No one walks away from business with the three biggest corporations in the Union of Humanity. Cutthroat trade deals and bloody covert operations make that clear as the star system of Archangel tries to break free. Yet despite all their power, the Big Three are more vulnerable than anyone knows—leaving them desperate to make an example of Archangel.Tanner Malone would gladly avoid such struggles. … struggles. He’d rather run out the clock on his enlistment in the Archangel Navy. Instead, he’s been ordered back into the front lines of a cold war that quickly grows hot. He doesn’t know about his government’s shady deals, or about the old enemies lurking in the shadows. All he knows is that the sky is falling—and he’ll have to fight harder than ever if he doesn’t want to be crushed beneath it.
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The system of Archangel is in dire straits at the start of Rich Man’s War as three major interstellar corporations twist the screws on its government after a spectacular series of security failures led Archangel to suspend both its security contracts with the corporations and suspend its debt payments to them. We the reader know that Archangel covertly arranged those spectacular security failures in the last book. For their part, the corporations only know that the game is supposed to be rigged in their favor and that they cannot afford to let Archangel get away with rewriting the rules or else other governments within the Union may try and do the same. They must do everything possible to keep that from happening including using their tremendous influence to stop other companies from dealing with Archangel and attacking the government through its citizens by jacking up the interest rates on already incurred private debt. They also try and embarrass and hurt Archangel by taking covert military action against them in other areas of the Union.
As the tensions continue to increase, we return to the POV of Tanner Malone who is trying to come to grips with his fame and to hold on to his decision to serve out his term and return to private life. Unfortunately, his commanding officers understand what kind of a man they have serving under them and keep putting him into troubled areas where his unique combination of qualities might prove the most useful. This works very well as we see Tanner pulled into another fantastically depicted military action.
We also get to see more of life for a normal enlisted man in the Archangel navy. Tanner finally gets to go to school, this time to become a military policeman, finishing his training just in time to be involved in the defense of the system against a major corporate fleet which should crush Archangel like a tiny bug on the tarmac. The corporations are convinced they are using overwhelming force, but Kay has permitted the Archangel navy brass to construct a truly clever (if far fetched) counter plan. It requires a little conscious suspension of disbelief, but if you give it that little bit of extra leeway, the action (as in the first novel) is absolutely superb right to the end of the novel.
Yet action alone does not make a great sf novel and once again Kay comes through with superb characterization. Tanner with his regrets and grudging acceptance of the role he has to play in the military crisis is totally credible, but once again it is the secondary cast—recurring and new—that really make this book so wonderful. They’re real people—many of whom you’d want as friends. There are also a couple of really great enemies—including the pirate from the first novel—who manage to be both cool and despicable at the same time.
A lot of times sequels are weaker than the first book, but not in this case. Kay has delivered a worthy follow up to Poor Man’s Fight and I’m looking forward to reading book 3.