[Randallw]

I like me a bit of realistic fiction. It makes a change from trying to read a book which puts you off by getting too fantastic. I just finished the final book in a series where the space ship battles are hard scifi. The crew is subject to high gees when they change course. They have to sling shot around planets and at one point the enemy are inconvenienced when the loyalists throw off a wormhole by throwing too much matter through one way upsetting the balance. It takes the enemy months to slow down and turn back once they miss the wormhole.

I am always intending to read all the Seaforth saga books. Basically Hornblower in space where you have to start young otherwise space travel causes T-Cancer. Through a sequence of events involving the senior officers being killed by a new enemy and the sole officer dying from T-Cancer a teenage midshipman becomes captain. He doesn't want the responsibility, the officer was too delirious to realise what he was doing, but he cannot refuse. He is the highest rank there is and must obey the rules.

I have read one book that is nearly perfect. Maybe too perfect. Instead of aliens that think like humans it had aliens evolved from dragonflies that cannot physiologically recognise other life unless it personally effects them. You can stand next to them and as long as you do nothing to hinder them they pay no attention. Which is what made it horrifying when a scientist gets in ones face to inspect it and it bites his head off. Generic horror doesn't affect me because it is not scary.