Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

Just a quick book-note: this morning I finished The Duke of Uranium, by John Barnes. This is a colorful SF adventure story that's a pure romp -- action, romance, and some actual "sensawunda" to boot, about a young man in the 36th century who falls into adventure when his girlfriend is kidnapped. He's plunged into the standard world of intrigue and interplanetary adventure when he embarks on a mission to get his girlfriend back. It turns out, of course, that she's not who he thinks she is; but then, this is one of those books where nobody is who he thinks they are. The book isn't loaded with surprises, but surprises aren't the point in this kind of story. The point is the sharply drawn characters, the interesting background (Barnes gives a lot of hints-in-passing of the history that intervenes between now and AD 3600), and the excellent pacing. SF is such a versatile genre. You can have tragedy, or thought-provoking literature, or mind-expanding stories about the universe and our place in it, or extrapolations of our possible future as a species -- and you can have just plain fun, which is what The Duke of Uranium is all about. Highly recommended.

(This is the first in a series.)