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Power
Close to the top of Earth’s pyramid of power was Isidor Norin, leading member of the Council, respected advisor to Emperor Penn VII, and honored pillar of the Establishment.
In a spaceship orbiting Mars was his son, Aaron Norin, issuing his ultimatum to the government on Earth: that liberty be restored to humanity, or the vital nerve center of the Empire would be destroyed.
It was father against son, as a young man battling for old dreams and an old man defending new realities faced each other across space in a showdown to the death...
In a spaceship orbiting Mars was his son, Aaron Norin, issuing his ultimatum to the government on Earth: that liberty be restored to humanity, or the vital nerve center of the Empire would be destroyed.
It was father against son, as a young man battling for old dreams and an old man defending new realities faced each other across space in a showdown to the death...
219 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
About the author
Laurence M. Janifer
125 books7 followersLaurence M. Janifer (born Laurence M. Harris) was an American science fiction author, with a career spanning over 50 years.
Janifer was born in Brooklyn, New York with the surname of Harris, but in 1963 took the original surname of his Polish grandfather. Many of his early stories appeared under the "Larry M. Harris" byline.
Though his first published work was a short story in Cosmos magazine in 1953, his career as a writer can be said to have started in 1959 when he began writing for Astounding and Galaxy Science Fiction. He co-wrote the first novel in the "Psi-Power" series: Brain Twister, written with Randall Garrett under the joint pseudonym Mark Phillips. The novel was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960, and published in book form in 1962. Janifer's best known work is the "Survivor" series, comprising five novels and many short stories. The series follows the career of Gerald Knave as he visits (and survives to tell the tale of) planets on the outskirts of the civilized galaxy.
In addition to his career as a novelist and short story author, Janifer was an editor for Scott Meredith Literary Agency; editor/managing editor of various detective and science fiction publications; film reviewer for several magazines; and a talented pianist.
Laurence Mark Janifer's pseudonyms include: Alfred Blake, Andrew Blake, Larry M. Harris, Mark Phillips (with Randall Garrett), Barbara Wilson, Tom Beach, Robert J. Cassiday, Robert Cassiday, Lorens M. Dženifer, Renee St. Hahn, Laurance Janifer, Sir David Leeds, William Logan, Siral
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurenc...]
Janifer was born in Brooklyn, New York with the surname of Harris, but in 1963 took the original surname of his Polish grandfather. Many of his early stories appeared under the "Larry M. Harris" byline.
Though his first published work was a short story in Cosmos magazine in 1953, his career as a writer can be said to have started in 1959 when he began writing for Astounding and Galaxy Science Fiction. He co-wrote the first novel in the "Psi-Power" series: Brain Twister, written with Randall Garrett under the joint pseudonym Mark Phillips. The novel was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960, and published in book form in 1962. Janifer's best known work is the "Survivor" series, comprising five novels and many short stories. The series follows the career of Gerald Knave as he visits (and survives to tell the tale of) planets on the outskirts of the civilized galaxy.
In addition to his career as a novelist and short story author, Janifer was an editor for Scott Meredith Literary Agency; editor/managing editor of various detective and science fiction publications; film reviewer for several magazines; and a talented pianist.
Laurence Mark Janifer's pseudonyms include: Alfred Blake, Andrew Blake, Larry M. Harris, Mark Phillips (with Randall Garrett), Barbara Wilson, Tom Beach, Robert J. Cassiday, Robert Cassiday, Lorens M. Dženifer, Renee St. Hahn, Laurance Janifer, Sir David Leeds, William Logan, Siral
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurenc...]
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 1, 2025
This is a near-future novel of political intrigue with too much philosophy and no humor and too slow of a pace. Janifer wrote some entertaining stories, but I struggled to get through this one.
January 1, 2021
I first tried to read this book in 1974. I fell in love with the wonderful John Berkey cover painting depicting spaceships doing battle above a planet. The cover blurb promised a tense standoff, mutineers rebelling against a despotic government. I eagerly paid the cover price of 95 cents. Alas, the painting was a lie. It never occurs in the book. The blurb is more dramatic than anything that happens in this novel. It's taken me this long to actually read the thing in its entirety.
This is a political novel, or even a psychological novel, with a very thin veneer of futuristic trappings. There really is no reason to set it in the far future at all. Mutineers seize a warship, and threaten to destroy a city if their demands aren't met. They want freedom from the Earth government. Complicating matters, the rebel leader is the son of a senior politician . Most of the action, such as it is, consists of people talking about the crisis, and their internal monologues as they do so. This isn't necessarily bad, but the author writes in sentence fragments and cut off statements. Almost no one ever finishes a complete thought. What thoughts they do have either contradict themselves, or repeat annoyingly. It feels like the author needed a certain page count, and padded it with verbiage.
There is no humor, and almost no humanity. The characters express little sympathy. Their attempts at communication falter and go awry. Everyone is a player, striving for advantage, or a fool. Again, if better written, this could be compelling, but every time a character makes a gambit, they immediately short circuit themselves by second guessing. These reversals take place within the space of a paragraph, or even a sentence.
There is little sense of place. Most of the novel is set in the capitol, on Earth, but it is never named. We don't even know what continent it's on. Only one brief scene on Mars feels genuine.
The author takes a dim view of democracy and freedom. He begins each chapter with a lengthy quote from some statesman or philosopher, usually disparaging the idea of democracy. Machiavelli and Edmund Burke are hardly advocates for revolution. One character quotes Alexander Hamilton: "Your people, sir, are a great beast." When we finally meet the mutineers, more than halfway through the novel, their leader is a madman. His second in command, when asked what they want, can't say, but merely repeats "Freedom," over and over. He is a racist caricature, the only black character. The novel takes care to tell us how fat his lips are. When common people appear, they are a mindless, animal mob. The government is not so much despotic as bureaucratic and dull. If the novel has a message, it is that any sort of order, no matter how stifling, is preferable to freedom, which in this telling always leads to complete anarchy.
The author worked as an editor and ghost writer. I shudder to think of what he would do to someone else's work, since this one is such a frustrating, dilatory mess.
This is a political novel, or even a psychological novel, with a very thin veneer of futuristic trappings. There really is no reason to set it in the far future at all. Mutineers seize a warship, and threaten to destroy a city if their demands aren't met. They want freedom from the Earth government. Complicating matters, the rebel leader is the son of a senior politician . Most of the action, such as it is, consists of people talking about the crisis, and their internal monologues as they do so. This isn't necessarily bad, but the author writes in sentence fragments and cut off statements. Almost no one ever finishes a complete thought. What thoughts they do have either contradict themselves, or repeat annoyingly. It feels like the author needed a certain page count, and padded it with verbiage.
There is no humor, and almost no humanity. The characters express little sympathy. Their attempts at communication falter and go awry. Everyone is a player, striving for advantage, or a fool. Again, if better written, this could be compelling, but every time a character makes a gambit, they immediately short circuit themselves by second guessing. These reversals take place within the space of a paragraph, or even a sentence.
There is little sense of place. Most of the novel is set in the capitol, on Earth, but it is never named. We don't even know what continent it's on. Only one brief scene on Mars feels genuine.
The author takes a dim view of democracy and freedom. He begins each chapter with a lengthy quote from some statesman or philosopher, usually disparaging the idea of democracy. Machiavelli and Edmund Burke are hardly advocates for revolution. One character quotes Alexander Hamilton: "Your people, sir, are a great beast." When we finally meet the mutineers, more than halfway through the novel, their leader is a madman. His second in command, when asked what they want, can't say, but merely repeats "Freedom," over and over. He is a racist caricature, the only black character. The novel takes care to tell us how fat his lips are. When common people appear, they are a mindless, animal mob. The government is not so much despotic as bureaucratic and dull. If the novel has a message, it is that any sort of order, no matter how stifling, is preferable to freedom, which in this telling always leads to complete anarchy.
The author worked as an editor and ghost writer. I shudder to think of what he would do to someone else's work, since this one is such a frustrating, dilatory mess.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews