Empire's End by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch

At long last, we come to the end of the Sten series by Cole and Bunch, who moved on to other things for a while before finally splitting to write on their own - a pity, as they were a marvelous team. The Eternal Emperor has gone megalomaniacally mad at last, and Sten and his allies determine that they must fight a battle against overwhelming odds to unseat him from the throne. In a move reminiscent of the Caesars, the emperor has clandestinely supported the Cult of the Emperor, which claims he is a representative of the Holy Spheres, and has used his patsies in the Parliament to declare him God. He is ruthlessly suppressing dissent, and plans to send planetbuster bombs to destroy the home worlds of all who oppose him.

A direct confrontation is hopeless, so Sten and his allies - the Bhor, the Rom, the Zaginaws, and other disaffected cultures - begin a propaganda and guerilla campaign to harass and discredit the emperor. They also concentrate on finding out two key items - how does the emperor always return to life several years after being assassinated or dying of other causes, and where does the AM2 which powers the Empire come from?

The answer to these questions will determine whether they can remove the emperor permanently from the equation, and whether civilization itself can survive his absence. There is an extended middle section that answers these questions for the reader, simultaneously arriving at the same place as our heroes, by telling the story of how the Emperor, nee Kea Richards, got his start.

The only downside to this story is that it ends, and we never find out how Sten and his friends fared after Empire's end.

Vortex by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch

Our hero, Sten, has become the Emperor's prized ambassador, being sent from one trouble spot to another, as he tries to hold things together after the devastation of the war with the Tahn's and the privy council's incompetence have begun the slow descent into division and barbarism. Sten's new assignment is the Altaic Cluster, with the capital world of Rurik.

In creating the Altaics, Cole and Bunch draw from fairly contemporary history of Asia and the Middle East. The parallels to India's multicultural and often warring factions are mentioned, but one can also see glimpses of Iran and Iraq in the latter half of the twentieth century, as in the Khaqan's (ruler of the cluster) incessant and obsessive building of monuments to himself "from a grateful people", to the Emperor's choice of successor to the Khaqan, Dr. Iskra, a scholar in exile - think of Reza Pahlavi and Ayatollah Khomenei. Oh, don't forget the violent supression of student riots, as in Tianamen Square.

Wherever they got all their sources of information, the cluster has traditionally been ruled with an iron fist to keep the four major races and factions from acting up too much, and when the Khaqan passes away suddenly, most beings hope that a new era is at hand, without the oppression, for a change. Alas, it is not to be. Dr. Iskra turns out to be an even more ruthless tyrant than his predecessor, and Sten must try to put a good face on things for public consumption back in the Empire, while simultaneously letting his boss know the truth of matters on Rurik.

A great quote from one of the rioting students, that almost perfectly sums up the attitude of progressive scholars,

"Most beings - meaning the, well, uneducated classes - want to be told what to do", He leaned forward, impassioned, "They feel...uncomfortable with weighty decisions. They want structure in their lives. It makes them...."

"Comfortable?" Sten helped.

"How astute of you, Sr Ambassador. That's the word exactly. Comfortable. And happy, as well."

"Educated ones know best." Nirsky said.

Unfortunately for all concerned, the returned Emperor is slipping rapidly into megalomaniacal paranoia. The controls placed on his incarnations by the ship beyond the veil of the alternate universe are slipping, and he and his ally, Poyndex, take further steps to keep that control from returning. Sten and Alex and Mahoney are left trying to mitigate the damage and chaos from the Altaics.

This one has some biting political commentary, leavening the usual spying, treachery and adventure.

The Return of the Emperor by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch

The Emperor is dead, killed by an assassin's bullet, and all evidence destroyed by a small nuclear blast immediately following his death. The privy council has taken over all administrative duties for the Empire, but they are somewhat hamstrung by the cessation of all AM2 supplies - the mysterious substance that the Emperor once controlled is necessary to provide power for all space travel, manufacturing, and other industries. The Empire has fallen into a universal depression, and may descend into a Long Night of isolation and barbarism, if something is not done soon.

Ian Mahoney has faked his own death and gone into hiding, as the privy council's minions have been quietly gathering up and interrogating anyone who was close to the Emperor, hoping to learn the secret to turning the AM2 flow back on. When the council's goons go after Alex, on his home world of Edinburgh, and Sten, on the tiny planet of Smallbridge, Ian contacts them, and they flee to rendezvous at a safe, secret location to confer. Ian has been doing some secret research and been convinced of two things: the privy council is responsible for the death of the Emperor, and the Eternal Emperor has been killed more than once before, and returned within two years to take over his empire once again. This time, though, it's been six years, and the Emperor has not appeared.

Sten and Alex recruit some old friends from Mantis and the military establishment who are also convinced of the privy council's guilt, and they launch a disastrous attempt to capture or kill all of the council members at a gathering on Earth. When this fails, the duo flee to the Wolf Worlds and take refuge with their old friends, the Bohr.
Eventually, they decide the route to justice must take a more official-looking path, and organize a Tribunal to investigate, evaluate and issue an indictment against the council. Sten and Alex get the dirty job of stealthily gathering the evidence.

In the counterpoint tale, a human is awakened from cryogenic slumber on a ship located in another universe, and hypnotically educated/indoctrinated, then sent on his way to first a planet containing a mansion with a comprehensive library where he learns all about the events of the past six years, then to a spaceport where he displays an innate talent for cooking in a greasy spoon diner, and finally to the planet Dusable in the Cairennes system. On Dusable, he shows an amazing talent for political dirty fighting, and helps to get a new chief executive elected there. The account of the hands-on electioneering tactics is fantastic fun!

More great action, intrigue and a few minor mysteries cleared up in this installment.

Revenge of the Damned by Alan Cole and Chris Bunch

After suffering the destruction of his command while protecting the evacuation of civilians from Cavite after the defeat of Imperial forces there, Sten is taken prisoner by the Tahn. Luckily, his sidekick, Alex Kilgour, ends up in the same prison camp. With their Mantis skills, they have no problem escaping from each prison they are sent to, until they are sent to the repository for hardcase prisoners, located in the ruins of Koldyze Cathedral on the capital world of the Tahn, Heath.

Lt. Colonel Virunga, the ranking officer among the Imperial prisoners, appoints Sten as Big X, the person in charge of all escape attempts, which eliminates him from being allowed to participate, unless all the other prisoners are gone. So Sten and Alex work their usual mischief, setting up multiple plots, and generally being a pain in the rear to the Tahn guards, sabotaging the war effort however they can, and trying to avoid being caught.

In the meantime, back at Castle Arundel, the Emperor is just getting things warmed up for the Tahn. There's a serious parallel here to WWII's battle in the Pacific, after Japanese forces made the mistake of waking up a sleeping giant. The Empire is slow to build up their forces, mostly because of the scale of their industries' inertia, but once things get moving, they can produce more warships and supplies, and recruit more troops, than ever the Tahn can match. Ian Mahoney, still recovering from grievous wounds he received in the fall of Cavite, is put in charge of the forces that will take back the Empire's worlds.

There's a side plot going on here about the ongoing plot against the Emperor by members of his privy council. Now that they've been given great wealth and status for their help with the war effort, they're afraid that the policies he wants to pursue when the war is over will reduce their influence. A few interesting lessons on war economics and the military-industrial complex tucked away in this, without being at all preachy.

We get to see, once more, a couple of the ongoing shticks in this series. The Emperor likes to cook, especially long-lost recipes from pre-space Earth, and in this episode he creates a dish called "nuked hen". The analogy to what the Emperor plans to do to the Tahn is pretty good. Also, we get to finally hear Alex's shaggy dog story of the spotted snakes - pretty bad.

A fun book, with just a hint of Hogan's Heroes and The Great Escape, for seasoning.

Fleet of the Damned by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch

After thwarting the plot against the Emperor in Court of a Thousand Suns, Sten has been reassigned and transferred to the Navy to attend flight school. Unfortunately, he and his troops were unable to reach the diplomatic rendezvous point in time to stop the slaughter of the Tahn delegation, so the Tahn have gone to a full war footing, and may attack the Empire at any time. Cole and Bunch merely hit the highlights of flight school and its filtering rituals, and then Sten gets sent to the Caltor worlds to assume command of a squadron of tacships based on the Imperial world of Cavite.

The authors also borrow liberally from the culture and tactics of the Imperial Japanese military in this novel. The Tahn launch a sneak attack on all of the imperial forces, with a strong focus on the forward areas such as Cavite, and in a scene very similar to Pearl Harbor, nearly the entire space force is wiped out while still on the ground, leaving Sten's command and just a few other ships. The Emperor sends the First Imperial Division to reinforce Cavite, under the command of Major General Ian Mahoney, Sten and Alex's old Mantis commander.

Sten's rather unconventional military background doesn't make him well liked by the Admiral in charge of the fleet, and he's forced to staff his ships from the rejects and dregs of the fleet, including the troublemakers in the brig, local criminal deserters, and some gung ho police offices from the city. His and Alex's adventures in training such a ragtag force make excellent reading, and his crew soon distinguish themselves after the Tahn attack as one of the few effective units in the war effort.

Lots of epic battles, plenty of wry humor, and the ever fresh antics of Sten and Alex make this a good read and set up the next several books in the series well.

The Court of a Thousand Suns by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch

Young Sten, having covered himself with (covert) glory in the affair of the Wolf Worlds, has been promoted to Captain and given an assignment as commander of the Eternal Emperor's bodyguard on Prime World. When a freedom fighter's meeting with the Emperor's ambassador is disrupted by a bomb, killing both of them and one innocent bystander, Sten is detached from the palace to act as a liason with the police. He and the lovely lieutenant Lisa Haines must unravel the plot, no matter how twisty the path.

The only one of Sten's old colleagues from Mantis section involved with the investigation, at first, is the inimitable Alex Kilgour, and we are once again treated to his shaggy dog stories. Sten and Alex track the small-time bomber who was hired for the job to a prison planet in the Tahn worlds, and impersonate prison guards in order to kidnap him and proceed with his interrogation.

After that link leads them to a renegade Mantis section doctor, they take a trip to a very dangerous mining world to find the next link in the chain, but the mad medic suicides before they can take him away, leaving them only with the mysterious clue, "Zaarah Walid". Eventually the trail leads deep into the heart of the palace itself, and reveals a dangerous secret from a decades old war.

Great fun, as always, in this series.

The Wolf Worlds by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch

Our hero from Sten, the inimitable Sten, is the leader of a Mantis team (think future Delta Force) sent to do a mineral survey in the Eryx region of space. They have discovered a sample of a mineral that will serve as a replacement for Imperium-X, the shielding material used in star ships. A "gold rush" of epic proportions is about to ensue, once the word gets out. There's only one slight little problem; the route to the system passes through the Wolf Worlds, which are inhabited by two different groups of militant religious fanatics, known as the Jann (short for Janissaries).

The reward for a job well done is, as usual, another job, so Sten's band of troops is assigned to covertly make sure that peace rules in the Wolf Worlds. They hire on with the less aggressive side as mercenaries, and wreak havoc on their enemies quite effectively, with the help of additional mercenaries and a nearby alien race of traders known as the Bohr, who have inhabited an icy world for millenia.

Unfortunately, after accomplishing their mission, the cluster refuses to stay pacified, and the newly triumphant worshippers of Talemein decide to go on a galaxy-wide crusade, converting all to their religion. Sten and his people are betrayed by his employers, and abandoned on the last ship-building world of the Jann, where they have sabotaged the facilities. You don't want to mess with Sten, though, and when he finds a way to escape, things get even more bloody.

Great fun, wry humor and epic adventure abound in this second book in the series.

Sten by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch

Some collaborators together produce a synergy resulting in something far better than any one of them could do singly. Such is the case with Cole & Bunch, who have been collaborating on books, screenplays and all sorts of other things for a good many years, now. A few years back, they split up and began to write on their own - pity. Nothing they've written since approaches their early works together, though the Seer King, Demon King, Warrior King trilogy by Bunch is showing some promise.

The story of Sten begins on Vulcan, an orbiting manufacturing complex where migrant workers (Migs) labor under horrible conditions for a pay scale which makes them, in effect, indentured servants. The hero of our story, Sten, loses his family in a deep space accident and is graciously allowed to take over his father's job as well as his father's debts by the company which runs the orbital.

Sten figures out that the game is rigged (shades of Tennessee Ernie Ford's Sixteen Tons) and lashes out against the company that has total control over the lives of all the Migs. He joins a ragtag group of rebels hiding in disused corridors and warehouses, but this ultimately proves futile, until he meets an undercover agent of the Eternal Emperor, who has grown curious about some strange happenings in and around Vulcan. The agent, Ian Mahoney of the special forces group, Mantis, recruits Sten to help him investigate the de facto ruler of Vulcan, Baron Thoreson.

The mission goes awry, as such things often do, and Mahoney extracts himself and Sten from Vulcan, dragooning Sten into his Majesty's Imperial Guards - whereby hangs a tale or seven in the series that Cole & Bunch ultimately write.

Sten (the novel and the character) are full of smart-ass comments, fast-paced action, and some often amusing social commentary. I'd highly recommend picking up this book and any others in the series you stumble across.