Space Mercenaries (A. Bertram Chandler)

Another book from the second hand bookshop that pre-dates ISBN numbers. I'm almost beginning to feel that's the sign of a good book. Perhaps because people loved it enough to keep it before it found it's way to the bookshop.

Anyway, this sci-fi book could easily be the beginning of a series... (thanks to Google and this site, it appears there are more in this vain though they are not grouped as a series of novels). This book was a short and comfortable read with an easy to follow story. One of the things I noticed most was that my thumb was never in the way. I'm serious, you know how when you hold a book your right thumb is over the bottom lines of text? Well this book has a huge 4cm bottom margin so your thumb is never in the way of the text. I have no idea if this was the style of typesetting of the time (there's not a date in the front cover to even know when it was printed) but it sure made a difference to the quality of the read. Perhaps that was just novelty though.

Back to the story, Empress turned retired empress uses her battleship to do some 'good' in the universe. Mixes things up with a solar system of bird like creatures some of whom are are picking on an isolated human colony that got there way before the birds discovered space flight. Some neat ideas on future technology mixed with a little politics.

Rootie Rating...4 out of 5, though I could almost give it more for the thumb space!