Mackey Chandler

Chandler, Mackey. April. April No. 1. Kindle, 2012.
As far as I can tell, April is Mackey Chandler’s first novel and the first novel in a series that now has twelve volumes. It is a near-future coming of age story that owes very much to Robert A. Heinlein. April is a space-born resident of Mitsubishi 3, a large space habitat in Earth Orbit. There is also an evolved version of the International Space Station and a Lunar colony. Earth politics is just as cutthroat and complicated as ever. The space habitats have developed an independent culture that is more purely democratic and libertarian than any of the religious tyrannies or corrupt corporate states on Earth. (By the way, the book is set much too early—there is no chance so many large-scale space habitats could be built by 2083. Technological optimism is a common affliction of science fiction writers—at least the ones that don’t mumble in their beer about dystopian futures.) Like Heinlein’s juvenile novels, April describes a world in which all the kids are brilliant and independent—even the ones who lack a moral compass. They make major advances in science and technology in what on Earth would be a basement workshop. And when the revolution comes, they are the first ones to man the barricades. Think Heinlein’s Rolling Stones mashed up with The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Chandler is not the stylist that Heinlein was, but he tells an engaging story. 3.5 stars.… (meer)

Chandler, Mackey. Fair Trade: An Alien Invasion Story. Kindle, 2021.
In a recent blog, Nathan Lowell pointed out that easy independent publishing on Internet platforms has shown that there are substantial audiences for authors whose work would have a hard time finding an agent and would likely never be picked up by dead-tree publishers with editorial departments and advertising budgets. Mackey Chandler’s science fiction is a case in point. Before Fair Trade, he had already published 18 novels in two ongoing series. He is not a world-class writer, but he does tell entertaining stories set in future worlds that are more nuanced than one might expect. His stories might have found their way into pulp magazines or fanzines in the mid-twentieth century, but without the Internet there would be no place for them in a publishing world dominated by six companies and a decreasing number of brick-and-mortar bookstores. But I am happy to read them at a price that does not break my bank. In Fair Trade, a starship enters our near-future solar system with serious mechanical problems. They have only met two other space-faring races, neither of whom are friendly. When their exploratory drone is shot down, they don’t expect much better from humans. Earth’s many governments view them with suspicion but recognize the advantages they might gain if they could acquire some alien technology. Some of their technology is indeed superior to human stuff, but some of it isn’t. Duncan injects wry humor as we watch both sides misinterpret each other’s culture. Most Earth governments would like a monopoly on the aliens, but such secrets are hard to keep. The story develops around three alien-human encounters: one with a retired black-ops soldier in Alaska who provides them with some good security advice, another with a car dealer in Florida who protects them from a gator attack, and a third with an 80-year-old amateur astronomer who shares his discovery with amateur astronomer around the world. It is just the kind of story I would have been happy to read in a copy of Galaxy in my long-ago youth. 3.5 stars, and I look forward to the next volume.… (meer)

Chandler, Mackey. Secrets in the Stars. Family Law No. 3. Kindle, 2016.
In this third installment of Mackey Chandler’s Family Law series, the Derf Gordon, the human Lee, and the rest of the multispecies small fleet continue to explore and develop new trading relationships. In their earlier explorations, most of the races they met were groups that did not present an overwhelming threat, but this time they must deal with the superior technology of the caterpillars and some others that even the caterpillars don’t want to mess with. The inventive alien tech continues to entertain, and Gordon is as gruff and lovable as ever. The series now runs to six volumes, but I miss the tight character focus of the first one. 3.5 stars.… (meer)

Chandler, Mackey. The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet. Family Law No. 2. Kindle, 2014.
I am a fan of stories that speculate about the possibilities of interstellar commerce. I enjoyed the first volume of Mackey Chandler’s Family Law series in which Lee, the orphaned daughter of a planet exploring parents, is adopted by her alien crewmate, Gordon. Together they market their find on Gordon’s home world and wrestle with the bureaucracies of Earth. In The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet, Gordon and Lee launch an exploratory mission on a larger scale. There are aliens aplenty, both in their multispecies fleet and in the new sectors of the galaxy they explore. The main strength of the novel is following the characters as they work to establish trading relationships with species with whom it is very difficult to communicate. Will they like coffee or find it disgusting? All this is fun, but I think Chandler misses a bet by making Gordon rather than Lee the central character. 3.5 stars.… (meer)