Barbary Station (Shieldrunner Pirates, book 1) by R. E. Stearns

[james_davis_nicoll]

Barbary Station (Shieldrunner Pirates, book 1) by R. E. Stearns

Comments

[chomiji]

Welp, you've saved me from a disappointing buy: I was actually considering getting this one.

Thanks for reviewing this.

[alexxkay]

It’s not at all the glamorous life of adventure Adda and Iridian had expected. In fact, it may be a very short and unpleasant life,

This is one 0f those classic perspective errors. What seems like a glamorous life of adventure from the outside is usually short and unpleasant from within.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, but what is "adventure", except unpleasantness with good press?

-- TSM_in_Toronto

[roseembolism]

Well you know, it's not like every pirate can make a living putting on entertainments for the wealthy and bored. At least a few of them are going to have take the unpleasant step step of well, piracy.

It does sound like a Traveller scenario, down to the ruthless behavior and abundance of weapons. Which reminds me of one thing I've always windered about Traveller- why would anyone invest tens of millions of credits in financing a privateer starship for people who's admitted profession is stealing starships?

[(Anonymous)]

My assumption was that the were funding a perfectly legitimate tramp freighter. Without realizing that the crew were actually psychopaths.

--
NPH

[scott_sanford]

For the scout/courier it made at least some sense. They're economically marginal at best as traders, but by loaning them to retired naval personnel the Empire gets lots of known people bumming around the galaxy poking their noses into almost everything. The Empire will hear about a lot of interesting things in short order. Moreover, since there are scout/couriers everywhere, nobody pays much attention to any one of them.

[del]

There is historical precedent for backers repeatedly funding ships only for the ships to repeatedly do what the captain and crew wanted to do. The English and Dutch East India Companies were continually giving very detailed orders in the form "Just sail the ship round Africa to the Spice Islands, buy spice, and come back home straight away with a ship full of spice. Can you just do that? Please?" One day out of sight of land, the captain would say "Screw that, I'm off to discover Manhattan Island and Hudson Bay and look for the North West Passage!" Or the North East Passage, which was another popular hobby for company officers.

today I learned why there are no Canadian pirates...

[connactic]

PIRATE CAPTAIN MAPLE: Arrr! Make the land-lubbers walk the space-plank!
ENSIGN NICOLL: But that would be rude.
PIRATE CAPTAIN MAPLE: Blast it! This was an unfortunate career choice....


Anyway, aside from the pirates acting like, well, pirates, did you like the rest of the book? In the review, that seemed to be the main sticking point.

[eub]

It sounds like it would make an excellent Cherryh.

[autopope]

I got as far as reading the free sample on Kindle, but exceeded my boredom threshold before pressing on. And I wanted a space pirate yarn.

(NB: on the "space pirates making a living without stealing" note, can I plug my own "Neptune's Brood" at this point? Featuring the Crimson Permanent Assurance in Space, with a highly innovative business model involving aggressive accountancy practices ...)

[refreshninja]

Wait, how are these known pirates doing their pirating if they can't leave the station without being shot? Did the AI situation only recently arise? I don't see how the setup makes any sense.