Captain Hadrian Sawback and his handpicked crew on the starship Willful Child are on a mission to explore, subjugate and hopefully blow up as much stuff as possible in this wacky, self-aware sci-fi novel from Steven Erikson (the Malazan Book of the Fallen series).
Newly promoted Captain Sawback selected his crew based on their pictures, so the ship is full of beautiful women, fearful executive officers and odd-looking aliens. His competent second-in-command, Sin-Dour, is a stunner who skillfully rejects most of his advances. The gorgeous helmswoman, on the other hand, is all beauty, no brains. Engineer Buck DeFrank is a mess of neurotic fears, including a serious case of claustrophobia. Then there's ship's doctor Printlip, a genderless alien who uses air as both a structural component of its body as well as its main vocal communication process, resulting in quite a few deflated sentences during tense moments.
The Star Trek parody is thick, but Erikson overlays the humor with some rather far-reaching philosophy. While the Kirk analog is, indeed, a womanizer who prefers fisticuffs to diplomacy, there's a method to his madness, which becomes clearer as the story unfolds. The ship's artificial intelligence acts as a foil for Sawback's pugilistic instincts and their interactions provide much of the philosophical commentary.
Overall, Willful Child is a rollicking read that never lets up on the satire, action and self-referential meta-humor. Fans of Star Trek and other science-fiction classics will recognize both parody and homage. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor