In his spacegoing career John Grimes has been a privateer, an officer of the Federation Survey Service and a Planetary Governor and now, owner/operator of a starship. Over the years he has had a marked tendency to get himself into awkward situations and certain people have noticed that John's unfortunate knack of attracting trouble invariably leads to certain ongoing...problems... being solved. Messily, perhaps but solved nonetheless. Hence John Grimes being offered a new, covert assignment for the Survey Service and the Aboriginal Protection Society.
New Salem is an unpleasant world populated by charmless, humourless and joyless Puritans and their main export is the hides of "Silkies" -large aquatic mammals- and some unpleasant stories have been leaking out about exactly how the trade is conducted.
Luckily John Grimes has some new members of his crew to help him out: an engineer known as Calamity Cassie, a pair of lethal young ladies called Shirl and Darleen who are genetically engineered from Kangaroos and a robomaid called Seiko who, thanks to happenstance and a bit of tinkering, seems to have developed a mind of her own.
Traditional bookshops have one big advantage over buying online. You can walk in through the door, see a book cover and think "That might be worth reading." and that's exactly what happened here. I found this one in a second hand shop and was sufficiently intrigued by the cover to pick it up.
Up until this point I'd never heard of the John Grimes series or A. Bertram Chandler and after a quick trawl on Wikipedia I was slightly amazed at how many books he seems to have written.
"The Wild Ones" (1985) is the last thing Chandler wrote before he died and belongs to a strain of spacefaring adventure that you don't seem to see much these days. I wouldn't say it's the best thing I've ever read but was sufficiently entertaining to keep me occupied for an afternoon. Chandler has a nice line in dry dialogue and everybody concerned is likeable - except the bad guys, which is pretty much as it should be for this sort of tale.
Grimes himself is an OK sort of hero but Shirl, Darleen and Seiko pretty much carry the book so far as I'm concerned and are, frankly, much more interesting. Shirl and Darleen may have a habit of concussing potential romantic rivals but the story hinges on their empathy with the Silkies and Seiko is even more important.
The ending is ...interesting and surprisingly poignant for a straight-up space yarn.
I could have done without the interspecies orgy, though.
It makes sense in context.
Not a bad read at all and I think I'll keep an eye out for any more of this series.
Particularly this one.
What can I say. I'm a sucker for a chainmail bikini.
