Challenger's Hope

David Feintuch

New York: Warner Books, 1995. ISBN: 0-446-60097-0. Pp. 407

Basically a rehash of Midshipman’s Hope, this second installment in the Seafort saga continues Nick’s exploits from him taking command, or rather, almost taking the helm of the ship Challenger as it is about to sail to the colony Hope Nation as part of a large convoy commanded by an admiral who finds the upstart former midshipman quite unpleasant. Even though the narrative is much less episodic, forming a very coherent straight story, the things that happen to Seafort and his reactions to them seem vaguely familiar, and it is a bit grating to realize that the man has not changed a bit during the three years from the start of his initial travails. Having said that, I must confess to being thoroughly unable to put the book down until I finished it in the wee hours of the morning. Feintuch is addictive and Nicholas is such an infuriating and admirable character than I believe I would read whatever Feintuch chose to write about him.

On the decks of Portia and then the disabled Challenger, Nick faces some new problems. First, there are social tensions caused by the transpops (transient population), the underclass of the futuristic society, an illiterate bunch left to their own devices in the dirty bowels of the huge cities where the privileged inhabit the skies and occasionally bump into the wretched bums when they visit the lower levels on sight-seeing tours. The Church-controlled UN has embarked on a social experiment, trying to move the transpops to new worlds in an ill-advised attempt to relieve population pressure on Earth and maybe improve their lot in life. The way it’s done, of course, is just as brutal and mechanic as everything in this world: the transpops are dumped in the ship, six to a cabin fit for one, under the supervision of a well-meaning woman who quickly loses control of the tribal crowd. When the wild youths mix with the “proper” passengers, Nick is forced to confront prejudice, and not just in aristocrats he despises.

But that’s not Nick’s challenge (and in fact we’re pretty sure he can handle the transpops just fine since they will most likely respond to his combination of stern discipline and relentless fairness... as long as he can control his temper). When the strange fishlike aliens attack his ship again, Nick’s newly born son dies and his beloved wife Amanda soon suicides in her grief. Everything then goes from bad to worse just as he need her support to handle the ever-increasing problems of command: the treacherous admiral tricks him onto Challenger and abandons him drifting in space, almost eighty years of travel away from Earth, with the transpops, short on supplies, with fewer weapons, and no hope of ever making it to safety in his lifetime.

All this, of course, is basically the excrement hitting the fan big time the way it did on Nick’s first voyage. Again he has to confront rebellious crew member, hostile passengers, and uncomprehending near-friends in a rapidly changing tactical situation where he has to fight even though that think they are doing him favors. His youth and hot temper often get the better of him, he lashes on helpless inferiors and then confuses them by trying to be extra nice. The problem is that he never seems to learn from this particular mistake. Still, unlike the first time, Nick essentially starts here with a single possible friend, the cruel middy Phillip Tyre that got his comeuppance by the end of the first trip. Alone, with his unshakable faith and supported only by his dedication to the oath he had taken to uphold the UN government, Nick (again) has to choose the most difficult path available, and every time there’s an option that appears easier, he resolutely turns his back on it (and in the end his inflexibility ironically, and improbably, turns out to have been the right approach).

And here lies Nicks’ greatest challenge when he has to break his personal word in order to uphold the essence of the earlier oath: he promises lenient treatment to a rebellious crew member only to shoot her to save the ship. This is a defining moment in Nick’s life: the entire first book was premised on him being unable to bring himself to abandon the Regs, he was forced to take command against his will by the simple fact that he was the ranking surviving line officer. He did trick some rebels by making carefully worded promises whose letter, if not spirit, he upheld to the rebels’ dismay (and he does that here as well). But this time around he gave his word of honor knowing full well that he intended to break it. In that, he sacrificed the essence of his person (for his word and the bound it creates with his God is how he defines himself) to preserve the higher purpose of the government in which he believes. Dishonored in his own eyes, Nick’s triumphant and unexpected survival only plunges him into a pit out of which nothing except renewed love would pull him.

Short on action but heavy on interpersonal relationships, the book is a fascinating read. Some may think that all the characters are mildly insane but if one buys Feintuch’s future world (the rigidity of the highly religious society, the absolute discipline on a ship under weigh, the military people who must demand more of themselves than anyone else), then Nick’s actions become quite recognizable, even if very exasperating every time he repeats old mistakes. But Feintuch is upbeat and very optimistic: there are very few irredeemable villains here, no matter how bad one initially looks. Unfortunately, reality intrudes when some of these individuals never get a second chance. Worse, some of the most likeable characters perish in gut-wrenching moments. It’s almost as if Feintuch is taking sadistic delight in torturing the reader by killing off people we’ve gotten accustomed to, whose trajectory we have followed for hundreds of pages, whom we know intimately, and then following this by introducing us to new ones or changed older, half-forgotten, ones so we can regain hope until it’s dashed again in the next action episode.

As military sci-fi with a heavy emphasis on the central character’s experiences and his relationships with various other people, Challenger’s Hope is simply great. It’s one of those rare books that I regretted finishing (and immediately continued with the sequel). Compared to David Weber, another favorite writer in a similar genre, Feintuch foregoes infodumping almost completely, and his hero has all the flaws and warts of a full-bodied human rather than larger-than-life godlike Honor. The writing is right, the dialogue crisp and even though there’s very little humor, the feeling is generally one of optimism. A strange thing indeed for a world that is so utterly distasteful for me.

May 18, 2006