Timelapse

Few things in the universe of Nighbert's first novel are what they seem. After a 20-year war, Jacob Tessarian, self-styled Emperor of the People's Revolutionary Empire, is still terrorizing the peaceful but stagnant United Planets. But nemesis stalks him in the figure of assassin Anton Stryker, who has been resurrected following his death at Tessarian's hands and rebuilt into a superman. Stryker's allies include an intelligent spaceship named Nefertiti and a sabertooth Hellcat that shares its mind with Hersule Al-Ahmdi, a human scientist. At one point, Tessarian himself escapes Stryker's blow by hiding his mind in the body of an eight-year-old girl whom Stryker has befriended. In this eventful if uninvolving interplanetary thriller, Nighbert works hard for color, but the story seldom catches the imagination. (August)