The Sharp End

the Gangs Ruled Cantilucca. Guns Were The Only Law, And There Was No Lack Of Guns. It Was Hard To Imagine Matters Getting Worse. then The Survey Team Arrived publishers Weekly drake Writes Masterfully About Future War In An Environment That, If Not Dystopian, Is Clearly Hobbesian. Volume Six In The ``hammer's Slammers'' Series Shows Mercenary-turned-president Hammer Keeping His Army Keen By Hiring Out Elements Of It To Fight In ``the Sharp End''--anywhere In The Galaxy Where Someone Can Afford To Pay Them To Participate In The Endemic Local Wars That Humanity's Expansion To The Stars Has Done Nothing To Preclude. A Survey Team Sent To Evaluate A Possible New Assignment Contains Members With Assorted Physical And Psychic Problems. Major Matthew Coke's Previous Paymaster Was Killed By An Assassin; Logistics Specialist Sten Moden Has Only One Arm; Electronics Wizard Niko Daun Trusts No One Outside The Regiment; Intelligence Lt. Robert Barbour Cannot Confront The Corpses That Result From His Calculations; Johann Vierziger Is A Pitiless Killing Machine, Alien Even To His Hardbitten Cohorts. None Of The Team Is Prepared For The Planet Cantilucca, A Nightmare Combination Of Contemporary Somalia, Colombia And New York City. Its Only Export Is Narcotics; Its Only Law Is Provided By Gangs Who Destroy But Cannot Govern. Will It Prove Too Big A Challenge For These Cynical Soldiers-for-hire? Drake Combines Action And Politics In A Fast-paced Space Opera, Building To An Unexpected, If Typically Bloody Climax. (nov.) Fighting on a battlefield isn't romantic, it's bloody hell - and Master Author David Drake gives his stories a realism as only someone who has been there can do. Here we have some top people in their various fields who, one way or another, have been through that hell - some injured enough for retirement, others with mistakes they wish to atone for. They are grouped together as a survey team on a planet specializing in the production of gage - a most potent drug. The civilians are at the mercy of two criminal syndicates who make their lives as miserable as they can - and take great pleasure in doing so. What can a small survey team do about it? Quite a bit, actually. A terrific read. Gangs ruled Cantilucca. Guns were the only law, and there was no lack of guns. It was hard to imagine matters getting worse. Until the survey team arrived ... Major Matthew Coke was not a squeamish man, but the state of affairs on Cantilucca turned his stomach. He was only human after all. Where some of the rest of his team were concerned, it was difficult to be sure. Five professional mercenaries who'd learned the hard way that in the end they could defeat anything - except their own consciences. With two syndicates dominating the planet of Cantilucca, Major Matthew Coke, the head of the Frisian Defense Force, watches as his mercenary force is used to evil ends by Cantilucca's leaders Further adventures of Hammer's Slammers: the toughest, meanest bunch of mercenaries who ever wrecked a world for pay!