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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781416555872
ISBN number: 1416555870
Label: Baen
Manufacturer: Baen
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: November 04, 2008
Publishing house: Baen
Sale Popularity Level: 4492
Studio: Baen
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Product Description:
It's Not Over Til The Skinny Lady Sings . . .
Working off of a piece of intelligence from the alien Hexosehr, the Vorpal Blade is dispatched to investigate rumors of an ancient and powerful civilization that may have been the creators of the ?black box? that drives humanity's only space ship. Any remnant technology would be nice but what the Blade finds is much more than they bargained for. Worse, the ship is infested by an alien species of scorpion-like arachnoids that has the potential to wipe out a world. Worst of all, instead of being Astrogator, Captain William Weaver is now the XO and he is not getting along with the new commander. And the new commander does not get along with Weaver, the ship's female savant-linguist or most of the rest of the original crew. And what is that weird noise the ship makes every time it's in hard maneuvers?
Leave it to the oddball geniuses of the Blade to sort it all out. And the Dreen are not going to like the answers.
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Rated by buyers 
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This is a great page-turner - I read the whole book in 2 days and I'd love to do it in one if I had the time! The relationships between a variety of military types in fascinating and the book has a couple of very good ideas (without introducing a spoiler I just mention "concert platform" and "manga" for people, who actually read the book). I share the main hero preferences in music (Mother Earth/Silent Force, Festival Wind)In short, if you're looking for some escape from everyday routine, the book provides!
Otherwise, the book is totally forgettable. Characters are cartoonish, pretty much only way author solves any problem is a miracle (usually executed by the "scientists"). "Science fiction" part is mostly maulk. In respect to coding and software and chemistry I can testify to that. Physics part is rather complex, at least for the people without active background in elementary particles, so I don't quite understand why it's there.
Rated by buyers 
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This one got five stars, which should tell you how I felt about this latest entry in the Looking Glass Saga. Once again the A.S.S. Vorpal Blade(II) goes forth to find out "What's out there? Thataway," and runs headlong into more trouble than you'ld want to see in one lifetime.
As with the last book, Manxome Foe (Looking Glass, Book 3) the very first two-thirds or so of the book deal with daily living, people, preparations for lift-off, and the people problems of getting a crew working as a team. This is followed by the sort of space and small-unit battle that the authors handle superbly.
All of it was very well-written and thoroughly engrossing to the point where I hated having to interrupt my reading with little things like eating, work, dinner with my wife, websurfing. And I'm very glad, as I write this, that I finished it in time NOT to lose anything as unimportant as sleep.
The title of this review, however, is how I'll be thinking of this story for a long time. Remember the problem of shaking down a crew of people, most of them strangers to each other, into a smoothly functioning team? THAT is truly, for me, what this book was about. The really important battle in this book was creating that team, getting the screwups to learn better, INCLUDING the captain, and turning them into a family. I won't give you any spoilers here. Each and every one of those scenes is engrossing, and taught me powerful lessons about how to function at my job and do the people parts WELL.
And, as the last parts of the book make pellucidly clear, if the people problems hadn't been worked on BEFORE the "murthering great battle" at the end, NOBODY would have made it out of this one alive.
FYI, the CD that comes with the book has:
All of the books in the Looking Glass series(Into the Looking Glass, Vorpal Blade, Manxome Foe, Claws That Catch)
All of the books in the Council Wars series(There Will Be Dragons, Emerald Sea, Against the Tide, East of the Sun, West of the Moon)
All of the books in the Paladin of Shadows series(Ghost, Kildar, Choosers of the Slain, Unto the Breach, A Deeper Blue)
All of the books in the Empire of Man series (co-authored with David Weber)
Almost all of the books in the Aldenata Series (Honor of the Clan isn't out yet, darnit!)
All of Doc Travis' books for Baen, both solo and co-authored with John Ringo.
The Last Centurion
The Road to Damascus (The Bolo Series)
Getting that with this book is rather like being told "You liked this gold coin, eh, boy? Well, here's a sack of 'em. Go have fun."
It just doesn't get better than a package like this.
Rated by buyers -
Book IV of the Looking Glass series, in which our world now is connected to myriad other worlds through portals, and is desperately trying to avoid being consumed by a biological hive civilization referred to as the Dreen.
This installment centers around the search more alien artifacts, similar to that which provides the FTL propulsion for the Vorpal Blade. Along the way, our characters grow (Two-Gun learns about being an officer, Weaver learns how to be an XO and to deal with a disliked captain), and things blow up in humorous and unexpected ways.
Highlights are the relative realism. While not having being in an elite branch of the military, the authors portray the habits of Force Recon marines and submarines quite convincingly. The action's pretty good, with lots of automatic weapon fire and desperate stands.
Lowlights...well, there are several. The ending felt tacked on and was a bit jarring (i.e. the Thermopylae showing up). While the tone of the series has always been more lighthearted than, say, the Prince Roger or Posleen books, it almost ventures a bit too far over the line when it comes to the Big Alien Artifact they find. In particular, while I laughed very hard at the "Anime Zone" effect, that's almost too silly.
On the whole, a pretty good read, though it was a bit short for my tastes. On the other hand, filler for filler's sake would detract. So, 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4, because the occasional fourth-wall breaking things like "Well, now we know who the main character is" is silly, it was also funny as heck.
Rated by buyers -
Cover to cover in one day. A very engrossing read, with non-stop action. Too bad the XO never did find his door.
Now for the bad news: You need to read the earlier books in the series to get up to speed. Most of the information is there, it just comes at you real fast.
The good news: the publisher has once again added a cd-rom to the book. This contains (unless I miss my guess) the earlier books in the series!! This is the kind of bargain that shouldn't be missed.
I haven't perused my cd because I already own most of Baen's backlist (everything by John and Doc).
Rated by buyers -
Claws That Catch (2008) is the fourth SF novel in the William Weaver series, following Manxome Foe. In the previous volume, the Vorpal Blade was damaged so severely that it was replaced. The casualty rate was not as bad as the very first voyage, but the losses were still heavy. Most of the survivors were decorated and promoted. Two-Gun was sent to OCS by presidential order.
In this novel, Brooke Pierson marries Eric Bergstresser. He wears officer dress blues for the very first time. He also has an enlisted dress uniform in his closet that has never been worn. Rapid promotion can be expensive.
Two-Gun discovers at almost the last minute that there will be a few special guests at the wedding. Of course, his former skipper -- Admiral Blankemeier -- is coming. The President was persuaded not to attend due to the publicity factor, but the Chief of Astronautic Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps are coming instead, along with assorted staff officers. The reception is going to be brass heavy.
After a short yet enthusiastic honeymoon, Lieutenant Bergstresser reports for duty and is handed a heavy load of auxiliary duties. The paperwork is going to seriously cut into his married life. Being an officer in the Space Marines is more work and less fun than being a junior sergeant.
The Vorpal Blade II is being readied for a new mission when the news hits the fan. The White House and Pentagon were preparing to announce the existence of a space navy in the very near future, but the Russians, Chinese and the media caught onto the information a bit sooner than expected. Various survivors of the second voyage -- including Two-Gun -- quickly become international news celebrities. Top Powell is a hit on the talk circuit.
In this story, the new Vorpal Blade is checking out an intelligence item received from their new allies. The Hexosehr had discovered an alien artifact of unknown origin in a retrograde orbit around a gas giant. They had tried to destroy it to keep its technology out of Dreen hands, but their best efforts failed to dent the skin. The Hexosehr finally deorbitted the artifact into the gas giant atmosphere.
The voyage out is flawed with minor problems. Captain Weaver is the new executive officer and is trying to break in the new commander. Unfortunately, Captain Prael is a former submariner and has problems adjusting to the Space Navy. He does accept the space tape, but refuses to let Miriam Moon provide assistance to engineering. So the linguist and technological genius is bored and depressed until the requests start trickling in despite the skipper's orders.
When the Vorpal Blade reaches its destination, the crew cannot find any other signs of the alien civilization in space and only some buried ruins on the surface of a terrestrial type planet. So the ship visits a blue giant in the vicinity. This sun has definite signs of alien civilization, including something huge that looks like a glass christmas tree.
After a frustrating time investigating the tree, the Vorpal Blade leaves a contingent on the artifact and travels to Runner's World to get some additional specialists from the Hexosehr. The XO is left in charge, so he decides that he can now play his guitar to relax his nerves. The crew complains about his volume and singing, but Weaver ignores them. They do find some fascinating and terrifying aspects of the artifact, but then a Dreen fleet arrives.
This tale puts Weaver and the away party in harm's way. So what else is new! Still, the Dreen fleet has sixty-one ships, including a very large brain-ship.
As with the previous stories, the casualty rate is high and the ship gets shot up. Yet an alien spider-like creature with a serious hunger for Dreen flesh provides some significant assistance. Enjoy!
Highly recommended for Ringo & Taylour fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of space opera, naval and marine combat, and some very interesting characters.
-Arthur W. Jordin
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