MIRKHEIM

Fat, irrepressible old merchant Nicholas van Rijn (Trader to the Stars) continues his lovable assaults on the English language and his efforts to retrieve some shred of free enterprise from the cancerous encroachments of big government and two omnivorous conglomerates. David Falkayn, van Rijn's grandson by marriage (The Trouble Twisters; Satan's World), teams up with his old fellow-troubleshooters Chee Lan, Adzel, and the poker-playing computer Muddlehead to check out the strange new colonial incursions of a ""backward"" race on Mirkheim (source of priceless new heavy elements) and Falkayn's own home world of Hermes. Not one of Anderson's best--a needlessly laborious plot and a lot of dull, mechanical writing.