Bright Star - Hardcover

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh. In the brief span of forty-four years, dogged by poor health, he made an enormous contribution to English literature with his novels, poetry, and essays. The son of upper-middle-class parents, he was the victim of lung trouble from birth, and spent a sheltered childhood surrounded by constant care. The balance of his life was taken up with his unremitting devotion to work, and a search for a cure to his illness that took him all over the world. His travel essays were publihsed widely, and his short fiction was gathered in many volumes. His first full-length work of fiction, Treasure Island, was published in 1883 and brought him great fame, which only increased with the publication of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). He followed with the Scottish romances Kidnapped (1886) and The Master of Ballantrae (1889). In 1888 he set out with his family for the South Seas, traveling to the leper colony at Molokai, and finally settling in Samoa, where he died.

Deep-sea thrills enliven this sequel to Stevenson's well-received debut, Torchlight (1997). Stevenson III, a relative both of his namesake and also of Hart Crane, has done much treasure-diving off New England, including over 20 dives to the Andrea Doria. Thus, he knows whereof he speaks when his underwater heros, ex-Navy SEALs Philip Drake and Jack Henderson, are first seen while entering that doomed oceanliner. This prepares us for the bigger job ahead: the recovery of a defense satellite fallen into the Atlantic, off the shore of Maine. The satellite, called Bright Star and created for the defense industry by William Lawrence, the black genius who heads Systems Technologies, is capable of launching a thousand laser beams at once, wiping out enemy forces in one megablow while also creating a defensive nuclear shield. But before Bright Star is launched into orbit, the nuclear stealth submarine Trident is hijacked by terrorists. While the shuttle Atlantis bears Bright Star 200 miles aloft, a massive computer failure shuts down the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers and Atlantis sinks into the ocean 50 miles off Bristol, Mainenot far from the missing Trident. Drake and Henderson manage to dive about the floating shuttle and rescue two crewmen before Atlantis sinks toward the ocean floor, while Jack Henderson dies, impaled by a speargunand Bright Star becomes bait for the Trident terrorists. Will the terrorists sell Bright Star towell, China?with Bright Star going operational for the unfriendly nation within weeks? What is Drake's best ploy for saving his country from the misuse of Bright Star? The answers, my friend, are blowing in sea currents that have the force of express trains. With every item of hardware identified by its spec number, this Clancy clone has its own energy and tension while, in the murkiest depths, fresh chills arise page by page. Not new, but well done indeed. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.