Take Back the Sky (2016) Greg Bear

Weird, weirder, weirdest

War Dogs, Killing Titan, and now Take Back the Sky…

Skyrine Michael Venn finds himself inside Titan waiting for the his friends in the corp from Earth and Mars to take him and his crew out and also to take out Bug Karnack and the archives of bug knowledge found on inside Titan. Their only hope? The Antags. His Antag connection from the Ice Moon Tea – Venn calls her Bird Girl – has arranged to save Venn and his crew. They are cut out of their armor and packed away for a journey to a large strange ship.

This ship is apparently the one used by the gurus (Antags call them “Keepers”) to travel around the solar system and beyond to plan and stage their war-shows for some unknown audience.   Turns out this ship constantly morphing in strange ways. The Starshina – Ulyanova – was also exposed to the ice moon tea and was linked to a guru. As such – she is apparently qualified as a pilot / commander of the ship. Which she proceeds to do. Is she a friend of humanity or is she a guru in Starshina clothing.

The book ends with an interesting whimper and not a bang. It leaves me with a lot of questions. What happened to Ulyanova and the ship? Did they fly into the sun. What is happening with Joe and Teale’s daughter on Mars. What does Ishida (the Winter Soldier) look like? Seems like a set up for one more volume of War Dogs. One can only hope.Take Back the Sky (2016)