Review of Starmen

STARMEN: A Novel by Francis Hamit by Francis Hamit

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


To borrow a concept from Jeff Foxworthy, you might have written a weird tale if the 3rd Bengal Lancers show up in the air over Texas in 1875. Since they do make such an appearance, I guess Francis Hamit's novel Starmen is a weird tale. Having said that, I found it was also a very good read.

The book opens with the arrival of a "balloon" (technically a dirigible but not called such in the story) in the skies over El Paso Texas in 1875. The detectives at the newly-established Pinkerton's office in town decide to investigate and their interest is piqued when they discover that one of the backers of the enterprise is the British Ethnographic Society - an organization commonly used as a cover by the British Secret Service.

What follows is an interesting tale. Hamit throws in everything including the kitchen sink. We get some romance, old-fashioned Western gunslinging, various flavors of witchcraft, alternate worlds, and yes some aliens. A few historical figures, notably a young John Pershing, are in the story, although in the introduction Hamit makes clear that he's writing alternate history, not straight historical fiction.

Hamit has written several historical fiction novels concerning spies (male and female, Confederate and Union) set during the Civil War, and some of those escapades are discussed by characters in the book. Fortunately, one does not need to have read any of those (I haven't) to keep up with this story.

In short, the book might be hard to characterize but it's also hard to put down.



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