Subject: Midshipman's Hope, by David Feintuch (a review by Peter Cash)

From: [email-masked] (Peter Cash)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 00:17:28 GMT

MIDSHIPMAN'S HOPE
		       A book review by Peter Cash

[spoilers begin midway through the review, after a warning.  Therefore, I am
putting the reference information up front so people wanting to find the
book do not need to go past the spoiler mark to get the info.  --AW]

%T      Midshipman's Hope
%A      David Feintuch 
%C      New York
%D      1994
%I      Warner books ("Aspect Science Fiction")
%O      paperback, US $5.50
%G      ISBN 0-446-60096-2
%P      391 pp

For reasons that I will not speculate upon, future societies that are
conservative, or in which Christianity plays a significant part, are a great
rarity in the science fiction genre. The presence of both these elements in
David Feintuch's MIDSHIPMAN'S HOPE (and the rest of the books in this
series) is enough to mark them as unusual. What makes these books _sui
generis_ is that this society is not viewed by either the author or his
characters as being particularly evil--or even undesirable. Throughout, the
author's viewpoint is non-judgmental.

The society in Feintuch's books is presented as a reaction against the
chaotic "age of rebellion" (presumably our times); by the end of the 22nd
century, the world has been united under a "Yahwist Reunification Church",
the political arm of which is (so help me) the United Nations. Feintuch
understands that liberal and reactionary trends alternate in history, and
doesn't make the mistake of so many SF writers who merely assume that the
social mileu of the future will be characterized by the _laissez faire_
morals of our own.

As a Christian, I have to say that Feintuch's "Yahwist Reunification" is far
too legalistic for my taste--I have no desire to live in a theocracy, and
especially not this rather grim one. However, it's refreshing to read a SF
novel in which prayer and faith are an ordinary part of life.

I suspect that the social background was necessary for the kind of story
Feintuch wanted to write. According to the cover blurb, he's a student of
Napoleonic-era British naval history. It was plainly Feintuch's desire to
write a story with a setting as close as possible to that era. To do this,
he didn't need to set up a theocracy, of course (Britain was never one)--but
he did need a very hierarchical society in which strictest discipline,
including corporal punishment for minor infractions was plausible.

The socio-religious background is more than just a stage setting, however.
Faith in God and an absolute devotion to duty are integral to setting up the
motivations and conflicts of the major characters, particularly Midshipman
Nicholas Seafort.

So far, I've read two of the "Seafort Saga" books--MIDSHIPMAN'S HOPE and
CHALLENGER'S HOPE. A third--PRISONER'S HOPE--waits on my nightstand to be
read. The cover blurb to one of the books mentions that this is a four part
series, and that all the books were written before the first was published,
so we should have the fourth novel--FISHERMAN'S HOPE--in our hands soon.

Minor spoilers follow. You have been warned.


Nicholas Seafort is a seventeen year old midshipman--the most junior officer
grade possible--aboard a large space craft heading toward a colonial
outpost. Due to a series of accidents, all officers senior to Seafort die,
and he is forced by the laws of his service and his sense of duty to take
command of the ship--despite his unshakeable conviction that he is not
qualified to do so. At first, I thought this was going to be a
kid-becomes-hero juvenile novel, and I almost put it down. I was soon
surprised, however, by the complexity of Seafort's character, and by some
surprising plot twists.

Seafort is anything but an archetypal SF space opera hero. He lacks all
confidence in himself, and suffers dark torments of conscience for every
misstep--real or imagined. While those around him see Seafort as a hero, to
himself he is an abject failure, and he cannot believe that everyone doesn't
see him for the fraud he thinks himself to be.

In the second book, things turn considerably darker than the first. Instead
of a functional ship, Seafort spends most of CHALLENGER'S HOPE as captain of
a derelict, trying to hold together the mutinous and desperate crew and keep
the ship capable of supporting life--despite his own conviction that they
are all going to die. Sometimes, things got almost too grim--I was often
left wondering how things could possibly get worse...until they do. Seafort
becomes more despotic and erratic as conditions get worse, until he is
driven to the ultimate extreme--a choice between violating a sworn oath or
saving his ship from destruction. This oath is no light thing--it is sworn
to the Lord God personally, and violating it means to spend eternity
suffering in hell. This is not a dilemma familiar to any of us; yet Feintuch
makes it painfully real in this story.

I've found these two books captivating and refreshing, and can't wait to
read the rest to find out what happens to Seafort. It's a tribute to
Feintuch's writing and originality that I really can't tell whether Seafort
will wind up as a hero or as a dog in the end. I do hope he discovers that
God is more forgiving than he has been led to believe.

             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      [email-masked]