Re: [FT] Novel - Gap Series.

Well, the Gap series is one for the vector crowd. B5 had ships with 
rotating sections, but they never had to worry about hydraulic fluid 
from damaged conduits sloshing around because the ship is under 
rotation. Donaldson gets some of his time and distance formulae wrong, 
and the Swarm is beyond impossible, but for the most part ships do 
accelerate as per Newton and nobody has artificial gravity so you spin, 
thrust or do without.

Ships have a basic beam weapon, the Matter Cannon (the trick with these 
is, you make photons revert from wave to particle as they hit the 
target) and various special weapons like singularity grenades. There are

shields. Seriously big cannon exist, a couple of ships have them 
mounted, they fire slowly but kill things - think spinal mounts. One of 
the key design factors of the large warships is that they are designed 
to rotate in combat. This allows them to bring fresh weapons and shields

to bear while the others get a period to cool down and recharge. 
Gyroscope critical hits must be allowed for. Donaldson allows for 
lightspeed lag, but I think he's wrong on the scale it really plays a 
part on. Face it, if Niven wrote these the physics would be right, there

would be no horrific overtones, and it would wrap in at most two 
medium-length novels.

As for the characters, what happens to them and what they do to each 
other, allow me to quote from the second review linked below. "If you 
can handle well-developed but deplorable characters, brooding atmosphere

and continual violence, then here's a long read to indulge in." That 
sums it up nicely but leaves out the intricate future history, genuinely

different aliens and a plotline taken (with acknowledgment) straight 
from the Ring Cycle. Yes, he's drawing inspiration from Wagner. It's 
that grim. You might want to read the author's notes at the end of the 
first book *first* if you're unsure about these. They're short enough to

get through in the bookstore.

To summarize stuff that is revealed fairly early on, there's a corporate

group of characters, including the directors of the megacorp that runs 
space, they are derived from characters in the Ring Cycle - 
larger-than-life mythological types. The other group is made of of a 
young police ensign who is captured and mind-controlled by a vicious 
criminal and then flees to the romantic space pirate figure rather than 
return for therapy - and shame. Naturally, the romantic space pirate is 
arguably the most frelled-up, sick, and twisted individual in the series

- Angus Thermopylae is almost sane next to Nick. Old nemeses come into 
play, obsessions become compelling, terrible choices must be made, 
apocalyptically bad ideas look good at the time. Nobody dies well. The 
final list of survivors is *not* completely predictable. And the ending 
is solid and wraps things up nicely.

 If you liked the movie "The Bad Lieutenant" then you have a treat in 
these books, if you avoid movies like that then avoid these books for 
the same reasons - and at all costs. Read something by Bujold or Moon.

If you *do* like the darker sort of fiction, let me also recommend Susan

R. Matthews' Jurisdiction series. Terrific stuff, but you don't see a 
lot of books written about torturers for a reason.

Robin Fitton wrote:

>>There were spaceships?!?!? I thought it was another 'fantasy' series!
>>*blush*
>>    
>>
>
>Fantasy.. Far from it. There has never been a space opera so brutal as
the
>Gap, it does not pull any punches. I must get my set out and dust them
off
>again! Not light reading with a lot of adult content.
>
>Some people have mixed feelings, because the books are brutal with a
close
>focus on the character's core. I found this tense character generation
made
>for better space combat because I felt closer to the characters... R
>
>Some reviews:
>
>http://www.sffworld.com/authors/d/donaldson_stephen/reviews/gapseries.h
tml
>
>http://www.alternative-worlds.com/authors/d/stephen-donaldson/stephen-d
onaldson-gap-reviews-1.php
>
>  
>

-- 
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade
and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are
hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of
our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are
willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we
intend to win, and the others, too.

http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/j091262.htm