The Troublesome Universe Of 'Valiant Dust'
Richard Baker is an established voice in military science fiction; his latest, Valiant Dust, kicks off a new space adventure series. But it's hampered by shallow characters and cultural blindness.
They say that all science fiction stories are tales of today, dolled up with ray guns and spaceships to make them more palatable. That they're all muddled messes of our modern politics and current fears, our hopes for distant sweet endings cut with the arsenic cynicism of actually living in the present moment.
And that's probably true, if only because no science fiction writer (with the arguable exceptions of William Gibson and Philip K. Dick) can really see into the future. Richard Baker's newest novel, , is no exception. As
