THE CTZ PARADIGM

A lackluster chronicle of interstellar war. A millennium or so hence, the gaits, a rabid fundamentalist theocracy, are pitted against an alliance led by the planet Hobar, which rejoices in an enlightened meditative tradition (""the Circle"") incorporating elements of -- no kidding -- the Chinese martial arts. The attempts at scientific detail are as perfunctory as the stripped-down prose style (it comes out unintentionally funny) and intricate narrative method (it comes out jerky). The title? ""Ctz"" is the phenomenon that enables the Hobarian and Krit space ships to exceed the speed of light, and ""paradigm"" is there because it sounds good.