At Empire's Edge

Zak Cato is a xenocop. He's returning a fugitive shape-shifting Sagathi when things go horribly awry. Saved from being slaughtered with the rest of his men because he is drunk, Cato must now become the hero he was created to be, recapture the Sagathi, and exact revenge.

**

Prolific military SF author Dietz starts a duology with a testosterone-soaked tale of violent retribution. Jak Cato is a member of the Xeno Corps, a cadre of soldiers bio-engineered by the Uman Empire to deal with the shape-shifting Sagathi. A skirmish with the alien Vord forces Jak's ship down on Dantha, an impoverished former prison planet, and Jak gets drunk in a tavern and awakens to learn his entire unit has been massacred. Guilt-ridden and angry, the stubborn Xeno cop hunts the culprits with little concern for collateral damage. Dietz is enthusiastic but clumsy, scattering exclamation points like discarded bullet casings and relying on melodramatic villains. The setting is an unconvincing and unimaginative Rome-in-Space culture featuring a frankly disturbing repeated motif of the loving slave, and the story is too predictable for readers tired of space opera clichés. (Oct.)
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William C. Dietz grew up in the Seattle area, spent time with the Navy and Marine Corps as a medic, graduated from the University of Washington, lived in Africa for a year, and has traveled to six continents. Dietz has been variously employed as a surgical technician, college instructor, news writer and television producer, and currently serves as Director of Public Relations and Marketing for an international telephone company.