A review by brownbetty
The Sagittarius Command by R.M. Meluch
4.0
I feel that giving a review consisting of twelve \o/ in a row might be considered a cop-out.
But it's tempting. This book is a sequel to [b:Wolf Star|293412|Wolf Star The Claidi Journals II |Tanith Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173467913s/293412.jpg|1115873] and [b:The Myriad|218479|All the Myriad Ways|Larry Niven|/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|2015552], which I have already reviewed, and both of which I've given four stars. This book skips ahead a year from [b:Wolf Star|293412|Wolf Star The Claidi Journals II |Tanith Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173467913s/293412.jpg|1115873], and picks up at the point where events veer from the obvious path for them to take after the close of the last book.
The book's main dramatic arc is about the war against the alien threat known as the Gorgons, a terrifying life-form which overturns their scientific understanding of the universe. So terrifying, that the Romans have unilaterally surrendered to the Americans, specifically to John Farragut, the only man to successfully take back a ship once the Gorgons boarded. The Roman Emperor surrendered command of his legions, and gave his patterner, Augustus, to Farragut. Augustus is a creation of advanced Roman medical science, capable of synthesizing unfathomable amounts of information, pushing the human body past sane limits, and programmed to be blindly loyal to the Caesar.
The war is desperate, and gets more desperate all the time, Farragut and the Romans are still at each others throats, allies only by bitterest necessity, and forced to rely on the non-military League of Earth Nations for military support. But the main tension for me in this book was between Farragut and Augustus. Farragut is a man born of privileged, his father is a judge, and his mother is a US senator, inheritor of wealth that puts him in the top 1% of the Earth's population. He's risen in the Navy by hard work, tactical genius, and a gift for people. He's an idealist who knows how often reality falls short of his ideals, and doesn't let that stand in his way.
Augustus was created by Roman science to be a weapon, a synthesis of man and machine with memories that go back only eight years. He's the sort of man who likes to pull the wings off flies to watch what happens, and he sees most humans as insects. Except the wings he's interested in are the wings of the human brain. (Metaphor failure, eject, eject!) He's a sadist, is what I'm getting at, who gets his jollies putting pins in the tender places of the minds of people around him.
Augustus despises Farragut, not only as an American, but as an idealist, but Farragut is the one man given authority over him by Caesar. Farragut is so relentlessly fair that he cannot help but respect Augustus' dedication and abilities. Basically, they are so incredibly slashable that I cannot stand it.
But it's tempting. This book is a sequel to [b:Wolf Star|293412|Wolf Star The Claidi Journals II |Tanith Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173467913s/293412.jpg|1115873] and [b:The Myriad|218479|All the Myriad Ways|Larry Niven|/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|2015552], which I have already reviewed, and both of which I've given four stars. This book skips ahead a year from [b:Wolf Star|293412|Wolf Star The Claidi Journals II |Tanith Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173467913s/293412.jpg|1115873], and picks up at the point where events veer from the obvious path for them to take after the close of the last book.
The book's main dramatic arc is about the war against the alien threat known as the Gorgons, a terrifying life-form which overturns their scientific understanding of the universe. So terrifying, that the Romans have unilaterally surrendered to the Americans, specifically to John Farragut, the only man to successfully take back a ship once the Gorgons boarded. The Roman Emperor surrendered command of his legions, and gave his patterner, Augustus, to Farragut. Augustus is a creation of advanced Roman medical science, capable of synthesizing unfathomable amounts of information, pushing the human body past sane limits, and programmed to be blindly loyal to the Caesar.
The war is desperate, and gets more desperate all the time, Farragut and the Romans are still at each others throats, allies only by bitterest necessity, and forced to rely on the non-military League of Earth Nations for military support. But the main tension for me in this book was between Farragut and Augustus. Farragut is a man born of privileged, his father is a judge, and his mother is a US senator, inheritor of wealth that puts him in the top 1% of the Earth's population. He's risen in the Navy by hard work, tactical genius, and a gift for people. He's an idealist who knows how often reality falls short of his ideals, and doesn't let that stand in his way.
Augustus was created by Roman science to be a weapon, a synthesis of man and machine with memories that go back only eight years. He's the sort of man who likes to pull the wings off flies to watch what happens, and he sees most humans as insects. Except the wings he's interested in are the wings of the human brain. (Metaphor failure, eject, eject!) He's a sadist, is what I'm getting at, who gets his jollies putting pins in the tender places of the minds of people around him.
Augustus despises Farragut, not only as an American, but as an idealist, but Farragut is the one man given authority over him by Caesar. Farragut is so relentlessly fair that he cannot help but respect Augustus' dedication and abilities. Basically, they are so incredibly slashable that I cannot stand it.