Robert Markham is a journalist. He's determined to become the most well known journalist of his generation and to ensure his legacy long outlives him, guaranteeing him a kind of immortality. To this end he is ruthless to the extreme and willing to consider little else than pursuing his objectives.

His current objective is Dr Michael Drake. Drake is a hero of the democracy having discovered a cure for Ybonia, a disease that was ravaging the human and certain other alien populations of the galaxy. This disease though has mutated and the new strain, resistant to Drake's original cure, is rampant.

Drake is considered by Markham to be the best chance for a cure for this disease. And rescuing him the best chance Markham has for fame. The only thing is that no one has seen Drake for fifteen years since he disappeared into the jungle of the planet of Bushveld and is believed long dead. Markham does not believe this to be the case and is putting together a team to search him out and bring him back to the Democracy.

Markham is a determined man, he's unpleasant self-centred, insensitive to the needs and feelings of others – most especially if the others in question are the Bushveld natives, a mammalian species known as Orange-Eyes, who are acting as the porters for the exedition.

Enoch Stone is the story's moral perspective. He's hired as the guide of the expedition, as he spent time of Bushveld some years earlier and has the knowledge of the equipment and personnel required by such an expedition.

It's his objections to Markham's casual disregard for life, both human and alien, that keep this story on the ground. In Resnick's Birthright Universe there are periods where mankind achieves total domination of the galaxy and during these periods most alien races are persecuted and oppressed, sometimes mercilessly.

Without a counterpoint to this mood of total human dominance this kind of story would lose its effect. Stone's character is the most important in this book, and not just because he is the first person narrator. Without his viewpoint some of the atrocities of Markham would not made the effect they do.

This novel shows the author's love of Africa. This may be a novel set in the far future during the height of a human controlled galaxy. It may feature alien races and high technology but it is still a story that could have taken place in a part of Africa during the British Empire of the nineteenth century.

It's a refreshing read. We are in an age of super-thick novels, of books of 500+ pages. But this book is 200 pages because the story needs 200 pages and no more. Resnick does not do padding. He writes in a concise, clear manner. And whenever I read one of his stories I just want to read another.