In the Hall of the Martian King

Jak Jinnaka #3

by John Barnes

A Martian monarch has taken possession of a priceless the lifelog diary of the mysterious messiah who founded the Wager, the religion that forms the basis of all interstellar society. The Hive Intel conglomerate wants the lifelog and hires Jak to get it. It's a simple job, until other spies-including Ambassador Dujuv, Uncle Sib, and Jak's evil ex-girlfriend-arrive on Mars and turn the assignment into a wild ride of mind control, murder, and looming interplanetary war. For the lifelog contains a devastating secret that can overturn the status quo of whole worlds-a secret that Hive Intel will suppress at all costs. In the past, Jak has completed missions by betraying his friends. Now in order to succeed, Jak Jinnaka must betray the entire human race...

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 2003

About the author

John Barnes (born 1957) is an American science fiction author, whose stories often explore questions of individual moral responsibility within a larger social context. Social criticism is woven throughout his plots. The four novels in his Thousand Cultures series pose serious questions about the effects of globalization on isolated societies. Barnes holds a doctorate in theatre and for several years taught in Colorado, where he still lives.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bar...

Reviews

[Leons1701 · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is the "conclusion" of the Jak Jinnaka series. It really feels like Barnes originally intended for there to be more of these, though each book is pretty self contained, we never really see exactly why Jak is regarded the way the prologues seem to imply he is. This isn't a bad stopping point though, there are some definite revelations about the nature of the Wager and how it came to dominate human society. I'll just say it explains a lot more about why Barnes never went into any detail about the Wager in the first two books.
Anyhow, this is pretty standard Jinnaka shenanigans, he needs to steal a priceless artifact for Hive Intelligence, ensure the credit goes to the most feckless noble in the entire system, avoid being tangled in the coils of his treacherous ex Princess Shyf and do it all without blowing his cover. Easy, right?

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't enjoy slagging off on lesser-known books from small publishers. These publishers are signing average Joes, not superstars. They live one wrong choice away from bankruptcy.

And yet ...

'In the Hall of the Martian King' is not a good novel. Its plot is a simple Maguffin chase. Its characters read more like ideas for characters than real people. It spends too much time on world building and language creation and not enough time on character development. Its interrogation of the tropes of space opera subgenre of science fiction is heavy-handed. Worst of all, it's kinda boring.

Still, there are some interesting ideas at play in this novel, most prominently the idea of love as a weapon. Unfortunately, that isn't enough to lift this book into my "recommended" list. Better luck next time, Open Road Media.

[Bryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very weird book and a fitting (if emotionally unsatisfying) conclusion to the trilogy. Unlike the first two books, Barnes spends much less time delving into imaginary technological details, and a lot more time prying open the cracks inherent in the entire genre of 'juvenile science fiction', those books so popular in mid-century in which a nice white boy goes off into space and gets up to shenanigans while keeping th universe safe for capitalism and authortarianism. These issues were fuzzily addressed in the first two, but this time around Barnes is clear that the protagonists are mostly the bad guys, and that Jak is happy to be part of them -- and while I find that pretty realistic, that's what made the book so emotionally unsatisfying to me. It's very true to the world that being abused and exploited by Princess Shyf hasn't given Jak any any compassion for the entire planet of debt-enslaved people his society relies on, or any understanding of why Duv, his former best friend, is dedicating himself to helping those people. Jak's been taught that people get what they deserve, that being stupid is far more embarassing than being cruel, and the reader is reminded of just how messed up his upbringing is by the appearance of his beloved uncle Sib, who spends lots of time singing the praises Shyf and people like her -- after all, don't brutal sociopathic aristocrats who torture people make life colourful and worth living? Even when Jak finds out his own government has been colluding with Shyf's years of abuse, he's unable to disentangle himself from the system he's been taught to support, and the end of the book sees him excited to start a new 'adventure' protecting that system. The only part of the trilogy that gives me hope for Jak's future is that each book has a retrospective of people looking back on him and complaining about how he was a terrible person who never really understood the Wager -- the ultra-capitalist ideology that's revealed in this book to have been originally written as satire but turned in scientology-like fashion into a religion. The fact that Jak is remembered as an awful person by all the proponents of the Wager makes me think that eventually he comes around to Duv's way of thinking and becomes a socialist?

It's realistic but so cynical, and it still shocks me that so many people can take this at face value and accept that Sib and Jak are great people leading fun adventurous lives. Yes, that's what they think, but it is really clearly not what Barnes thinks.

[Jesse Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Medieval America conquered a continent and gave us atomic bombs and reached the moon, then they freed the slaves and let women vote, and in no time at all they lost all their ambition and relied on the U.N. to protect them and got squished like bugs between the armies in the Quebec-Jamaica War. Now these are just facts, facts anyone knows from school."

At some point in this trilogy, subtly or not, John Barnes has made fun of something you like. That isn't because he likes the other guys, he makes fun of them too. This is optimistic pessimism, a future where the poorest live like kings and a lifespan of a hundred and twenty was sadly cut short before its prime - except the kings live even better, because monarchy is back. It's a ridiculous world where no one's really in charge and even the people that should have been the good guys end up packing unwanted skeletons in their closets. It's a real world, because the real world always includes things that are stranger than fiction.

[Viking Jam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review: Wow, this was a lame ending to a solid series. A revolving door of cultural contemplation, forced near-death action and another battle, followed by more social commentary. Yikes. Jak goes from a likable douche to being in charge of a space station. Riiiiight.

The process whereby Jak is under constant sexual control via conditioning became so tiring as a plot vehicle, that it took effort to pay attention to the story line.

1.8/2

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Barnes always has a little more going on than one expects. This series is framed as space adventure pulp, but ends up being a social satire with a biting edge.

[Ray Charbonneau · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wacky, madcap adventure? I don't know. After 70 pages, nothing interesting had happened, so I gave up.

[George Reilly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unreadable

[Jeff Youngstrom]

my review