The third in a series of four, short chapter books which launched the New Frontier series, The Two-Front War is more action-oriented than the earlier books, which were primarily concerned with establishing the cast and setting up the basic premise of the series. As the title of this book suggests, the plot is more or less divided along two parallel tracks. Si Cwan and Zak Kebron find themselves in a desperate struggle for their lives against old enemies of Cwan's. Cwan is searching for his younger sister, missing since the fall of the Thallonian Empire, and his enemies use this fact to lure Cwan and Kebron into a trap. Cwan's and Kebron's battle against their adversaries is intense and violent, and makes for compelling reading.
Somewhat less compelling is Captain Calhoun and the Excalibur crew's rescue of a freighter captain and the large group of refugees he had been transporting until their ship was damaged in a firefight between two warring alien races. A seemingly benign group of aliens offers a safe haven to the refugees, but, as Calhoun suspects, their motives are revealed to be sinister. The situation the Excalibur crew find themselves in, while not wholly original, is good for showcasing the personalities of the characters, as the captain is forced to make some difficult decisions. I think the challenge for the New Frontier books going forward will be to see if they can come up with some truly interesting adversaries, new villains who are as complex and compelling as the Excalibur's crew. Because the Excalibur is exploring a previously unknown sector of space, the situation is similar to that of Star Trek: Voyager, where the writers could not rely on familiar alien races and had to invent new ones, at least until Voyager brought the Borg into play.
All of the characters come together again in book four, the epic conclusion to the first New Frontier adventure.
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