Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
New York : Baen, 1987, c1980.
Description
The year is 3013. The Imperial navy has invaded Prince Samual's world. The only freedom lies in building a space program but knowledge to build a starship is extinct. Colonel Nathan MacKinnie, soldier of fortune, leads a daring raid to steal these secrets.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Karlstar
This novel is set in the same universe as the Mote In God's Eye. It actually occurs just before that book, in a nearby star system. Prince Samual's World has been rediscovered by the Empire after years of isolation, and they attempt to rediscover the lost technologies that the Empire has. To do
A good novel if you enjoy what feels more like 'Rome vs. the barbarians' than traditional science fiction.
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that, they must send an expedition to an even more primitive planet!A good novel if you enjoy what feels more like 'Rome vs. the barbarians' than traditional science fiction.
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LibraryThing member usnmm2
"King David's Spaceship" by Jerry Pournelle falls into the same timeline as his "The Mote in God's Eye", and a reference is made to the discovery of the Moties near the end of the book.
Prince Samual's World is rediscovered by the Empire. On the surface they are helpful. Even ally themselves with
A few people in high places find out that because the planet doesn't have space travel, that they won't be admitted to the Empire as an equal but as a colony instead, with their lands and government to be taken over by families and traders from the Empire.
Of coarse the fix is to develop space travel. They find out that in the near by world of Makassar there is an intact pre-empire library that might have what they need. So under the guise of a trading mission (with the help of the Imperial Navy) they send a trading mission.
So will they find what they need? Will they Be able to bring it back? Can they secretly build a spaceship without the Empire finding out? You'll have to Read it to find out.
Prince Samual's World is rediscovered by the Empire. On the surface they are helpful. Even ally themselves with
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Haven the most powerful Kingdom on the planet. They help them to bring one world government to the planet. This help has a price.A few people in high places find out that because the planet doesn't have space travel, that they won't be admitted to the Empire as an equal but as a colony instead, with their lands and government to be taken over by families and traders from the Empire.
Of coarse the fix is to develop space travel. They find out that in the near by world of Makassar there is an intact pre-empire library that might have what they need. So under the guise of a trading mission (with the help of the Imperial Navy) they send a trading mission.
So will they find what they need? Will they Be able to bring it back? Can they secretly build a spaceship without the Empire finding out? You'll have to Read it to find out.
Show Less
LibraryThing member reading_fox
Meh. It's ok. the idea is good enough but it's not really plausible.
The setting is a lot lot later than the rest of the CoDominium books, and although it is in the same universe and history the CoDominium itself doesn't exist anymore and has been replaced by an Empire, which has disintigrated and
This involves some of their military men teaching tactics tot he natives who are trying to defend their cities from the babrbarians that are all that are left of civilisation on this new world. They aren't allowed to import any tech (their own problem on the homeworld) so they are left with swords and pikes against horsemen. Not very difficult, and all fairly obvious. We're spared too many of the training/drill self control lectures.
The rest of it is Jerry's usual writing, not too bad, apart from the woman who suddenly falls in love with little prompting. In fact the whoel female culture is pretty rubbish throughout. Only really important in setting the backstory for God's Eye which is the next (and most famous) book in the timeline.
The setting is a lot lot later than the rest of the CoDominium books, and although it is in the same universe and history the CoDominium itself doesn't exist anymore and has been replaced by an Empire, which has disintigrated and
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is in the process of reforming after the internal wars. ALl the former colonies are being re-admitted otthe Empire as they are re-discovered. But the status they will hold depends a lto no the state of their internal technology, and if you want to have some measure of independance then you need to have at least Spaceflight. Which sets the story up fairly obviously. The planet involved is New Scotland. Having heard of some hidden First Empire technologies they join a trading mission to an even more primitive world looking to sneak them back in past their Imperial watchdogs and gain enough tech to be granted superior colony status.This involves some of their military men teaching tactics tot he natives who are trying to defend their cities from the babrbarians that are all that are left of civilisation on this new world. They aren't allowed to import any tech (their own problem on the homeworld) so they are left with swords and pikes against horsemen. Not very difficult, and all fairly obvious. We're spared too many of the training/drill self control lectures.
The rest of it is Jerry's usual writing, not too bad, apart from the woman who suddenly falls in love with little prompting. In fact the whoel female culture is pretty rubbish throughout. Only really important in setting the backstory for God's Eye which is the next (and most famous) book in the timeline.
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LibraryThing member RandyStafford
My reactions to reading this novel in 1990. Spoilers follow.
A very enjoyable novel. Technically speaking, Pournelle does a very good job of writing a fast paced novel and covers a lot of ground in 260 pages: imperial and Prince Samuel intrigue, battles and journeys on Makassar, the research effort
Pournelle helpfully provides a chronology to know what happens in the CoDominium universe from the time of Lysander of Prince of Mercenaries to this novel. Pournelle sees the benefit of Empire as peace and order. The taint of corruption, in the Imperial Traders Association, and oppression, in decisions like Admiral Kurosov's to wipe out an entire world rather than let it secede from the Empire, may be there but the horror of war is absent, and there is some representative government in a hereditary and elected parliament. The Empire's legal system seems based largely on the U.S.'s.
In a sense, Pournelle's portrayal of politics is much like the sense of empathy that pervades Philip K. Dick's works or the philosophical arguments in James Gunn's novels: each character involved in the political process has good, defensible, practical reasons (with the exception of Imperial Traders who seem unequivocally condemned) for what they do. The Imperial Navy has its version of the Prime Directive. It can cite whole worlds destroyed by off-world innovations. Pournelle makes a valid point that it is particularly devastating when the culture does not adopt innovations that solve the problems of the first innovation. On the other hand, Makassar seems better off with the innovations of warfare and horse collars. Sir Alexei Dmitrivitch Ackoff has good reasons for directing cultural development on Prince Samuel and for eventually supplanting the local governing officials, reasons of peace and Imperial security. Likewise, King David and Citizen Dougal have perfectly valid reasons to want as much self-determination as possible. Citizen Dougal, sinister and very ruthless head of Haven's secret police, may seem evil but are the murders he commits for security reasons really any different than any deaths associated with resistance and rebellion, i.e. martyrs as he says? Pournelle doesn't give any pat answers other than to obviously, in Colonel Nathan Mackinnie, show the value of the honorable military man.
A theme of all the Pournelle solo works I've read seems to be that all political solutions are imperfect. It's also interesting to note that, for all their honor and military prowess, both Falkenberg, from early in the series, and Mackinnie are capable of great political cunning and deceit though they both insist they have no stomach for it and -- at least Mackinnie -- no desire to be politicians. Mackinnie, like Falkenberg on Hadley in The Mercenary, stages a coup. This is an unsettling contradiction to John Christian Falkenberg's analogy of military men as sanitation crews and politicans as surgeons and doctors in Prince of Mercenaries. It seems to me Falkebnerg and Mackinnie play, however reluctantly and for however good a cause, in the political arena. Perhaps Pournelle is saying that it is inevitable a military man becomes involved in politics since war, the military man's profession, is a political tool. However, he can try to conduct himself honorably -- both Falkeberg and Mackinnie try to keep their oaths and follow the letter, if not spirit of the law -- and realize the talents of a soldier are not those of a statesman.
Pournelle did a good job with the romance between Mackinnie and Graham. Mackinnie was clearly a creature of his culture but overcomes his prejudices involving women. I liked the relationship between Hal Stark and Mackinnie, a good exmple of the brotherhood of arms. I liked the Project Orion type spaceship: bulky, mechanical gears, wooden handles for controls. It was clever and fun. I liked the clergymen on Makassar and the reverence shown an old library. But what I liked best and what I admire most in Pournelle is his skill in building the politics of a society logically, plausibly and describing it concisely.
A very enjoyable novel. Technically speaking, Pournelle does a very good job of writing a fast paced novel and covers a lot of ground in 260 pages: imperial and Prince Samuel intrigue, battles and journeys on Makassar, the research effort
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to build a primitive spaceship, the theft of First Empire technology, the politics of the Empire, its history,and its colonial policy. Pournelle has clearly modelled his empire on Rome's and Britain's. He also seems to have a fondness for British military history in particular -- constant refernces to bagpipes and highlanders and Prince Samuel's world seems to be settled by Scots types. Patronage and mercantilism are other elements tying this future empire to British history.Pournelle helpfully provides a chronology to know what happens in the CoDominium universe from the time of Lysander of Prince of Mercenaries to this novel. Pournelle sees the benefit of Empire as peace and order. The taint of corruption, in the Imperial Traders Association, and oppression, in decisions like Admiral Kurosov's to wipe out an entire world rather than let it secede from the Empire, may be there but the horror of war is absent, and there is some representative government in a hereditary and elected parliament. The Empire's legal system seems based largely on the U.S.'s.
In a sense, Pournelle's portrayal of politics is much like the sense of empathy that pervades Philip K. Dick's works or the philosophical arguments in James Gunn's novels: each character involved in the political process has good, defensible, practical reasons (with the exception of Imperial Traders who seem unequivocally condemned) for what they do. The Imperial Navy has its version of the Prime Directive. It can cite whole worlds destroyed by off-world innovations. Pournelle makes a valid point that it is particularly devastating when the culture does not adopt innovations that solve the problems of the first innovation. On the other hand, Makassar seems better off with the innovations of warfare and horse collars. Sir Alexei Dmitrivitch Ackoff has good reasons for directing cultural development on Prince Samuel and for eventually supplanting the local governing officials, reasons of peace and Imperial security. Likewise, King David and Citizen Dougal have perfectly valid reasons to want as much self-determination as possible. Citizen Dougal, sinister and very ruthless head of Haven's secret police, may seem evil but are the murders he commits for security reasons really any different than any deaths associated with resistance and rebellion, i.e. martyrs as he says? Pournelle doesn't give any pat answers other than to obviously, in Colonel Nathan Mackinnie, show the value of the honorable military man.
A theme of all the Pournelle solo works I've read seems to be that all political solutions are imperfect. It's also interesting to note that, for all their honor and military prowess, both Falkenberg, from early in the series, and Mackinnie are capable of great political cunning and deceit though they both insist they have no stomach for it and -- at least Mackinnie -- no desire to be politicians. Mackinnie, like Falkenberg on Hadley in The Mercenary, stages a coup. This is an unsettling contradiction to John Christian Falkenberg's analogy of military men as sanitation crews and politicans as surgeons and doctors in Prince of Mercenaries. It seems to me Falkebnerg and Mackinnie play, however reluctantly and for however good a cause, in the political arena. Perhaps Pournelle is saying that it is inevitable a military man becomes involved in politics since war, the military man's profession, is a political tool. However, he can try to conduct himself honorably -- both Falkeberg and Mackinnie try to keep their oaths and follow the letter, if not spirit of the law -- and realize the talents of a soldier are not those of a statesman.
Pournelle did a good job with the romance between Mackinnie and Graham. Mackinnie was clearly a creature of his culture but overcomes his prejudices involving women. I liked the relationship between Hal Stark and Mackinnie, a good exmple of the brotherhood of arms. I liked the Project Orion type spaceship: bulky, mechanical gears, wooden handles for controls. It was clever and fun. I liked the clergymen on Makassar and the reverence shown an old library. But what I liked best and what I admire most in Pournelle is his skill in building the politics of a society logically, plausibly and describing it concisely.
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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
An arms race interacts with the problem of re-establishing a technology once known. This book is an essay on the difficulties of Colonialism when faced with people who have discovered how to play the system for the advantage of an in-group. But with the use of legalisms and a successful guerilla
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war, the result for the POV characters is assured. The overall fate of two different planets is left debatable. It's a complicated, rather than complex book. Show Less
LibraryThing member NickHowes
Jerry Pournelle's Future History, centered around The Mote in God's Eye,. is a long-time favorite of mine. Here, in a story set on a distant planet, the Second Empire of Man has reconnected with the dominant local government. King David discovers that once unification is complete, the empire will
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annex the planet, but as a low-ranking colony world. They need to build their own spaceship to prove they are qualified for a higher status as a colony. Excellent story of a medieval society with some modern capabilities, struggles against its limitations to achieve its goal. Enjoyable story line, good battle sequence on a different world where the plans for a spaceship are secreted but threatened by barbarians. Nice, satisfying ending. Recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
In the year 3013 the Imperial Navy has invaded Prince Samual's World in order to quell the civil war. But the cost is the Samualans' liberty. If they can create a space program they can prove themselves worthy of statehood but the knowledge to build a starship has been lost to the Samualans. Can
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they build King David's Spaceship? Show Less
LibraryThing member comfypants
People from an Industrial Age planet visit a Medieval planet, looking for an ancient library.
3/4 (Good).
It's cringingly old-fashioned even by 1970's standards, but it's a reasonably fun adventure.
3/4 (Good).
It's cringingly old-fashioned even by 1970's standards, but it's a reasonably fun adventure.
LibraryThing member bespen
King David’s Spaceship is the first book by Jerry Pournelle I remember reading. I picked it up from the local library in 2006, and I could not put it down. Colonel Nathan MacKinnie’s desperate quest to find a forgotten database of ancient technology on a barbaric planet, and then spirit that
When I discovered the works of Jerry Pournelle, I was in a slough of despond about science fiction novels. I simply couldn’t find anything I liked, so when I stumbled on this book, it started a long love affair with the works of Pournelle. Fortunately, Jerry had a long career, which was winding down in the early 2000s, but not yet over. So that gave me many works to read and enjoy, several of which would be at the top of my list of favorites.
Looking back, I now better understand why I liked Jerry Pournelle’s works so much, especially King David’s Spaceship, but also why I had trouble finding any other authors in the field that I liked for nearly a decade. I simply couldn’t articulate what it was that I liked about this book, so I adopted the ideas of others. Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that those ideas simply didn’t map well to the kinds of stories I liked, and the ones that I didn’t.
For example, since Jerry was a protege of John W. Campbell, I looked at Campbelline science fiction. When I did, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Campbell’s vision was described by John C. Wright in Transhuman and Subhuman:
According to Wright, Campbellian Hard SF consists of:
-Speculation about how near-future technological advances might affect man on a social and metaphysical level
-Scientific optimism combined with classical Liberalism
-A naive love of theory (Which William M. Briggs has wisely called the root of all evil.)
-Malleable human nature
-Protagonists who tend to solve problems with their wits more than with brawn
-Main characters guided by an ethical code of vague origin that holds up man as an inherently moral being
Jerry definitely put the first two of those elements into King David’s Spaceship. He crafted a tale of multi-layered political intrigue due to a planetary government being absorbed against its will into an interplanetary empire, but also managed to fit in technological elements that run from the construction of sailing ships to rocketry. Both the Haven petty kingdoms and the Imperials have broadly technocratic governments in the mode of the Kennedy Enlightenment, high minded and also efficient.
However, the rest of the list isn’t a good fit for King David’s Spaceship, or the rest of Jerry’s work. Jerry had a great love of protagonists who were military commanders, who were often brilliant strategists, but solved their problems by killing them first. And as for malleable human nature, the setting of this book, as well as many other novels in the CoDominium future history, are based on a notion of cyclical patterns in the form of human societies explicitly based on Arnold Toynbee.
And there is nothing vague about morality either. One of the major Imperial factions, and one with considerable clout, is the Catholic Church, state religion of the Second Empire of Man. Various characters of course do things that fall short of sanctity, but everyone knows what the standard is.
So given that I don’t think Wright’s list applies to Jerry Pournelle, let’s compare that list with JD Cowan’s description of Gothic novels:
White against black. Dark against Light. Hero against Villain. Eternal Life against Endless Death. Temptation against Virtue. It goes beyond the surface into weighty themes of the Ultimate, God, and True Justice. The knowledge of a battle between forces beyond both parties at play that haunt the scenery and the overall world behind the story. It underpins every action and decision, and the thought that salvation or damnation is a stone throw away is the most nail-biting experience of them all.
Jerry pretty clearly didn’t write a pulp novel either. There are no explicit bad guys, except maybe for the Imperial Traders Association, who play the role of the heel in the Imperial factions. What we get instead is a mass of different players with different motives and objectives all striving against one another. Given that these are hard men, making hard choices, I could see how someone could come away with the impression that the various characters we meet are all just various shades of gray. But I think that impression misses not only the point of MacKinnie and his quest, but the real motives of most of the other characters too.
Since the Secession Wars shattered the First Empire of Man, various places and cultures ended up in different parts of the historical cycle. Makassar relapsed into barbarism, something like the 8th or 9th century AD Europe, while Haven is more like 18th or 19th century Europe, inventive and nationalistic. The Imperials are at the second peak of their power, urbane and civilized.
Yet what unites them is a basic orientation to order versus chaos. Given their different frames, each culture interprets that need differently, and even within a culture, various factions also have competing impressions of what is to be done. MacKinnie himself is driven by a sense of honor and duty, and one of the central themes of the quest is to whom does MacKinnie really owe his duty?
But most of all, this is just a great adventure, where Colonel MacKinnie leaves his home, travels across the stars, journeys through great peril, and emerges at the end with his purpose in life restored. I very much wanted to be Nathan MacKinnie, both the first time I read it, and now.
This book works because it combines elements of the Campbelline vision with a very Christian moral vision and a grand adventure. If you haven’t gotten into the works of Jerry Pournelle, this is a great place to start.
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information home under the watchful eyes of the Imperial Navy is a classic adventure. Jerry Pournelle’s style is the place where intrigue, politics, and technology meet, often with a heavy dose of military tactics. King David’s Spaceship is all that and more.When I discovered the works of Jerry Pournelle, I was in a slough of despond about science fiction novels. I simply couldn’t find anything I liked, so when I stumbled on this book, it started a long love affair with the works of Pournelle. Fortunately, Jerry had a long career, which was winding down in the early 2000s, but not yet over. So that gave me many works to read and enjoy, several of which would be at the top of my list of favorites.
Looking back, I now better understand why I liked Jerry Pournelle’s works so much, especially King David’s Spaceship, but also why I had trouble finding any other authors in the field that I liked for nearly a decade. I simply couldn’t articulate what it was that I liked about this book, so I adopted the ideas of others. Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that those ideas simply didn’t map well to the kinds of stories I liked, and the ones that I didn’t.
For example, since Jerry was a protege of John W. Campbell, I looked at Campbelline science fiction. When I did, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Campbell’s vision was described by John C. Wright in Transhuman and Subhuman:
According to Wright, Campbellian Hard SF consists of:
-Speculation about how near-future technological advances might affect man on a social and metaphysical level
-Scientific optimism combined with classical Liberalism
-A naive love of theory (Which William M. Briggs has wisely called the root of all evil.)
-Malleable human nature
-Protagonists who tend to solve problems with their wits more than with brawn
-Main characters guided by an ethical code of vague origin that holds up man as an inherently moral being
Jerry definitely put the first two of those elements into King David’s Spaceship. He crafted a tale of multi-layered political intrigue due to a planetary government being absorbed against its will into an interplanetary empire, but also managed to fit in technological elements that run from the construction of sailing ships to rocketry. Both the Haven petty kingdoms and the Imperials have broadly technocratic governments in the mode of the Kennedy Enlightenment, high minded and also efficient.
However, the rest of the list isn’t a good fit for King David’s Spaceship, or the rest of Jerry’s work. Jerry had a great love of protagonists who were military commanders, who were often brilliant strategists, but solved their problems by killing them first. And as for malleable human nature, the setting of this book, as well as many other novels in the CoDominium future history, are based on a notion of cyclical patterns in the form of human societies explicitly based on Arnold Toynbee.
And there is nothing vague about morality either. One of the major Imperial factions, and one with considerable clout, is the Catholic Church, state religion of the Second Empire of Man. Various characters of course do things that fall short of sanctity, but everyone knows what the standard is.
So given that I don’t think Wright’s list applies to Jerry Pournelle, let’s compare that list with JD Cowan’s description of Gothic novels:
White against black. Dark against Light. Hero against Villain. Eternal Life against Endless Death. Temptation against Virtue. It goes beyond the surface into weighty themes of the Ultimate, God, and True Justice. The knowledge of a battle between forces beyond both parties at play that haunt the scenery and the overall world behind the story. It underpins every action and decision, and the thought that salvation or damnation is a stone throw away is the most nail-biting experience of them all.
Jerry pretty clearly didn’t write a pulp novel either. There are no explicit bad guys, except maybe for the Imperial Traders Association, who play the role of the heel in the Imperial factions. What we get instead is a mass of different players with different motives and objectives all striving against one another. Given that these are hard men, making hard choices, I could see how someone could come away with the impression that the various characters we meet are all just various shades of gray. But I think that impression misses not only the point of MacKinnie and his quest, but the real motives of most of the other characters too.
Since the Secession Wars shattered the First Empire of Man, various places and cultures ended up in different parts of the historical cycle. Makassar relapsed into barbarism, something like the 8th or 9th century AD Europe, while Haven is more like 18th or 19th century Europe, inventive and nationalistic. The Imperials are at the second peak of their power, urbane and civilized.
Yet what unites them is a basic orientation to order versus chaos. Given their different frames, each culture interprets that need differently, and even within a culture, various factions also have competing impressions of what is to be done. MacKinnie himself is driven by a sense of honor and duty, and one of the central themes of the quest is to whom does MacKinnie really owe his duty?
But most of all, this is just a great adventure, where Colonel MacKinnie leaves his home, travels across the stars, journeys through great peril, and emerges at the end with his purpose in life restored. I very much wanted to be Nathan MacKinnie, both the first time I read it, and now.
This book works because it combines elements of the Campbelline vision with a very Christian moral vision and a grand adventure. If you haven’t gotten into the works of Jerry Pournelle, this is a great place to start.
Show Less
LibraryThing member majackson
Takes place in the same Motie universe as "The Mote in God's Eye" & "The Gripping Hand"; kludgy plot, but very serviceable: go to another freshly rediscovered colony world, disguised as a trader, and then study an old pre-empire library for the technology of building a space ship in order to ensure
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that their own rediscovered planet is accepted into the current empire on a higher level than sheer barbarism. Show Less
Language
Original publication date
1981-01
Physical description
366 p.; 18 cm
ISBN
0671656163 / 9780671656164
Local notes
CoDominium, 1
DDC/MDS
| Fic SF Pournelle |