Looking For a Good Book

Katharine Kerr is a name I recognize from my days browsing through the science fiction/fantasy bookstore shelves many years ago.  For no particular reason (except possibly money was tight and I wasn’t ready to spend it on someone I wasn’t sure about) I never read any of her work. When I saw this book – not apparently part of a longer series – I thought it was time to give Kerr a try.

We’re three thousand years in the future with a republic of planets governed by the Rim Council and protected by a military known simply as The Fleet. This multi-planet civilization uses hyperspace travel to get around among the planets. But there are rumors coming from the outer rim that these hyperspace ‘shunts’ are having problems.

To explore and study this problem, The Fleet puts together a special ops team of misfits – an AI expert, an alien gunner with perfect aim, a soldier who has an uncanny ability to detect patterns in time and space, a medic and engineer married couple, and a steadfast captain who has to hold the misfits together. But perhaps the most important is star pilot Dan Brennan. Once a respected fleet pilot, he’d been knocked so far down the ranks people forgot about him. Rumor was he turned down a sexual liaison with a superior who took it as an insult.

Dan’s biggest issue isn’t that he’s been kicked down in rank – it’s his addiction to the drug Haze. All pilots use Haze – it’s likely necessary in order to make the hyperspace jumps. Dan may be one of the best and perhaps the only pilot who can help the special ops team, but he’s also got it in his contract to have a steady supply of Haze on hand during the mission.

Can Dan stay clear-headed long enough to get them to a successful mission? Or will his drug-addled brain put them in a danger that can’t escape from?

This isn’t the most original of story ideas – drugs putting people in a place where they can succeed (even exceed) but also making them unpredictable. I liked the little touch that Haze gets Dan sexually turned on while doing his piloting maneuvers. Fortunately, despite the title, Haze isn’t the focus of the story.  Well, sort of… more on that in a minute.

This is primarily a character-driven story and Dan is our primary character. The problem with this is that Dan doesn’t really experience any growth. Those around him on the mission come to get used to him but even they don’t see much growth in him and question whether or not he can handle the big event near the end.  The character who do seem to grow through the story are the Captain, Evans, and Chief Warrant Officer Peter Devit who looks after Dan. These two have a more interesting story going on but it relegated to being in the background.

There’s an attempt to portray sexual union and encounters in a more liberal light. Three thousand years from now we’re all more apt to enjoy group sex and/or same gender sex more than what is now traditional. It’s fine. It doesn’t feel as natural as it’s intended to be. Instead of including a more ambitious partnering, Kerr feels it’s necessary to make a point of it:

     “Just the two of them?” Dan says.
“Yes, and still together. They’ve never joined a quartet. Huh, I didn’t think that a one-pair marriage could work. Only two people? It seems so unnatural. But anyway … (on to the story)”

The book also features queer and gender-fluid characters. This makes sense given the freedom to have sex with just about anyone regardless of gender in the future. But this feels more ‘tacked on’ than integral. Or…

I guess I would probably be disappointed if I was specifically looking for LGBTQ+ literature. What’s here is pretty vanilla for 3,000 years in the future!

I mentioned earlier that the focus of the book is not Haze. It’s not the focus, but it IS important. Although we don’t understand why or how, Dan and his use of Haze is integral to solving the problems ahead. But of course we knew that because Haze was mentioned SO often and usually disparagingly in relation to Dan’s addiction. So of course it’s going to be important!

For me, this is a true 3-1/2 star book. The writing is smooth and easy to read, making this better than a 3 star book, but the stereotyped group of misfits and the need to make a point of the liberal attitude toward non-gender-specific sex keep this from being a true 4 star book.  Of course I have to give it a whole number rating on Goodreads so I’ll base my rating depending on how the overall rating is.

Looking for a good book? Haze, by Katharine Kerr, is a space opera on drugs. Literally.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Haze

author: Katharine Kerr

publisher: CAEZIK SF & Fantasy

ISBN: 9781647101510

hardcover, 290 pages