The Blue Ice Pilot - Lou Fisher

The story alternates chapters between the past and present of one Larry Wickes, pilot of a ship carrying frozen "warmen" to different colony worlds. In the present, Larry does not want to land on the planet Foy-Rigger, because the last time he was there went really badly. In the past, we see all the things Larry went through after surviving near-death in the Solar Wars to reach the point he could be a pilot on one of these GGI ships, which is all he wanted to do.

The problem with the sequences in the past is, I don't particularly care about them. Fisher played coy about what had gone wrong on Foy-Rigger that made Larry want to avoid it so badly, and I wanted to know the answer. So the chapters in the past were an annoyance. Right at the end they become relevant, when Larry realizes all the shit he ate, all the compromises he made playing by other people's rules to get what he wanted. And how has that worked out for him? The people who make the rules change or break them whenever they see fit.

The universe Fisher sets up is not a happy one. Earth doesn't really seem to have governments any longer, just GGI, which makes most of its money either freezing people and shipping them to colonies as "warmen", or by making bodysacks to bury the dead in mass graves. There's a point where the US/Can government says they intend to increase what GGI has to pay to keep the government funded, and the company essentially sends back a letter saying, "Yeah, we won't be doing that."

Larry considers himself lucky to live in the front section of a bus, and pigeon and dog meat are considered high end fare. The warmen are just whatever random schmoes decide to get themselves frozen to try and escape life on earth, with only whatever military training they already had. They're ostensibly going to protect the colonies from the Stys (a race of aliens no one has ever confirmed seeing), but the colonies are really stockpiling them as deterrents against each other. GGI is only too happy to sell to anyone.

There's also a subplot about two spies from another colony trying to force Larry to divert Foy-Rigger's warmen to their world instead. Which felt like a waste of time since Larry would be glad to get off Foy-Rigger, but he can't. The spies are never presented as any threat to him, at least. he has enough other threats to worry about. I think it's meant to be that he was targeted because he's the most vulnerable, the person involved with no support or protection, even though that's because he has no power or authority to actually do anything. His navigator and supervisor is unconcerned about Larry's safety because the GGI regs say he doesn't have to be. So he isn't. It's easier to just follow their rules and let them decide what he's supposed to think and do.

'He is astounded at the ship's position. But he's the navigator, I tell myself; he should keep better track of where we're supposed to be. It's another example of the stuff I have to put up with. He is all in one a mixed-up navigator and an ugly roommate and an unrelenting nag - and he is, unfortunately, along with GGI, all that I have. I do not have Ronna Mae anymore. I do not have my explo'd Mars shuttle. So that leaves Dobbin.'