A Princess of the Aerie
John Barnes
319 pages
published in 2003

This is the second Jak Jinnaka book, sequel to The Duke of Uranium. That book was an enjoyable adventure sf story, this one still is enjoyable and still is an adventure sf story, but with a much darker tone and the return of some of Barnes patented perverted sex scenes. Could you recommend the first novel without much problems to younger readers, if you do the same with this one, their parents might object.

As with The Duke of Uranium, A Princess of the Aerie reads as if it has been written some time after the story ends. There's a lot of foreshadowing and dark hints towards the rest of Jak's career. At times, this irritates. Also, I read this straight after finishing The Duke of Uranium, which may have been a mistake, because this pulled the difference in tone between the two books in sharp contrast. Towards the end of the book I had to force myself to keep reading.

The plot revolves around Jak's old girlfriend, Sesh, who in the previous story had been revealed to actually be princess Shyf of Greenworld, one of the many states located in the Aerie, one of the two biggest space stations in the Solar System, the other being Jak's home. Jak recieves a video message from her telling him she is in trouble, but when he and his buddy Dujuv races t her, she wants nothign to do with them. It turns out princess Shyf isn't quite the fun innocent girl Jak remembers; she is in fact a cold hearted cruel monster.

After some intrigue and after Jak and Dujuv helped spoli an assasination attempt on the king of Greenworld, something princess shyf is not very happy with, the pair decided to accept an assignment to go to Mercury, to keep the mines there out of the claws of a shaodwy company, led by Jak's old enemy, Bex Riveroma.

What is interesting here is that at every turn of the story, Jak is manipulated, decieved and cut of from his friends. At no point does he have any control over events and every attempt he makes at doing the right thing either backfires or leaves him in a position where he succeeded but further alienated from Dujuv. It's all very realistic, but also wearing, especially after reading the first installment in this series, which was pretty much a traditional science fiction adventure. I'm not sure many people will like the bait and switch here.