This is the Great American Anime-based SF Novel referred to in my LJ biographical notes. I suppose if you wanted to play "check the references" the places to start looking would be in Kunihiko Ikuhara/Chiho Saito's Revolutionary Girl Utena, which supplied inspiration for the two main characters, Marc Miller's SF wargame Imperium, and all the space operas that inspired it. The title for the novel, which has since grown large enough to warrant being split in two, comes from a song by Judas Priest, as does the title of the second part, Sad Wings of Victory.

Plot summary: Mankind finds its way to the stars in the late 21st century, first with an STL expedition to Alpha Centauri by the privately-financed Long Range Foundation and then a few years later with an FTL ship designed in the United States and built in the Lunar Republic. Earth becomes aware that there are other beings out there early in the 22nd century, but avoids contact - this is made easier by the fact that most of Earth's colonies are founded around stars to rimward and trailing of Sol. Probes and intelligence work reveal that the aliens are humans like ourselves, but part of a so-called "Universal Empire" that rules thousands of stars but is socially stagnant, with strict caste and guild regulations restricting the lives of all Imperial subjects down to such details as clothing, education, and job assignments. Non-human aliens are also strapped into the Procrustean Imperial system.

When the Empire eventually discovers Terran humanity, it insists on the Directorate and its member nations (which now number several former colonies) submitting to Imperial rule. Assured that the Aerospace Forces and Army have a technological edge that could be decisive, and angered by the Imperial demands, the Grand Senate votes to reject the annexation treaty in 2158 and declares war in 2166 when the colony at Faraway Station is destroyed by elements of the Imperial Fleet. For several years, the fast cruiser and destroyer squadrons of the Aerospace Force inflict heavy damage on Imperial commerce between the Rim worlds, but the Imperial Rim Sector Fleet and its subsector fleets continue to grow in spite of all the Aerospace Force can do.

The time has come for a campaign that will decide whether Earth and her colonies remain free or are conquered by the seemingly endless resources of the Universal Empire. The time has come for Earth to deploy what could be the ultimate weapon system, one skirting the edge of Earth's religious proscription of man/machine integration: Project Starfighter. The Starfighters are highly automated light cruiser-sized warships that sacrifice plus-space jump ability for more firepower and the robotic systems that allow a single pilot to control the ship like an extension of her own body. Based on proscribed cyborging technology developed by the rebel Synarchist Union fifty years before, the Starfighters make it possible for the Directorate to stage a deep strike against Imperial naval and industrial complexes, which, it's hoped, will buy time for Terra and her allies to build a fleet large enough to defeat whatever the Universal Empire can throw at them.

Characters: Reiko Honjou is the orphaned daughter of Akiko and Daisuke Honjou, members of the Reformed Nationalist Shinto sect exiled to Faraway Station by Japanese politicians fearful that the sect might revive the militarism that led to the disastrous Pacific War in the 20th Century. Reiko and her little sister Tetsuko are sent to Earth as refugees before Faraway Station is destroyed, and Reiko spends her next eight years becoming a deadly martial artist, determined to avenge the deaths of her parents. Her training and commitment to the Shinto religion gives her the right mental state to become one of the most lethal Starfighter pilots and commander of the 5901st Attack Squadron - but in the end that same mental state isolates her from her frightened subordinates.

Julie O'Meara is a former teenage model who forsakes runway fashions for the flight suits of a Starfighter pilot. She proves to be very nearly as deadly as Reiko, but not at all ready for the carnage that envelops her as the battles follow one after the other and her fellow pilots begin to die. She becomes Reiko's friend and executive officer, and the "human face" that the increasingly frightened young pilots turn to when Reiko becomes increasingly remote.

Linda Carson didn't take much about life seriously before becoming a Starfighter pilot, but the high-school dropout and runaway became one of the best - only to die fighting the impossible odds that become routine for the women of the 5901st.

General Richard Wayland was one of the best interrogators Internal Security had during the Synarchist War. What made him suited to be the head of Project Starfighter? Why would the Aerospace Forces allow a police general to command a Fleet/Army Force entrusted with delivering the decisive blow of the war? Go back to the main page.