Subject: Review: Challenger's Hope by David Feintuch

From: "Stephen M.G. Hodge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 19:46:07 GMT

CHALLENGER'S HOPE by David Feintuch
        Warner, ISBN 0-446-60097-0, 1995, 406pp, UKP4.45
        A book review by Steve Hodge ([email-masked])

It is not easy to articulate why I found Challenger's Hope by David Feintuch
such a peculiarly awful book, one which I disliked almost from the first
page, but carried on reading in horrified fascination right to the end.  The
story is a 'Space Navy' saga somewhat in the style of the Horatio Hornblower
novels and later imitations (the full title of the book is 'Challengers
Hope, being the second voyage of Nicholas Seafort, UNNS, in the year of our
Lord 2194'). It concerns the trials and tribulations of 'the youngest
Captain in the entire UN Navy,' who has reached this happy state as aresult
of his adventures in the first book of the series 'Midshipman's Hope,' which
I have not read, and do not propose to.

Most of the book concerns the relationships between Captain Seafort and his
fellow officers, with a number of cardboard characters (including Captain
Seafort's unfortunate wife) and some comic strip aliens making bit part
appearances as a back drop to the main action. By the end of the book it is
clear to the reader, but not perhaps to the author, that virtually all of
the officers, and in particular Captain Seafort (who tells the story in the
first person) are clinically insane, and that the UN Navy is not an
organisation to which it would be wise to entrust the defence of the planet.
In fact I suppose this is the problem - if the book is about anything it is
about how a Space Navy might be organised and function effectively - and at
the end of the story you come to the conclusion that the organisation
described most closely resembles a machine drawn by Maurits Escher (very
complicated and it would never work), while the motivations and emotions of
the people in it seem to have a lot in common with those prevalent in a
nursery school for disturbed children but little relevance to grownups.

This wouldn't matter too much - at least to the true sf afficionado - if the
story was good, or the science interesting or the backdrop well drawn or the
aliens thought provoking but unfortunately Challenger's Hope has almost none
of these merits. Overall the book has a lot in common with Starship Troopers
(including a distinct uneasiness with male/female relationships, and a
certain relish for gratuitous male/male violence and sadism) but Mr.
Feintuch is not yet in Robert Heinlein's class in the areas of story and
science. There are some tantalising hints that the author may have a better
book in him provided he sticks to space opera and eschews any further
attempt at character studies (after all, I did feel the need to get right
through to the end), but on this evidence he has a fair way to go even to
achieve this limited ambition.

%A   Feintuch, D
%T   Challenger's Hope
%C   New York
%D   1995
%G   ISBN 0-446-60097-0
%I   Warner Books Inc
%O   Paper back UK Sterling 4.45 
%P   406 Pages