Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The Twice and Future Caesar: A Novel of the U.S.S. Merrimack - R.M. Meluch

The Twice and Future Caesar: A Novel of the U.S.S. Merrimack
R.M. Meluch
DAW, Aug 4 2015, $24.95
ISBN: 9780756408961

In 2448, the cold war between the rival Empire of Rome and the United States of America continues in spite of a recent heated combat that led to a terrible defeat by the former and the removal of Caesar Romulus from the throne on the home-world Palatine by Caesar Numa (See Strength and Honor).  The new Roman leader regroups his depleted assets with plans to deploy his secret weapon, a patterner, against the USA with thoughts of attacking the enemy’s mother planet Earth.

Loyal supporters enable Romulus to escape.  Though proving to be a talented patterner, Romulus has one mission: free his Queen Claudia so she can reign at his side.  To achieve his obsession, Romulus targets a temporal disaster threatening existence in the Myriad cluster; at the same time Admiral John Farragut takes command of U.S.S. Merrimack.

The sixth tour of the warship U.S.S. Merrimack (see The Ninth Circle and The Sagittarius Command) is a fantastic military science fiction; as the war between the two human cultures remains heated while an internal conflict further complicates the already fragile galaxy.  Timely, R.M. Meluch continues her overarching theme that war is the waste of foolish politicians who send the young (but not their own offspring) to die on remote worlds; as represented by psychopath Romulus who would not blink in destroying time and space with or without Claudia alongside him.


Harriet Klausner

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