BRETTA MARTYN

More space-pirate folderol, following Henry Martyn (1989). Lia Woodgate, CEO of the Monopolity of Hanover, decides to tackle the threat posed by the Oplyte Slavers—they transform humans into zombie warriors via nanotechnology. And who better to investigate than Arran Islay, a.k.a. the dread pirate Henry Martyn? Joining Arran aboard his state-of-the-art spaceship will be his wife Loreanna and their strong-willed, 15-year-old daughter Bretta, along with urban barbarian Woulf, passing himself off as Loreanna's long-lost half-brother while he's actually a 900-year-old assassin and agent of the Oplyte Slavers. Woulf beats and rapes Bretta and ejects her into space stuffed inside a garbage container. As Arran battles his way toward the Oplyte Slaver HQ, Bretta's rescued by Hanebuth Tarrant, an elflike dwarf, one of a colony of partially transformed slaves who've escaped from the Oplytes. Tarrant has visited Earth's terraformed Moon, home of the libertarian Coordinated Arm, bitter foes of the Oplytes and likely allies for Bretta and Arran. Noteworthy for its increasingly batty attempts to transplant old-time windjammer swashbuckling into space, and a political subtext that drones in the background like a half-heard but annoying chuckle.