You no doubt have at least heard of Yojimbo, a 1961 movie by Kurosawa, and widely considered one of his best. In the movie, a ronin hears of a town that has been taken over by a couple of rival gangs. He decides to have a look (he needs work, after all) and discovers that while the two gangs are roughly equal, the decent people have nearly all left or been killed, and neither gang seems to be seriously interested in changing the situation. Deciding that the town would be better off if they all died, he decides to join in, and through some moderately sneaky stratagems cause outright war between the two gangs. After a good amount of mayhem, our hero succeeds in getting most everybody dead, and leaves to continue his wandering.
This got remade as a Western in 1964 by Sergio Leone, A Fistful Of Dollars. The lead (Toshiro Mifune in the original) was played by Clint Eastwood in his first starring role, and the success of the movie led to further spaghetti westerns and a long career for Eastwood.
And now, browsing around in the science fiction shelves of the library, I find Red Noise, by John P. Murphy. A solitary asteroid miner has a military background, but sickened by war and death, now prefers to be millions of miles from humanity, growing orchids and bonsai for entertainment. However, she needs fuel and food, so has to head to the nearest space station where she can sell her load of ore and re-provision. When she gets there, she finds that the station has been taken over by a couple of gangs, most of the non-criminal population has left or been killed, and nobody seems interested in changing the situation. Since she can't leave, she decides to clarify matters by arranging for most of the crooks to get killed. Etc etc.
Re-using source material by transferring it to an SF milieu is an old tradition. The question is, does it make a good story in the new context? And is it entertaining? I'd say Red Noise is pretty successful. There's a lot of death and violence, of course, but it moves at a good pace, and there's enough humor to lighten the mood a little and keep you reading.
Does it have deep insights into human nature? Did it make me want to find other books by this author, and maybe other stories with this hero? No, and not exactly. This may have been the first novel by this author, and if it is, it is actually very good indeed for a first novel. If I see other books by John P. Murphy, I will definitely have a look, but I don't find myself motivated to go hunting for them. So a qualified endorsement from me.
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