The Deathstalker Saga by Simon R. Green

When one first comes across one of the Deathstalker books, for too many the first association is with a certain series of terrible B movies involving a series of musclebound brainless heroes who go around overacting and senselessly chopping things up. But the comparison between Simon R. Green's Deathstalker epic and the Deathstalker movies is much the same as between a rich juicy steak and a Jack in the Box burger that was pre-chewed by a homeless person with no teeth.

The Deathstalker saga may contain nearly unstoppable heroes, swordfights and villains, but that is all the comparison there can be between them. The Deathstalker books are such a unique pleasure in no small part because there is nothing else quite like them sitting on the shelves of your local book store or library. From its rich roots in pulp and futurism, Science Fiction has all too often shrunk down to the sterile and tedious meanderings of hard Science Fiction writers, cyberpunk which had for so long been Science Fiction's wild child releasing and unleashing all the stored energy of the field from its Asimovian and Clarkian restraints has long since become irrelevant ironically enough in a computer age of all things and Science Fiction looks more and more like a safe playground for acting out the latest concepts and trends and doing some stylistic experimentation. But while Space Opera may seem to be in decline, the Deathstalker saga brings back Space Opera in a big way.

Simon R. Green wrote that the idea for the Deathstalker saga came from watching Star Wars and trying to imagine the practical side of actually launching and conducting a rebellion against the Empire. While that may have been the inspiration for Deathstalker, the Deathstalker series of books is no Star Wars ripoff. While there is an evil empire (led by an evil empress rather than an evil emperor) and sword fights and the last remnant of an ancient order of warriors who finds himself forced to rise to the challenge, study and gather his superhuman powers and conduct a rebellion against the forces of the empire from rebel planets, in tone, texture, humor and style, the Deathstalker series is about as far apart from Star Wars as could be imagined.

Where Star Wars is derived from SciFi serials, Deathstalker has its origins in bloodier and real life court politics of England as Owen, a lord and head of the Deathstalker Clan, learns that the Empress has declared open season on him, much as his father had been assassinated some time ago. Owen is a scholar, a historian living in comfort on the obscure farm planet of Virimonde, desiring nothing more than to dedicate his life to his studies of history. Yet even within the seemingly mild mannered scholar, beats the power of the ancient legacy of the Deathstalker clan, the Boost, an ability genetically inherited and brought out through violence, enables Owen to move and fight at speeds much faster than that of any ordinary man. His regular mandated practice with sword and gun combined with his powers renders Owen a nearly unstoppable warrior and when his own security men turn on him at the Empress's command, Owen manages to flee them where he encounters Hazel D'Ark, a clonelegger, interstellar woman of mystery with many names and agendas, fleeing from the destruction of an Imperial cruiser (that of Captain John Silence and Investigator Frost) who saves his life and flees together with him to Mistworld.

Mistworld is the legendary renegade planet, protected by a massive force of Espers, telepaths, genetically crafted by the Empire as a slave labor force, who along with the clone underground, manage to flee the Empire and make their way to Mistworld, where they can be free, if they can survive Mistworld's sink and swim libertarian with a boot knife attitude.

Along the way Owen must transform himself from a scholar to a reluctant warrior and rebel against the empire and together with Hazel D'Ark, Ruby, a psychotic bounty hunter they encounter along the way and Jack Random, the legendary rebel who fought the Empire on world after world and lost each time, they travel to the legendary Madness Maze, built by an unknown force on the legendary Wolfling world, home of the nearly perished Wolfling race, from which no one has yet to return alive and within it discover the amazing powers waiting to be unleashed within them.

The resulting saga takes Owen on a bloody journey across space and time, against the Empire and against numerous and unspekable enemies from the warped men and women on the Rim, plunged into the Darkvoid by the doings of Owen's own ancestor and the founder of the Deathstalker clan to punish a rebellion with an act of mass destruction.

Owen and his companions, some more or less trustworthy than others must journey across the stars, facing and dealing with the vicious marines and ruthless Investigators of the Empire, rogue Espers, Shub the vast Borg-like machine minds determined to wipe out humanity, the post-human Hadenmen and many others. Some allies prove to be less reliable than others, including both Jack Randoms and Ruby and the deals that have to be made in order for humanity to survive and the Empire to be overthrown, morally beggars them all. With a proposed Kingship resting heavy on Owen's head and a new threat looming, he goes off to face his death or his life with head held high and a ready joke on his lips.

Though they become legends after their deaths, the problems of the old Empire continue to resound well into the future where Owen and his companions may be worshiped as gods but the worm within the apple always waits for its hour. Thus begins the final novels of the Deathstalker series as the Madness Maze calls to itself a new series of companions, another Deathstalker, the greatest diva in the universe, an unstoppable psychotic, one of Random's Bastards and a deranged homicidal dinosaur known only as Saturday.

Throughout the Deathstalker novels worlds rise and fall again and rise and fall again, smashed down in epic battle scenes littered with body parts and oceans of blood. The Deathstalker novels are humorous and sometimes hilarious without ever being cutesy or losing their edge. They may convey ideas about the nature of power without ever being preachy or pushing an agenda, as Terry Pratchett all too often does. Instead the Deathstalker novels are simply a no holds barred space opera, bloodier than anything Howard could have imagined and yet all too human, featuring superheroes who bleed inside and outside just like the rest of us.