In this, the eighth in a six-book series, young Lisele continues the fight against the evil empire of the UET, the corporate government that once held known space in near-slavery. The problem is that Lisele's parents already defeated them some time back. So, just to draw things out, Busby creates a stranded outpost of UET baddies who didn't know the war was over - or even begun, for that matter. Then, the ship carrying Lisele conveniently becomes disabled near the same isolated and unknown planet. What a coincidence.
If you're willing to go along with that much, Busby's continued saga really does deliver quite nicely. We have our heroine, sixteen year old Lisele, who just happens to be the best at pretty much everything from unarmed combat and starship piloting to negotiating with the brutal leaders of the outpost regime. We have the evil outpost tyrant, the self-declared dictator with a brace of goons to enforce his evil will. Then we have his evil will which, among other things, reduces women to chattel breeding vessels. Of course, a little colony like this needs plenty of breeding because of the high mortality rate in the sadistic combat games and among those who peeve the tyrant. And, of course, we have his triumphant overthrow by a girl who, unbeknownst to the baddies, inherited all-but-godlike strength and skill from the victors of previous books in the story. In other words, we have all the tropes of swashbuckling space opera and then some. Busby binds them together into story for which we happily suspend disbelief, much as we did for Doc Smith's Lensmen and other classics of the genre.
Maybe this stretches the original series a bit more than was entirely good for it, but the result makes fun reading anyway.
- wiredweird
