
When Allen Allenson scion of a noble family that has fallen on hard times gets a mission to roust the power-hungry Terrans from a “wild” star sector where they’re encroaching he jumps at the chance to show his individual worth improve his family’s fortunes – & gather enough lucre to make a good marriage But the wily Terrans are not so easily persuaded by a young colonial they think of as a rube Worse Riders the beings who naturally ply the wilderness between the stars are playing their own deadly political games – against the Terrans against the colonials & against one young greenhorn commander in particular naïf young Allen whom they figure they can manipulate to do their bidding The one thing nobody has counted on is the fact that Allen while young & inexperienced & much to his own amazement happens to be a hero in the making About the Author The Army took David Drake from Duke Law School & sent him on a motorized tour of Viet Nam & Cambodia with the 11th Cav the Blackhorse He learned new skills saw interesting sights & met exotic people who hadn&t run fast enough to get away Dave returned to become Chapel Hill&s Assistant Town Attorney & to try to put his life back together through fiction making sense of his Army experiences Dave describes war from where he saw it the loader&s hatch of a tank in Cambodia His military experience combined with his formal education in history & Latin has made him one of the foremost writers of realistic action SF & fantasy His bestselling Hammer&s Slammers series is credited with creating the genre of modern Military SF He often wishes he had a less interesting background Dave lives with his family in rural North Carolina Dr John Lambshead is senior research scientist in marine biodiversity at the Natural History Museum London He is also the Visiting Chair at Southampton University Oceanography & Regent’s Lecturer University of California He also writes military history & designs computer & fantasy games