This is the third of Barnes’ Jak Jinnaka series; I like it considerably better than
its immediate predecessor, A Princess of the Aerie, though not
as much as the first book, The Prince of Uranium.

In this episode, Jak Jinnaka is serving his time in his first post as
Vice Provost of Hive’s base on Deimos. Ostensibly he’s a civil servant;
really, he’s an agent of Hive Intelligence. His boss, the Provost, is a
wise and canny fellow who unaccountably likes living on Deimos, has two
ways of dealing with his VPs: either they are incompetent, in which case
he sacks them for the good of Deimos, or he arranges for them to look so
good they get promoted elsewhere. As the book begins, said boss is about
to take a trip to Earth, living Jak in charge. There’s bound to be a
crisis of one kind or another while he’s gone, so he tells Jak; if Jak
can rise to it, it will make his career.

A crisis does arise, of course, and a variety of funny, distressing, and
action-packed scenes follow, and as I say I enjoyed the ride.
Nevertheless, the series leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. It
appears to be Jak’s fate to be double-crossed by everyone he trusts, and
in particular by his employers, and to be swept hither and yon by powers
too subtle for him to perceive until it’s too late. It’s as though
Barnes has a kind of anti-Heinlein thing going. Instead of a main
character who’s too amazingly competent for belief, we’ve got a guy whose
own desires are almost literally beside the point.

I enjoyed it enough to read the next one, if there is a next one, but it’s
still a little too cynical for my taste.