Fledgling spaceflight tale fitting for the 50th Moonshot Anniversary!An entertaining story of a lost galactic empire restoring colony worlds, including one launching a nascent space program to earn a measure of political independence! Brilliant.

Decent pulpish science fiction with nothing too terribly amazing. Set in the Second Empire universe (think The Mote in Gods Eye - King David's Spaceship has an obligatory call out to Mote of course).Anyway, nothing outstanding or amazing here. Nothing awful either.

Thoroughly enjoyable read from one of my all time favourite authors.

One of my favourites

Scifi story where following the collapse of a galactic empire a planet just re-discovering steam power is conquered by people on a space-faring world. If they are not to be relegated to being a second-class colony world they need to demonstrate their technological advancement by building a spaceship.Intrigue, interstellar travel, battles with primitive weapons, interesting characters, just a fun read. Might give it five stars if it were available on ebook.

I picked this off the shelf to read following Jerry Pournelle's recent passing. I've enjoyed the books he wrote with Larry Niven, but I've only read a bit of Pournelle's writing without Niven as a partner.Since reading it, I've called A Mote in God's Eye the greatest Star Trek adventure ever written. This book reinforces that thought. The "Federation" has a prime directive. A technologically immature planet works for an advantage, skating around the edge of the Prime Directive. It's a quick and

King David’s Spaceship is the first book by Jerry Pournelle I remember reading. I picked it up from the local library in 2006, and I could not put it down. Colonel Nathan MacKinnie’s desperate quest to find a forgotten database of ancient technology on a barbaric planet, and then spirit that information home under the watchful eyes of the Imperial Navy is a classic adventure. Jerry Pournelle’s style is the place where intrigue, politics, and technology meet, often with a heavy dose of military t...

This is old-school, old fashioned science fiction. With space ships, and swords. The characters are a little thin, but the pace is quick, and the everything moves right along. The plot is fairly preposterous, but fun. If it written in 2017, it wouldn't fly. But for it's time, it's fine, and nostalgic.

Cheesy but fun. I have a special place in my heart for this sort of Sci Fi.

Great!Great introduction to the universe of CoDominium. And it is a fun and fast-paced reading. I'm highly recommending it to readers.

1988 grade B+2021 grade A-ISBN 0-671-43105-6 (1981)aka "Spaceship For The King"ITEM NUMBER 451-UQ1042-093I actually own it in both titles.This is actually a grade A novel. It is just the settings (a primitive planet and a feudal steam era planet), and the warfare content in the middle that brings it down to B level. The story starts and ends on the steam era planet whose people hitch a round trip ride with the Earth space empire to the primitive planet. There they fight a war to protect an ancie...

'A Spaceship for the King' was the title of the original serial version in Analog Magazine. Jerry added a few new scenes when it was packaged as a novel and published under the title 'King David's Spaceship'. The book is interesting for the characters and the environment. On one hand you have the Empire, star-faring and re-uniting worlds after the collapse, and the out worlds that have collapsed back to pre-industrial civilizations. The juxtapositions of these technologies is striking, but the s...

DAW Collectors #42Cover Artist: Kelly FreasName: Pournelle, Jerry Eugene, Birthplace: Shreveport, Louisiana, USA (Birthdate: 7 August 1933 - :8 September 2017)Alternate Names: Wade CurtisIt is rumored Jack Vance might have provided the template for the scout service.Pournelle won the first John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1973. He collaborated with Larry Niven on "The Mote in God’s Eye", "Inferno" and "Lucifer’s Hammer"His first SF publication, “Peace with Honor” in Analog (1971),

OK, first of all, when you see the title "King David's Spaceship", don't you think about King David from the Bible? I was thinking maybe David defeats Goliath, becomes king, and then decides to really kick some Philistine ass by sending a rocket to the moon. No such luck. I bought this book because I was intrigued by the idea of a relatively backwards civilization building a spaceship, but most of the book is taken up with various tangential adventures. Pournelle's characters, as always, are fla...

Reading this novel was like chewing through a wet sand sandwich. The premise was promising: The planet Prince Samual's World is in the process of being colonized, and it will be categorized on the basis of its level of technological achievement. Within the colonizing empire, those worlds which have attained space flight are accorded higher status, along with greater power and autonomy. An expedition of ostensible traders (actually a para-military detachment) hitch a ride on an imperial ship to t...

One of Jerry's Best TalesAs far as military science fiction goes, few authors are as good at it as Jerry Pournelle. It is unfortunate that he is no longer with us! The story tells of the struggle of a newly discoved and relatively low tech world to avoid being colonized by the Second Empire of Man. This involves a secret mission to obtain sufficient new tech to avoid this fate, ironically from a world that is even more primitive. Not only must Colonel MacKinnie bring back these secrets, he has t...

Trying to remember when I first read this book, this may have very well been my first encounter with the "hard sci-fi" genre, though looking back I wouldn't firmly put this book on that side of the aisle. I picked it up because I really wanted to read "The Mote in God’s Eye" and "The Gripping Hand" and someone suggested I start with this one first. To this day I don't know why. It was recommended to me in a backwards way that unfortunately biased me against the story: someone suggested it resemb...

I was in the midst of reading A Spaceship For The King when I heard of Jerry Pournelle's passing. Very saddened for our loss of another great writer; I will miss his Chaos Manor musings.It appears by the comments left here, that this book was expanded under a new name: King David's Spaceship.This DAW paperback appears to be the serial only, as it ends (view spoiler)[before they get off Makassar and return to Prince Samual's World and build a spaceship. (hide spoiler)]This book was an enjoyable r...

Pournelle, who has recently died, wrote this book in 1980, and parts of it suffer from its age. For example, he tries to have a strong female character, but she violates Bechdel's test repeatedly and ends up the 20-something consort to the 50-something hero [buzzer sound followed by ejection-seat sound]. And the treatment of pseudo-Islamic characters is ignorant and offensive. And a kriss knife seems to be a rip off of Herbert's crysknife - so there's a bit of derivative thinking here. But there...

The spaceship in question occupies a whole whopping chapter. Most of the rest is, in order by word count, infantry tactics, minor political intrigue, and ship sailing technology.There's definitely a person this book is for, but that person is not me. That person was also likely born quite a bit before me, because the sexism is shockingly casual when read in 2021.If you like military history, you'll probably like this. If you like the idea of trying to build spaceships against long odds, try Step...