Author: Mark Van Name
Publisher: Baen
Binding: Hardback
Publication Date: July 2008
Cover Design: Stephen Hickman

Slanted Jack by Mark Van Name is the second in the Jon and Lobo series. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, One Jump Ahead, and looked forward to a second adventure with Jon and his AI ship Lobo. The plot was good, and the action scenes tight and furious in this second book. It was nice to visit with old friends again; Lobo, the ship, was still full of attitude, Jon still a sucker for a sad story and a hero at heart, and there were some new characters, all thrown into a delightfully tangled set of puzzles.

Jon finds himself asked to do a job from an old partner—one that he doesn’t trust, doesn’t seem to like much and would rather not work with at all. But…there’s this kid that needs help. And it sounds…interesting. Before he knows it, he’s up to his eyeballs in enemies and has too many goals to be able to accomplish them all. Lucky for him he has Lobo and lots of creativity.

That said, much as I love Lobo, there were some missed opportunities in side stories/characterization. Realizing that Lobo is a machine –the sarcasm that was so delightful in book one could have grown into something much more interesting—faster. There were signs of it scattered here and there, and it did build up and flow naturally in places, but especially in the first half, Lobo’s character, rather than just existing as a personality, were explained and repeated. He was also used too often to detail actions/plans through dialog when it would have been more effective to just have Jon be the soldier that he is.

Slanted Jack, a devious con man (old partner of Jon), was a fully developed character with an interesting background, tricks and issues. He’s not a likable character by any means, but an effective one. The boy needing rescue had some interesting problems to be solved, but he wasn’t developed enough to hold my interest. For someone of his background, his actions and reactions didn’t feel real.

Jon Moore decided early on to take on a female sidekick—his reasons for rescuing her and the rescue itself were great action–but she wasn’t at all interesting. For too long in the story she went without a personality, a life, a background or enough skill or knowledge to add to the story. It was clear she was more than met the eye, but even when the truth was revealed, I was left with a sense of—gosh, this character should have had a huge impact on the story rather than being a cardboard princess in distress with barely a background role.

The strongest element of the story was the various plots and the real motivation of Slanted Jack. You know it is there; it’s heavily hinted at, it’s a matter of assembling the clues. There’s real skill in introducing various characters that seem to have no interaction, different motivations and goals and have the puzzle fall into place. The plot was strong, the various secrets just out of sight and the action interesting. It came together very well. As an action space opera, littered with several puzzles to be solved, it’s a ride riddled with dangerous twists and turns, some fun moments and enough to keep you wondering what is going on and how it will ever straighten itself out.

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Topics: Baen, Jon and Lobo Series, Mark Van Name, Slanted Jack, Stephen Hickman