Plot: 6/9. Plots follow the classic template of Halloween Film or a hero’s Odessa. I would give a higher score if Hamilton could depict characters more lively and add more humor to their conversation rather than cast a bunch of explanation to the hero.
0 Prologue: Ran Rarak’s ship was called back from the Federation Fleet by the Bureau of Astronomical Knowledge on Neptune suddenly and strangely. Hurus Hol, chief of the Bureau, here assigned him a mission of approaching dark star and swerving it away from the solar system. So Ran Rarak and other cruisers plumbed themselves into inconceivable darkness of infinite space to save their threatened sun. (Thus began the hero’s unredeemable adventure.)
1st obstacle: They encountered a whirlpool of ether-currents and lost 4 ships.
2nd obstacle: They found there existed a civilization on the star which crushed them badly. But they survived. (And the 16th ship managed to escape.)
3rd obstacle: The rear of Ran Rarak’s cruise was stricken and fell to the ground. But they were not found due to the vegetation and broken projectors could be replaced.
4th obstacle: They investigate the aliens hot-headly since the alien had a curfew. They found the master switchboard but they were caught by their guardians. Ran Rarak finally woke up and Hurus Hol told him all the truth he knew from their “kind” aliens who just vivisected one of their friends but imprisoned the rest of them. (It’s the middle point where they found the truth and prepared for the last war.)
5 th obstacle: They found a metal coil left by a careless worker outside the gate. So Dal Nara, the second officer of Ran Rarak’s ship, got it through her long leg.
6th obstacle: They barely broke the wall of cell in time. But the alien came back without calling more aliens. Rarak killed it in high space. So they got out of the prison.
7th obstacle: The time was on. Before they were killed by enemies’ cones, their ship which had hibernated for so many weeks saved them on time.
8th obstacle: Ran Rarak was about to turn off the switch because it’s their only chance to save the sun on time. But ship’s ray-tube was out of the last charge. When they waited for death in a weaponless and motionless manner, their Federation came to save their ass.
9th obstacle: The dark star was crossing the bottom line of threatening the sun, but the Federation cruisers were occupied in their own fights. So Ran Rarak just rammed the switch to stop the star.
The commonplace story ended with a banal epilogue.