Published by Starline, 1996,
paperback, $6.99 ISBN 0-671-87849-2
377 pages

If Captain Kirk, er, I mean, William Shatner, can get someone to ghostwrite the Tek series, then why can't Scotty, I mean, James Doohan, get a writer to write his book? And the answer is, he can.

Now, I don't know exactly how much of The Rising (Book 1 of The Flight Engineer Series) is Doohan and what part is Stirling, but I do know that Starline (Baen) shamelessly promotes Doohan--putting his name right there up on top along with the tagline "Beam us up, 'Scotty'!" And if that wasn't enough, there's his face plastered above an exploding ship, obviously with an appropriate look of mortification because his ship finally did blow. And if that wasn't enough, there's even a quote about Trekkies on the front cover.

Yet this is NOT a Star Trek ™ novel. The Rising follows starfighter ace Peter Raeder and his new assignment about a light carrier--as the flight engineer in charge of 500 crewmen and women. You see, in the war against "the Mollies," a fanatical religious group that seems as powerfully armed as Raeder's "Commonwealth," he was blown out of a starfighter, losing his hand in the process.

No hand, no fly (take that Luke Skywalker!), which makes sense since his prosthetic hand lacks the sensitivity of a real hand--a string of broken glasses shows that plain enough. In any case, this new light carrier, the Invincible, seems beset by mysterious problems, including the death of its flight engineer. Accidents, or sabotage? It all points to the second flight engineer in command, Cynthia Robbins, but it is up to Raeder to figure it out.

The character is likeable enough, with plenty of introspective commentary about people, places, and procedures, as he manages his engineering department and becomes amateur sleuth. Of course, he's a hands-on hero, risking life and limb for the Commonwealth with ad-hoc solutions.

It is all quite interesting and entertaining, and the book is a fast read. The action is intense, the attitudes appropriate, and the characters come across as believeable and smart. The background is a bit muddled, and some aliens are now allies of the Mollies, a bother considering the point of view shifts from Raeder back to an omnicient viewpoint and back again.

Here's looking with anticipation for volume 2. Hopefully, you won't here Starline say, as another engineer in the book screams, "I can't do it, Captain!" (p. 297)

Book 2: The Privateer