Rude Astronauts

A wonderful collection of short stories.  Don't let the title and cover fool you.  This isn't a silly collection about beer drinking, juvenile astronauts. Although I will admit to buying it thinking it was about about beer drinking, juvenile astronauts. I'm not usually a big reader of short stories, although I like them. It's just that I like books. So one day this one made it up to the "read" pile and it was a very welcome surprise. The stories were at times humorous, profound, moving, and above all entertaining.  Highly recommended. Steele really paints a vivid picture, and makes his reality seem very plausible. It was because of this collection that I began snapping up his books.

Reviewed April 1999

Orbital Decay (©1989)

Orbital Decay was the first of Allen's novels set in the not so distant future. Set aboard a space-station the cast of characters feature a collection of misfits who have been hired by Sky Corp to build a bunch of solar-powered satellites to help ease the energy crunch on Earth. Along the way the beamjacks discover a secret surveillance system - called Big Ear, which has been designed to eavesdrop on the entire world. We also get snippets of Grateful Dead songs, pot smoking brownie eating hippies, and a whacked version of a self styled Captain Kirk who thinks space is the final frontier and people better treat things out in space with the deferential respect it deserves.

It's a pretty solid read, and the characters are fun if not overly lovable. My initial reading experience was derailed by a bad copy of the book. As I got close to the conclusion a whole section of the novel was repeated - cutting out almost all of the final action. It took me a few weeks to find another copy of the book to see what I missed. It just about killed the whole experience for me. But once I read the 50 pages or so I missed the first time around it made it all better. Another fun read by Mister Steele, even if it did take a while to get finished properly.

Reviewed April 2002

Clarke County, Space (©1990)

This is the first novel I've read by Allen Steele. His short story collection Rude Astronauts was great, and I'll admit to having pretty high hopes for this book. I wasn't disappointed. I really like the author's style of writing things as if he was observing them first hand. There's a very real feel to his work. The story opens with a young woman trying to escape her mobster boyfriend. She winds up in Clarke County, which is a space colony. Along the way we meet some good guys, a bad guy that goes by the name GOLEM, as well as members of the Church of Elvis. All in all a very satisfying read. Not to sure what the whole Simon McCoy part was for, but it wasn't distracting enough to kill the tale.

Reviewed March 2000

A King of Infinite Space(©1997)

Ever wonder what people in the future are going to do with all of the people who have cryogenically frozen themselves? I mean, it's pretty amazing when you think about it - what do these people think, that the future can't do without them? That's what we get here. A bunch of thawed dead heads are given a chance to put their talents to use: They become janitors. Set in Steele's nearly future world, the story telling is brisk and fast paced, and is a ton of fun.

We get elements of mystery as Alec learns about his past, looks for his girl, and tries to thwart the bad guys. He's essentially your good old 20th century anti-hero.

Then a strange thing happens near the end, the story comes off the rails, and Mister Steele tries to wrap things up all neat and tidy, and in the process throws in a right angle ending that left me scratching my head. WTF was that? It was an irritating way to end an otherwise very cool story. It wasn't enough to spoil the story, which could have been excellent. As it is, this is yet another really good piece of distraction by a solid writer.

Reviewed November 6, 2004

OceanSpace (©2000)

Mister Steele is a gifted storyteller who knows how to pace a story. Yeah he's one of them weird fangled scientifical fiction type writers, but he isn't all awash in lasers and busty babes (hmmm, bust babes) - no sir, (oh lord, where is all this going?) he doesn't write that way. Story first, the setting is there to propel the tale.

Unlike a lot of his novels which take place in near space, or "out there" OceanSpace take place right here in the earth's mysterious depths. It is a novel of human drama - with a dash of monster movie, industrial espionage thriller, and a love triangle.

Hats off to Mister Steele for not writing a one dimensional story. While not perfect (nothing ever is) I found myself hating the reporter, rooting for the good guys, and waiting for the monster - which of course (spoiler alert filter) ths rtyyh gsgh g sdfwe hsdfghsd sfgh it sdgfhsd hsetrhw at the end.

Once again, another fine read from an author I discovered by accident many years ago.

Reviewed September 18, 2004

Coyote (©2002)

Coyote is an interesting story. While not perfect, there are some disjointed bits that are somewhat jarring, there is more going for this story than against it. I read this a couple of months ago, and as I write this much of the detail has faded, so I'm taking the cowards way out and not even attempting to give a synopsis. I will say that there's a spaceship, a hostile land, alien life, a tavern, and more stuff.

I like Allen's style and I've read more than a few "real" reviews that have bashed the crap out of the book on technical details and plot holes. IT'S A STORY for crying out loud.

It was entertaining, and it was better than a lot of what I feed my poor excuse for a brain.

Reviewed November 15, 2003