Princess of the Aerie, A - Book 2

Rating:
Summary: Jak's universe gets bleak
Review: 3.5 stars rounded down to 3.

A couple years after Duke of Uranium frat boy archetype Jak Jinnaka is happily ensconced at the Public Service Academy causing trouble with his buddy Dujuv. Upon receiving a message from his ex-girlfriend he trots off to the rescue.

However, he quickly finds out that his ex-girlfriend princess wants nothing to do with him and is in fact a cold-hearted, manipulative murderess grasping for power while making a harem of her personal guard. By happenstance he enrages her by stopping an assassination attempt and is shipped out to Mercury to be kept out of her clutches.

In Mercury, Jak involves himself in helping the down-trodden miners who are being placed under the thumb of a crimelord who is quickly monopolizing the entire planets mining industry. In order to do this he is forced to make a very hard choice with an "ally" that may destroy his friendships.

We have really two different stories in this book. Both of them provide good background on the universe. The Aerie section of the book is the best, where Jak's innocence is peeled away layer by layer by the cold machinations of his ex-girlfriend. Jak's more noble actions on Mercury, including the hard choices he has to make just aren't written quite as well.

In the end Jak's growth is summed up nicely by his ex-girlfriend who lets him know nothing much has changed on Mercury despite his efforts, and his teacher who lets him know that he is just the kind of heartless person they need for the service. The universe pushes Jak around a lot here, he survives it but is greatly changed, a lot wiser, a lot more knowledgeable, and a lot less happy.

On the whole pretty good.

Rating:
Summary: Candide All Over Again
Review: A Princess of the Aerie is the second novel in the Jak Jinnaka series, following The Duke of Uranium. In the previous volume, Jak, his tove Dujuv, and the Rubahy warrior Shadow on the Frost have freed both the future Duke of Uranium and Princess Shyf from their captors. Moreover, a minor society reporter, Mreek Sinda, happened to record some of the kidnapping while covering the concert and added to the story to produce a documentary on his exploits which had little correspondence with reality, but was nonetheless very popular. This success put her into the big time, but her subsequent efforts have all been duds. Hoping that lightning will strike twice in the same spot, Sinda haunts his life, checking with him every now and then, looking for another good story.

In this novel, Jak and Dujuv have pulled another incredibly ignorant stunt, so they have been called to the Dean's office for a chewing out. Since this is a familiar procedure, neither one is too worried, but the Dean makes a special effort this time to understand Jak's reasoning for taping the Venerian Joy Day orgy and selling the tape to his fellow students. Even though the students are now impressed by the Venerians, the Venerians are spitting mad. Treaty negotiations between the Hive and Venus have not gone well since the tape distribution was discovered.

The Dean observes that Jak compulsively ignores any directions given to him and just ad libs everything. The Dean believes that Jak needs to develop some discrimination about following or not following directions. Also, the Dean believes that Jak needs to absorb a great deal of ethnographic information or he might well end up with a war named after him. To accomplish these goals, the Dean requires Jak to repeat Solar System Ethnography until he earns top rank in the class and to then do the same in Advanced Ethnography. Moreover, Jak must submit a proposal for a Junior Task in which the directions are vague, the goals are unclear, and the situation requires interaction with non-Hive personnel with different goals. Dujuv's Junior Task is to assist and protect him.

After discussing the stupidity of the assignment with Dujuv, Jak returns to his quarters to find a message from Princess Shyf waiting for him on his purse. She asks for Jak, Dujuv, and Dujuv's former demmy Myx to come to Greenworld for an unspecified but confidential task. She has made reservations for them on the Hive battlesphere Up Yours and has requested CUPV duties for them so they will have something to do while traveling. She suggests that he show the message to his Uncle Sib, which Jak does. After some discussion, Jak decides to go and his friends also agree to go along.

After they reach Greenworld, they are told that the message is a hoax. However, Jak and Dujuv are offered an opportunity to sign up for the Royal Palace Guard and only later do they learn that the RPG is a stud service for the princess. Of course, they are quite willing to participate after the conditioning takes hold.

Once again, Jak displays his almost total ignorance of the real world and his elders are not giving him much guidance. He hasn't got a clue as to the situation, but one shock after another manages to bypass his aversion to learning and strike at his primitive survival instincts. By the end of the story, Jak actually appreciates the ethnographic info he has been studying. Pain has a way of facilitating learning and he gets a lot of pain -- physical, mental, and emotional -- in this story.

I was beginning to think that Jak is an anti-hero, providing lessons by counter-example, and that he was going to get maimed or killed before learning to tie his shoes, so to speak. While having a lot to learn, Jak may be finally giving in to the universal conspiracy to teach him things he doesn't want to learn. However, don't expect too much in the sequel; Jak could easily revert to his default setting: sweathog.

I still can't decide if I really like this series or not, but I am definitely going to read the sequel. It is almost like witnessing a gory accident; one cannot just pass by without looking.

Recommended for Barnes fans and anyone else who enjoys reading about a young dolt consistently shooting himself in the foot by opening his mouth, yet instinctively doing the right thing to get out of trouble.

Rating:
Summary: Candide All Over Again
Review: A Princess of the Aerie is the second novel in the Jak Jinnaka series, following The Duke of Uranium. In the previous volume, Jak, his tove Dujuv, and the Rubahy warrior Shadow on the Frost have freed both the future Duke of Uranium and Princess Shyf from their captors. Moreover, a minor society reporter, Mreek Sinda, happened to record some of the kidnapping while covering the concert and added to the story to produce a documentary on his exploits which had little correspondence with reality, but was nonetheless very popular. This success put her into the big time, but her subsequent efforts have all been duds. Hoping that lightning will strike twice in the same spot, Sinda haunts his life, checking with him every now and then, looking for another good story.

In this novel, Jak and Dujuv have pulled another incredibly ignorant stunt, so they have been called to the Dean's office for a chewing out. Since this is a familiar procedure, neither one is too worried, but the Dean makes a special effort this time to understand Jak's reasoning for taping the Venerian Joy Day orgy and selling the tape to his fellow students. Even though the students are now impressed by the Venerians, the Venerians are spitting mad. Treaty negotiations between the Hive and Venus have not gone well since the tape distribution was discovered.

The Dean observes that Jak compulsively ignores any directions given to him and just ad libs everything. The Dean believes that Jak needs to develop some discrimination about following or not following directions. Also, the Dean believes that Jak needs to absorb a great deal of ethnographic information or he might well end up with a war named after him. To accomplish these goals, the Dean requires Jak to repeat Solar System Ethnography until he earns top rank in the class and to then do the same in Advanced Ethnography. Moreover, Jak must submit a proposal for a Junior Task in which the directions are vague, the goals are unclear, and the situation requires interaction with non-Hive personnel with different goals. Dujuv's Junior Task is to assist and protect him.

After discussing the stupidity of the assignment with Dujuv, Jak returns to his quarters to find a message from Princess Shyf waiting for him on his purse. She asks for Jak, Dujuv, and Dujuv's former demmy Myx to come to Greenworld for an unspecified but confidential task. She has made reservations for them on the Hive battlesphere Up Yours and has requested CUPV duties for them so they will have something to do while traveling. She suggests that he show the message to his Uncle Sib, which Jak does. After some discussion, Jak decides to go and his friends also agree to go along.

After they reach Greenworld, they are told that the message is a hoax. However, Jak and Dujuv are offered an opportunity to sign up for the Royal Palace Guard and only later do they learn that the RPG is a stud service for the princess. Of course, they are quite willing to participate after the conditioning takes hold.

Once again, Jak displays his almost total ignorance of the real world and his elders are not giving him much guidance. He hasn't got a clue as to the situation, but one shock after another manages to bypass his aversion to learning and strike at his primitive survival instincts. By the end of the story, Jak actually appreciates the ethnographic info he has been studying. Pain has a way of facilitating learning and he gets a lot of pain -- physical, mental, and emotional -- in this story.

I was beginning to think that Jak is an anti-hero, providing lessons by counter-example, and that he was going to get maimed or killed before learning to tie his shoes, so to speak. While having a lot to learn, Jak may be finally giving in to the universal conspiracy to teach him things he doesn't want to learn. However, don't expect too much in the sequel; Jak could easily revert to his default setting: sweathog.

I still can't decide if I really like this series or not, but I am definitely going to read the sequel. It is almost like witnessing a gory accident; one cannot just pass by without looking.

Recommended for Barnes fans and anyone else who enjoys reading about a young dolt consistently shooting himself in the foot by opening his mouth, yet instinctively doing the right thing to get out of trouble.

Rating:
Summary: AuthorZone.Com Book Review
Review: Chances are the future of mankind will be very much as is depicted in this very powerful futuristic work of fiction!

It will leave you breathless and wishing you lived for another 2000 years!

Rating:
Summary: Rough read
Review: Fifteen hundred years into the future, mankind has not only reached the stars, humanity has tamed them. Mercury is mined for the precious metals needed by the rest of the galaxy and most people live past three centuries. Marik Space station is the hive and the Aerie house billion of people living on many artificial worlds. Politics remain much the same in the thirty-sixth century as it does in the present day and there is a great need for the PSA located in the Hive to train intelligent agents.

Jak Jininaka and his friend Dujou are agents-in-training who need to practice their skills in order to complete the Junior Task. The opportunity arrives when Princess Shyf of Greenworld sends him a message saying she needs his help. Jak and Dujou race to the rescue only to find the message was a hoax. When an operative sends a message to Greenworld saying trouble is brewing, Jak and Dujou are sent to investigate. They find out that Jak's greatest enemy is trying to establish himself as ruler of that planet. The two PSA trainees devise a plan that will foil his scheme and hope they live to see it succeed because after all they want to pass their Junior Task.

Set in a far distant future where anything is possible, Jak sets out on a quest to help a friend and finds himself placed in the princess's harem considered raunchy, but the scenes are played for laughs. In fact, John Barnes does a brilliant job satirizing space operas in general as a final send off salute to Star Wars and the numerous clones.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: satire space opera
Review: Fifteen hundred years into the future, mankind has not only reached the stars, humanity has tamed them. Mercury is mined for the precious metals needed by the rest of the galaxy and most people live past three centuries. Marik Space station is the hive and the Aerie house billion of people living on many artificial worlds. Politics remain much the same in the thirty-sixth century as it does in the present day and there is a great need for the PSA located in the Hive to train intelligent agents.

Jak Jininaka and his friend Dujou are agents-in-training who need to practice their skills in order to complete the Junior Task. The opportunity arrives when Princess Shyf of Greenworld sends him a message saying she needs his help. Jak and Dujou race to the rescue only to find the message was a hoax. When an operative sends a message to Greenworld saying trouble is brewing, Jak and Dujou are sent to investigate. They find out that Jak's greatest enemy is trying to establish himself as ruler of that planet. The two PSA trainees devise a plan that will foil his scheme and hope they live to see it succeed because after all they want to pass their Junior Task.

Set in a far distant future where anything is possible, Jak sets out on a quest to help a friend and finds himself placed in the princess's harem considered raunchy, but the scenes are played for laughs. In fact, John Barnes does a brilliant job satirizing space operas in general as a final send off salute to Star Wars and the numerous clones.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Serviceable and Promising Entry
Review: I whipped through John Barnes' A Princess of the Aerie, which is the second installment of the adventures of Jak Jinnaka, Boy Spy of the Future! (Okay, I made up the boy spy tag, but essentially that's what he is.) It was all right for a quick lightweight read, although I'm not really down with the cover artist's insistence on making Jak look like Jerry O'Connell.

In this latest outing, Jak and his good pal Dujuv get shanghaied, more or less, by an erstwhile friend of theirs and end up dropping in on Mercury to bust up an evil cartel. The requisite amount of sex, kung fu fighting, and intrigue follows.

This is an okay series. It's set about 1500 years or so in the future and has a bit of a hard science edge. (Folks aren't whipping throughout the galaxy on hyperspace drives, and humanity still hasn't clawed its way out of the solar system, or at least not on a regular basis.) We now have alien neighbors camped out on Pluto as a result of a nasty interstellar war in which the Rubahy shipped into the outer reaches of our neighborhood and started bombarding the inner planets with small rocks going along at a hefty percentage of lightspeed. This went on for fifty years or so, until we finally punted a doomsday device into their nearby system and whipped their sun into a nova. Whereupon the previously hidden Galactics descended upon both sides and rebuked everyone jointly for genocide. They'll reach a decision in a coupla hundred years on which race to exterminate.

In the meantime, life goes on, and between the settled inner planets and the two major orbital clusters, the Hive and the Aerie, there are enough competing interests to provide for continual jockeying for position, although the people of Jak's time abide by the Wager and Nakasen's Principles, and these keep them from nuking each other in fits of pique. (The odd assassination or "accident" here and there is acceptable.)

Fairly good stuff, although in some respects Jak is more of a bystander in this book and Duj gets the bulk of the character development. The third installment is already out and features much greater growth on Jak's part. So far, this series is a weird balance of action, post-modern heroics, libertarian musings, crypto-cabals, and amoral politics. It bears watching.

Rating:
Summary: Better than the Duke but not as Good as the King
Review: The Jak Jinnaka series is getting better; not that it was bad at first, (I have yet to read anything by John Barnes that was less than very good) but "A Princess of the Aerie" is a bit better than the first novel in the series, "The Duke of Uranium," and the third novel, "In the Hall of the Martian King" is the first one that rises to five stars.

While all three of these semi-comic space operas are enjoyable, Barnes really hits his stride with the third novel. But the first two, albeit not Barnes' best, are very enjoyable, and I would recommend reading them in order.

No, I won't summarize the story here; other reviewers have already done that at least as well as I could, probably better, so why be redundant?

Rating:
Summary: Rough read
Review: This book contains some very graphic and unpleasant scenes. There seems to be a theme of misogyny and bitterness about relationships in some of Barnes' books, which sometimes rings true and adds depth (e.g., "Earth Made of Glass"), but this time just seems nasty and relentless. Another reviewer said the harem scenes were played for laughs, but I sure didn't find the humor. Not as good as "The Duke of Uranium", and the series so far is much weaker than the 1000 cultures series or the Orbital Resonance / Meme Wars series. John Barnes generally seems to be following in the footsteps of Heinlein, but if so, this is his "Sixth Column". The first John Barnes book I didn't finish.

Rating:
Summary: Tasty, like cotton candy
Review: This is the second book in the series about Jak Jinnaka in a future society 15 centuries from now. The first book in the series The Duke of Uranium, introduces us to the world and the characters.

Barnes weaves an interesting future and follows many of the traditional space opera conventions. The book has plenty of action, hard sci-fi tech, and even a dollop of sex. There are lots of interesting idea like AI PDAs that you wear on your wrist, magnetic based docking transfer systems, and mining technology that uses hot magma.

Unfortunately, the main character, Jak, appears to be a hapless tool of others during most of the story. Like a powerful weapon, he is easily manipulated and does damage where he's pointed. For a highly trained spy, he's as guilliable as they come.

Perhaps Barnes is taking the long view and looking to show the change of Jak from fool to hero. I can't tell. I like the characters, but Jak is almost unsympathetic since he seems to fall for every trap that is placed in front of him, usually escaping only by the grace of his friends appearing at just the right moment.

I'm sure I'll read the next installment, but if thinking space opera is what you are after, I suggest the Night's Dawn series by Peter Hamilton.