Baen books Webscriptions site is full of wonderful literature, but who can resist something called: The COBRA Trillogy! The book is written by Timothy Zahn, and was originally issued in the 80′ies as three seperate novels.

The first book in the trillogy is called Cobra. It is  epic military space opera at it’s finest guerrilla style. The narrative style centers on focusing on parts of the main characters life. We jump from one place in time and space to the next in a pace that feels just right.  These places and points in time make up the bulk of the story line and is seen from the main character Johnny Moreau’s point of view. Ocationally these parts are broken up with shorter interludes where we visit other key elements of the story line, mostly seen from a protagonist point of view. I would characterize the plot as one that has epic ambitions but perhaps struggles a bit too much to deliver cleaver solutions. It never dismembers the story though and each part of the book leaves you turning the page to find out what mischief our Cobra has gotten himself into now. One of the highlights the novel is that it centers around the human equatiions that make up Johnny Moreau. You just cannot help but enjoy the guys company, which is vital in good space opera. The main alien antagonist The Tugft are not that well fletched out but do feel enough alien to feel real. I would like to have seen some more alien psychology introduction on them earlier on in the book though.

Was it a good read? Yes, epic in scale, well written, a believable main character with a lot of wonderful operatic content. It would make a great movie, maybe with Bruce Willis as Johnny Moreau?