Edwin Charles Tubb » Cybermage

Here are five secret agents for some easy summer reading. It is also my personal line of progression with secret agents in Scifi. As a kid I started out with Cap Kennedy along with other YA flavored SF like Perry Rhodan, the Dumarest Saga, Venus Prime and such.

Before reading Paul Anderson’s Flandry series of a far future where a crumbling and decadent empire need saving from crafty aliens. You can get the Dominic Flandry series in new omnibus releases, but they probably win the contest of bad covers (James Bond like man draped in nude/semi nude women).

I upped my game a bit when it came to secret agents with Morgan Roche in the Evergence Trilogy.

Cally was inherited from John Ringo’s Posleen series and I came to that from John Ring & David Weber’s excellent Prince Roger series (That one is still one of my favorites). I might in fact have read Neal Asher’s Agent Cormac series before Cally’s War but I wanted to finish with the best.

Enjoy!

Cap Kennedy of F.A.T.E

Author: Gregory Kern (pseudonym for Edwin Charles Tubb)

Cap Kennedy, is space opera in the style of Perry Rhodan. Known as F.A.T.E. in the UK (where only the first six books have ever been published), the novels follow the adventures of Captain Kennedy, an intergalactic investigator and Free Acting Terran Envoy (F.A.T.E.) of the Mobile Aid Laboratories and Construction Authorities (M.A.L.A.C.A.) who is assisted by his team of companions, engineer Penza Saratov, veteran scientist Professor Jarl Luden, and the human chameleon Veem Chemile. Tubb wrote 17 Cap Kennedy novels, all under the pseudonym Gregory Kern.

Dominic Flandry

Author: Poul Anderson

Dominic Flandry is the central character in the second half of Poul Anderson’s Technic History science fiction. He first appeared in 1951.

The space opera series is set in the thirty-first century, during the waning days of the Terran Empire. Flandry is a dashing field agent of the Imperial Intelligence Corps who travels the stars to fight off imminent threats to the empire from both external enemies and internal treachery. His long-time archenemy is Aycharaych, from the planet Chereion, a cultured but ruthless telepathic spymaster who weaves plots for the expansionistic rival empire of the alien Merseians. Similar to the James Bond stories (which started two years later), every new adventure brings Flandry another beautiful damsel to woo and rescue.

The illegitimate son of a minor nobleman, Flandry rises to considerable power within the decadent Empire by his own wits, and enjoys all the pleasures his position society gives him. Still he is painfully conscious of the impending fall of the Terran Empire and the subsequent “Long Night” of a galactic Dark Age. His career is dedicated to holding it off for as long as possible. In time, he passes the mantle to his daughter Diana, who is also illegitimate.

Flandry is willing to disregard conventional morality and use his foes’ tactics against them. He can cheerfully deceive, seduce, and blackmail; grimly and regretfully, he mind-probes his son into a vegetable in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, and in that same book, bombards Aycharaych’s homeworld of Chereion into radioactive ruin to punish Aycharaych for his part in fostering trouble in the marches of the empire.

Novels

Ensign Flandry (1966)
A Circus of Hells (1970)
The Rebel Worlds (1969)
A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (1974)
A Stone in Heaven (1979)
The Game of Empire (1985)

Collections

Agent of the Terran Empire (1965)
Flandry of Terra (1965)

Morgan Roche

Author: Sean Williams & Shane Dix

Morgan Roche is an intelligence agent for the Commonwealth of Empires and the protagonist in the Evergence Trilogy.

The Prodigal Sun (1999)
The Dying Light (2000)
The Dark Imbalance (2001)

Cally O’Neal

Author: John Ringo

Co-written with Julie Cochrane, this series is more cloak and dagger spy genre fiction as the humans strive to overcome the game rigged by the Darhel race which has the rest of the galaxy’s races in virtual thralldom—except for the Posleen and humans whom they fear, while they systematically use humans to combat the Posleen while bleeding the humans when and where possible by underhanded clandestine acts to weaken future options of humanity.

Cally’s War Series

Cally’s War (2004) free online edition
Sister Time (2007) free online edition
Honor of the Clan (2009) free online edition

Hedren War

Eye of the Storm (2009) free online edition

Agent Ian Cormac

Author: Neal Asher

Ian Cormac is an agent for Earth Central Security and the protagonist for the Agent Cormac series. I recently reviewed the books here on Cybermage.

Agent Cormac Series

Shadow of the Scorpion (2010)
Grindlinked (2001)
The Line of the Polity (2003)
Brass Man (2005)
Polity Agent (2006)
Line War (2008)

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When a station at The Line of the Polity controlled space fails to nanite mycelium infestation similar to the one in Samarknad instituted by the mysterious Dragon, they call in Agent Cormac to sort it out. The nearby repressive theocracy planet of Masada is also involved.

Cormac is taken from a case with a rogue scientist Skellor who use alien tech to merge with an AI. It is not unexpected that the scientist will play a part in the following story.

Masada has a thin atmosphere so the denizens have to use old fashioned biological symbiotes to survive. The religious leadership uses their monopoly on them and their orbital laser arrays to control the people down on the planet while they live as kings in their orbital habitats. But things are about to change, there is a literal underground brewing an insurrection supported by elements of the Polity. And we see it all from the point of view of one of the oppressed workers Eldene. Her journey from oppression is a delight to read

On an other arc of the story is young Outlinker Apis Coolant that first discovered the nano infestation and then we get to follow his and his mothers struggle to survive the aftermath of the destruction of the station.

We also in an unlikely but welcome chain of event hook up with old friends from the first book former henchman Stanton and his lovely starship captain Jarvellis on a personal quest that soon converge with the main story.

Blegg is an interesting character. He is rumored to be an immortal survivor of Hiroshima and he has up until now been Ian Cormac’s boss and teacher. Here it is hinted about something more, of powerful races in the galaxy starting to notice humanity with more to come. Look at the Makers, in Gridlinked Cormac saved one of them, and he has been returned to his people. But their rogue biological machine the Dragon still causes trouble for humanity.

I am a bit reminded of those sleek pulp books of my youth about interstellar agent Cap Kennedy of F.A.T.E written by Edwin Charles Tubb under the pseudonym Gregory Kerr, Neal Asher’s stories have more dept to them but the flavor is similar. Not relevant to this review is that Edwin was born 1919 and he is still writing, expecting to release the 34th Dumarest book soon, impressive.

Neal also uses delightful subverted childhood tales to illustrate each chapter.

The Line of the Polity takes us further into the Polity Universe and deeper into the mysteries with ancient alien civilizations, dragons and the inner workings of the Polity. This is more fast paced space opera with more than average depth. I recommend you start with Shadow of the Scorpion or Gridlinked before you read Line of the Polity

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