Jacob Steiner is a military commander aboard the United Star Systems Valiant battlecruiser.  They are given orders by Admiral Ralph Jamison that is meant to lead them to their deaths at the hands of the Seperatists.  Steiner is one of the few survivors of the battle.  He intends to avenge the death of Captain McKillip, leader of the Valiant, who was gathering evidence that Jamison was a traitor working for the Seperatists.  Steiner’s revenge fails, and he is sent to prison for attempted murder against Admiral Jamison.  Jamison walks away unscathed; all the evidence McKillip had collected was stolen from his home by a burglar that also murdered his wife.  Steiner’s lawyer subsequently has to move the disgraced military man from prison to prison because inmates keep popping up trying to kill him, thanks to Jamison who will pay handsomely to erase Steiner from the picture.

Once a military man, always a military man, Steiner reluctantly signs on to captain a Penitentiary Assault Vehicle- a ship, crewed by convicts, to carry out dangerous missions behind enemy lines.  Of course, Jamison runs the PAV program.  On the first day, Steiner learns that Jamison has placed a bounty on his head.  And the money looks good to a ship full of criminals.  Also on board is Maxwell Tramer, or the cyborg that used to be Maxwell Tramer- the cyborg is the ships weapons officer.  Now dubbed “Killer Cyborg”, it/he watches every move Steiner makes, and when men begin popping up murdered on the ship, all fingers point to the Killer Cyborg.


Steiner has his hands full, sure enough.  With inmates wanting to cash in on the bounty, assassination attempts, rumors of mutiny, a Killer Cyborg, a dilapidated ship, and a war to fight, staying alive is a full time job for Steiner.  Luckily Steiner is bad ass to the max.

Prison Ship is not exactly what I thought it would be.  I thought the entire novel would be Steiner running around the ship with the inmate crew trying to kill him off around every corner until the last man was standing.  Not so.  Author Michael Bowers does have some of that, but he also throws in scenes of Steiner working the convicts into shape as a military unit, some nice battle sequences, espionage, and military intrigue.  This is a pulpy space adventure, and a decent one at that.

Decent, but not top of the line.  Prison Ship, despite an action oriented opening, starts a little slow, but the biggest downfall is the wooden writing; the prose is rather stilted.  Bowers never really thrills.  He zips along, but the book has no zing or zest.  And it all feels like it’s been done before.  Despite that, I did enjoy Prison Ship. If it were a movie, it, like The Mutant Chronicles, would best be viewed as a late night feature.

3 out of 5
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