Richard Penn (2)

Set in the same universe as Richard Penn’s Asteroid Police series, Spacetug Copenhagen tells the story of the early days of private space stations. A small Danish firm is building its first small orbital transfer spacecraft. Meanwhile, a corporate mogul and his two cloned children have bought the first orbital hotel.
Penn gets high marks for paying attention to the technical details, but the story doesn’t have much world-building or plot. He would have done better to keep this one on the shelf until he had time to expand and polish it.… (més)

Richard Penn is a retired ergonomic software designer who now writes hard science fiction set in a near-future version of the asteroid belt. Freedom at Feronia is a close sequel to Dark Colony (2014). In this one, the Terpsichorean team modifies a small ship for a potential trip to Mars. But first, they must raid a colony of religious extremists that is not playing nicely with others. Penn is not a great stylist, but it is refreshing to read a science fiction novel that pays attention to such engineering details as orbital dynamics and spacecraft design.… (més)

Richard Penn is a second-career sci-fi author who spends his summer on an English narrowboat called the Delta-Vee. I love the irony.
Dark Colony is a police procedural set in the asteroid belt. A few reviewers have complained that the novel spends too much time explaining the challenges of moving around the belt. I regard this as a feature—not a bug. The plot involves jury-rigging short-range mining craft for a raid on an asteroid colony engaged in slavery and the sex trade. That is the stuff of old-fashioned space opera, but it is handled more realistically than I expected. Style and character development are so-so.… (més)