up in outer space. However, we are given a deeper look at the one-time-enemy-now-ally Zor. Hunt is given a bit of breathing room with Dark Path and gets into the details of Zor culture, mythos, and government. The end result makes for a gripping read.
The other thing I enjoyed about The Dark Path is how Hunt plays around with some of my favorite SciFi devices. He provides many terrific “Oh crap!” moments, one of the biggest being the introduction of the vuhls, a new alien race that has an agenda for universal domination! Hunt plays around with paranoia that John Carpenter captured in his remake of The Thing and suspense that James Cameron did so very well in Aliens. These touches, along with the development of Jackie Laperriere and Ch’k’te, really makes The Dark Path a terrific book that provides characters you want to invite over for an afternoon of enegh and cheese on the veranda.
Now, here’s where I want to ask Hunt “Why?!” when I see him again. (And come to think of it, that will be in a few weeks at Arisia 2005 in Boston, Massachusetts?) For those of you who have enjoyed the cast of The Dark Wing, do not expect to see them in The Dark Path. I was a bit disappointed that Hunt did not bring back the crew of the IMS Lancaster except in brief dream sequences. Granted, we’ve got new characters in the mix now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t long for Dark Wing‘s Marais, Torrijos, Hudson, McMasters, and Boyd. Perhaps he was “cleaning house” to pave the way for Jackie, or perhaps Hunt just has a knack for creating characters you don’t want to see buy the farm too soon; but as it is with any writer?his universe, his rules.
There is also an issue I have about The Dark Path that I cannot go into without dropping serious spoilers, so I won’t. The Dark Path is such a good read, I can’t help but love it. This is Military SF on an entirely different level, and Hunt delivers a terrific new volume in his Dark Wing series. I enjoyed The Dark Path so much that I can say?without fail?that I am looking forward to the next installment.
Rating: 4 out of 5
The Dark Path by Walter H. Hunt
Publisher: Tor Books; February, 2003 (hardcover); August, 2004 (paperback)
ISBN: 0765345641
Genre: Military Science Fiction
Author’s Webpage: walterhunt.com
