Review: Trial By Fire
<p><cite>Trial By Fire</cite> (Charles E. Gannon, Baen) is the sort of book that divides those who notice it into two parts.  One group will sneer &#8220;Yard goods from Baen, yet another space opera full of stuff blowing up&#8221;; the other will nod and smile and say &#8220;Good clean fun, I&#8217;ll take it.&#8221;</p>
<p>I&#8217;m cheerfully in the second group, myself.  But I do have standards.  Done badly, this sort of thing is just boring and derivative button-pushing, a sort of male-targeted analog of formula romances.  Done well, it&#8217;s a fun ride with enough elements of puzzle story and sense of wonder to make it respectable SF even if it doesn&#8217;t aspire to the heights of conceptual breakthrough found in the best of the genre.</p>
<p>This particular book is the second in a sequence that I would describe as enjoyable if unexceptional. Much of the furniture is familiar (one of the major alien species is perhaps too much like Alan Dean Foster&#8217;s Thranx, and another is fairly generic <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProudWarriorRaceGuy">Proud Warrior Race Guys</a>) but the author knows his way around the battles and action scenes, and some of the reveals in the puzzle side of the plot are genuinely interesting.</p>
<p>Overall, the author earns his money.  You&#8217;ll want to read the first book, <cite>Fire With Fire</cite>, before this one.  Expect sequels &#8211; but if you&#8217;re in the target market for this book, you already know you want them.</p>
