The novel “The Castle in Cassiopeia” by Mike Resnick was published for the first time in 2017. It’s the third novel in the Dead Enders series and follows “The Prison in Antares“.
Nathan Pretorius is used to being in charge of the most difficult missions but this time the Dead Enders must carry out a task that seems really impossible. They were the ones who replaced General Michkag with a clone counting on the fact that he would sign a peace treaty between the Democracy and the Traanskei Coalition but the clone decided that he liked his position and is continuing the war with better results than the original.
The Dead Enders must try to kill General Michkag’s clone knowing very well that he knows them and has seen how they work. They have to find out where he’s hiding and get to him knowing that after replacing the original he changed the old defense systems to make them much better. To succeed in their task it’s useful to have new allies.
The Dead Enders series is set in the same fictional universe as most of Mike Resnick’s works and precisely at the time of the entity known as the Democracy, during the war against the Traanskei Coalition. The author has written several series of novels set in that fictional universe that can be read autonomously even if occasionally there some references to characters and events of other series.
“The Castle in Cassiopeia” reprises directly the events of “The Fortress in Orion”, in which Pretorius formed the group of people of morality doubtful to say the least but with extraordinary skills who in their first mission replaced the leader of the Traanskei Coalition with a clone. The Democracy’s plan to end a war that was going bad was clearly not taking into account the possibility that the clone decided he liked to be the leader of a great interstellar power. The situation for the Democracy has worsened because General Michkag’s clone had the opportunity to know firsthand his future enemies during his training so he understands their strategies better than the original.
Having already read the two previous novels in the Dead Enders series can be useful to have a complete idea of the situation between the Democracy and the Traanskei Coalition and to have some knowledge of the protagonists together with their past deeds but it’s not essential. Mike Resnick adds enough details to understand in particular the events connected to General Michkag and honestly the protagonists don’t have a particularly in-depth development so you don’t lose much about them.
In “The Castle in Cassiopeia” a new protagonist is added who uses the nickname Apollo who joins the Dead Enders but looks like a character coming out of the stories of the pulp magazines era because he combines extraordinary physical abilities with considerable knowledge in various scientific fields. In the end his main contribution to the mission seems to be exchanging jokes with Pretorius.
If you read the previous novels in the Dead Enders series you already know the style used by Mike Resnick. It’s a series in which the author tells an action story without many complications. Sometimes there are some surprises but honestly there’s nothing that is really original or memorable.
“The Castle in Cassiopeia” is at least for now the last novel of the Dead Enders series. Overall it seemed to me the weakest because it continues directly the plot of “The Fortress in Orion” and you’d expect to see special traps set up for the protagonists given that General Michkag’s clone knows them personally but there’s nothing. Also for this reason, in the end I saw above all its flaws. Its merit is a reading of a story that flows well written by a veteran author to spend a few hours of leisure.
