The Road of Danger

In the ninth book of Drake's The RCN Series (after 2011's What Distant Deeps), Captain Daniel Leary and information savant Adele Mundy of the Republic of Cinnabar Navy are sent on a covert mission into Alliance space to uncover and potentially end a revolt on the frontier planet of Sunbright. Rumor has it that the rebel leader, known only as Freedom, is an agent of Cinnabar, and Leary must discover the truth and stop the rebellion before Alliance-Cinnabar interstellar relations devolve into full-scale war. Loosely based on Livy's account of Hamilcar's third-century B.C.E. rebellion against Rome, this colorless and repetitive character-driven space opera mixes history and military science fiction, but fails to add up to anything more than a dull mess. (Apr.)