Six Against The Stars

by Stephen Hunt

As the self-proclaimed biggest coward in the galaxy, Horatio has it easy on what passes for 40th century America. A much-favoured sycophant in the court of the King of Earth, Horatio lives in a genetically engineered paradise where there's a vat-grown slave waiting around every marble column with a bunch of grapes to drop into his oh-so perfectly designed mouth.

Unfortunately for Horatio, the artificial intelligence that rules the great mass of humanity spread across the stars has other plans for this feckless seducer. So, if you ever wonder how the galaxy's biggest coward finds himself actually trying to save it, you're not alone... but then, unfortunately, neither is our hero!

His misadventures are abetted by a psychotic Martian warrior, a robot who thinks it's related to Sherlock Holmes, a beautiful genetically enhanced assassin, a scientist with a computer for a brain, and a millennia-old clone who was alive when the last U.S. President was executed by a firing squad.

It's six against the galaxy. Six against the stars. They'll save the universe... but they might damage it first.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

Nook

First published February 2, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Stephen Hunt is a British writer living in London. His first fantasy novel, For the Crown and the Dragon, was published in 1994, and introduced a young officer, Taliesin, fighting for the Queen of England in a Napoleonic period alternative reality where the wars of Europe were being fought with sorcery and steampunk weapons (airships, clockwork machine guns, and steam-driven trucks called kettle-blacks). The novel won the 1994 WH Smith Award, and the book reviewer Andrew Darlington used Hunt's novel to coin the phrase Flintlock Fantasy to describe the sub-genre of fantasy set in a Regency or Napoleonic-era period.

Reviews

[Ross · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thought I'd give this a try since it was free for a limited time via Amazon. After stripping off the gosh darn Amazon DRM so I could load it on my Sony Ebook, I got about 60-65 "pages" into it and just wasn't hooked. There were some interesting concepts but the characters and premises were all over the place and nothing seemed cohesive. If I am reading that far into the book and STILL don't know what the hell is going on or where the book is going, there's gotta be something else to keep me interested or I'm going to give up. In this case, there wasn't anything to keep me engaged so into the abandoned shelf it goes.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Six Against the Stars is a decent sci-fi book. As usual it's set in the far future. Our current age becomes known as the Carbon age and will be followed, in this universe anyway, by the Conflict age. In this universe humans have spread amongst the stars, with the Wisdom (which absorbs all the intelligence of the universe's finest) ruling over it.

Horatio spends his time on Earth as a courtier and spends most of that time chasing after and sleeping with various women. After one such events things don't quite go to plan and he finds himself on a mission through space with a robot, a crazed religious warrior, a beautiful assassin, a doctor and an immortal soldier. It's certainly original as the six find themselves against all sorts of alien races and have a traitor somewhere amongst their midst.

My main issue with this is that the sci-fi ideas in it are not developed much and are difficult to grasp. Hunt has some fantastic ideas but there are just too many of them and they sort of cancel each other out. The alien races in it are fairly generic and it just feels like it could be changed so much better. It's an enjoyable enough read though and worth it because some of the sci-fi ideas are just fantastic.

[R.B. Harkess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost decided not to like this book, but - perhaps because I was stuck on an idyllic Aegean beach - I persevered. I'm glad I did, and I am even prepared to forgive it being the first part of a duology.

Six against the stars is 'old school' SF, with a disparate and mis-matched group of heroes on a quest to solve a mystery that is going to reward each of them with their life or their freedom. What kept me going was the depth of the characters, despite them sometimes seeming to be parodies of their archetypes.

I liked the story, which I thought stayed light and mobile, and I may even get the second book to see what happened. Good read

Update: Apparently the second book is only available as an omnibus edition at twice the price of the first book. As I've no intention of paying for the first book twice, looks like I may never find out how this ends :(

[Todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather slap-dash and confusing book. This has a 1950's wiseguy slapstick comedy angle, but also with some bolted on sci-fi'isms. Much of the sci-fi feels like window dressing, with little of it affecting the actual plot. There's a sassy talking car, a gene-engineered damsel in distress, a bumbling yet intrepid scientist, a no-neck bruiser bad guy, oh..., and how can we ever forget about the one-eyed Sherlock Holmes wannabe robot with a Scottish accent that also doubles as a book?

Got all that? Really? Cool -- because I sure don't lol.

I started this way back in 2013, and put it aside. I did a deep dive in my Kindle collection and remembered this one.

I can see why I didn't finish it then, just like I won't apologize for not finishing this now.

This is all just too f*cking silly for my taste, I'm sorry.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not terrible, although a bit rushed feeling at times.

I did not like how it abruptly ended and to finish it you have to buy book 2, which is only available as a duo logy. I already own the first book! I don't want to have to buy it again. Would be a 3 star if it wasn't for this.