The Backlash Mission (Venture SF Books) [Paperback]

"Blackcollar: The Backlash mission," first published in 1986, is the sequel to the 1983 edition of "The Blackcollar."

When he began writing SF, Timothy Zahn started off with novels about enhanced human super-warriors battling stereotypically evil aliens. For example he wrote a trilogy about the "Cobra" warriors, physically and cybernetically enhanced humans with weapons and reinforcements built into their bodies, who fought the evil Troft on humanity's borders.

The Blackcollar series follows in the same tradition. The series begins thirty years after all the human worlds of the former "Terran Democratic Empire" (TDE) had been conquered by the evil Ryqril invaders. A puppet government consists of humans who have been "loyalty-conditioned" so that they cannot disobey the Ryqril. A handful of resistance fighters are trying to work undercover for human independence but their position appears hopeless.

During the war, the most effective soldiers on the human side had been the Blackcollar: specially trained commandos given super-fast reflexes by the drug Backlash. By now the original Blackcollars are all old men, although they are still very dangerous. And with all the planets of the former human worlds under Ryquil control, there is no way for the resistance to train new Blackcollars.

In the first Blackcollar book Allen Caine, a member of the resistance from Earth, travelled to the remote human colony of Plinry in the hope of making contact with a group of "retired" Blackcollar soldiers and getting information about the whereabouts of a long-hidden TDE secret which might make the resistance more than a minor nuisance.

At the start of this second book, Allen Caine and several of his contemporaries have been trained in the Blackcollar fighting style, but they cannot become the real thing without a supply of the drug Backlash. This story starts out as the tale of their attempt to obtain a supply of this drug from the planet where the Ryquil occupation is strongest - Earth.

The first two Blackcollar novels, which Timothy Zahn wrote twenty years ago, are good, although not in quite the same league as the excellent and more imaginative books he has written recently.

Be careful when trying to collect the set if you are buying a mix or original 1980s versions and the 21st century editions. Don't buy this book if you already have the edition of "The Blackcollar" which was published three or four years ago, because that 21st century edition is actually a combined volume which includes both the original novel and this one.

"Blackcollar: the Judas Solution" which was published in 2006, is set a few months after "The Backlash Mission" and completes the story.

Because it was published as a follow-on to the 21st century combined edition of "The Blackcollar," the most recent book "The Judas Solution" has "Blackcollar 2" on the cover. However, in relation to the original two books as published in the 1980's, "The Judas Solution" stands as the third book of a trilogy.