The novel “Starship: Mercenary” by Mike Resnick was published for the first time in 2007. It’s the third novel in the “Starship” series and follows “Starship: Pirate“.

After rebelling, the crew of the former Republic starship Theodore Roosevelt spent a period in which they were pirates but it wasn’t the right choice. Now Captain Wilson Cole started offering the starship and crew’s services as mercenaries selecting jobs to keep certain ethical and moral values.

Wilson Cole is assisted by the alien who calls himself David Copperfield in finding paid jobs but the ones he found tend to be really dangerous. Cole decides to reach a space station that is important as a leisure center but also for contacts in the frontier. There, he and his crew will find new opportunities but also new dangers.

In “Starship: Mercenary” there are new adventures of the crew of the starship Theodore Roosevelt, or Teddy R. for simplicity, part of the future history told by Mike Resnick in most of his stories. The “Starship” series is an old style space opera, very adventurous or anyway in which events are the most important element.

In the course of this series, the crew of the Teddy R. goes through various changes after the mutiny in the first novel. Wilson Cole took command of the starship and leads it in its new adventures in the frontier. They are rebels but intend to maintain a certain level of ethics and morality and this limits their possibilities.

In “Starship: Pirate” Wilson Cole and his crew tried to be pirates but they realized that it’s almost impossible to do that kind of job without being ruthless. For this reason, they decided to try to be mercenaries, also taking advantage of the contacts of the alien who calls himself David Copperfield.

In the previous novel, the pirate queen who now calls himself Val also joined Wilson Cole and his crew and  in”Starship: Mercenary” she’s a protagonist of the story. The “Starship” series is more driven by the plot than the character, who are not particularly developed, but Mike Resnick is a very experienced writer and takes advantage of the presence of Val to give some depth at least to the protagonists.

In “Starship: Mercenary” the contrasts between Val and Wilson Cole on how to interpret the job of mercenaries are important also for the development of the plot. This isn’t a philosophical novel but the arguments between these two characters are useful to address some ethical and moral problems and to give a little more depth to some characters.

“Starship: Mercenary” is still mainly a military space opera novel in which there are several dialogues between various characters but in the end there’s above all action. The Teddy R. is involved in various battles more or less tough in which Wilson Cole must sometimes use all his strategic skills to save himself and his crew.

The Teddy R. is an old ship but it was a warship of the Republic so its firepower is superior to that of other ships they may have to fight in the frontier. On the other hand, potential enemies may have at their disposal entire fleets so one of the bases of the plot of “Starship: Mercenary” concerns the attempt to find other starship to put beside the Teddy R.

The first novel in the “Starship” series was really short by modern standards. The sequels are a bit longer and in my opinion better. Despite the dialogues and the parts of “Starship: Mercenary” set on a space station, the pace is still mostly fast. Initially the characters were rather one-dimensional and from this point of view there was an improvement that strengthens the sequels.

In the end, if you read the previous novels in the “Starship” series you know what to expect. Mike Resnick tried to maintain a degree of autonomy among the various novels but the connections are still tight so it’s best to read the whole series. Like the previous ones, overall, “Starship: Mercenary” confirms that the “Starship” series is a space opera good for a few hours of entertainment without thinking too much.