Man O' War

Benton Hawkes, diplomat-hero of this rumble-tumble start to a new Shatner series, is, like the hero of the author's Tek novels, a cut-from-cardboard macho man. Around the end of the next century, Hawkes is sent to Mars to deal with the human colonists there, on the verge of rebellion because of their slavelike status. The situation is critical, for Earth's population will quickly starve without Martian supplies. The plot and the speculative concepts grounding it are shaky at best, resulting in a novel that distinguishes itself as neither science nor fiction. Hawkes, however, will appeal to those who like their heroes Hollywood-style, a man whose integrity gets him into scrapes that he punches, shoots and slices his way out of. His crises are nearly endless, so fans of hardboiled SF (""And now, he thought, he was going to Mars. Heaven help whoever he found there"") could do worse that to join him in his bloody quest. (Apr.)