Chris Kennedy's Occupied Seattle

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This is the second installation of my Memorial Day weekend binge of reviews of books written by veterans of the American armed forces and featuring the United States Armed Forces in action. Mr. Kennedy is a former Naval Aviator. He flew the A-6E Intruder bomber off of carriers as well as the EP-3E reconaissance aircraft. He flew during the Kosovo conflict and during Desert Shield and Storm. He retired after 20 years as a Commander. Oh, and yes it's more Speculative Fiction than Science Fiction, but who gives a rip? It's a good book.

(Astute readers will notice that this is precisely the same paragraph I used before I reviewed Red Tide last year, almost like it was cut and pasted. What a weird coincidence. Oh, and I just got home from church and need to leave for work in a bit so this may be a little shorter than normal. My apologies to Mr. Kennedy. I hope he doesn't mind.)

WARNING WARNING WARNING: Reading Chris Kennedy's Occupied Seattle before you have to be someplace is contraindicated. It is also a bad idea to think you'll get to bed on time while reading this one. I mean seriously, you might want to contact your significant other and inform them that you'll be missing for probably about half the time it would normally read a book. Why only half? Because you'll be so engrossed you'll be done in half the amount of time that you usually would. Yeah, it's that good.

I like the way the plot works in this one. Speaking as a dude with a history degree who has done a lot of reading of military history, a lot of crap in war happens because something weird happens somewhere. Seriously, the mass bombing of London, and thereafter Germany, during World War Two happened because a German bomber got lost and jettisoned its bomb load over a civilian area (as opposed the the RAF base it was meant for). I seriously doubt that the Pentagon would plan to repel an invasion look anything like what happens in Occupied Seattle but the scenario contained in the book is actually believable.

Equally as important to the plot of Occupied Seattle is the old adage that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Contingency planning is a good thing, but the other guy gets a vote in how things go too. Neither side gets everything to go right, but the plot hinges on the small things that add up to big ones. It makes sense. War is a very human endeavor and things go wrong all the time. It's good to see a book that uses that very premise.


It's not my first time noting this, and I should probably be used to it by now, but it's always surprising to read a work written by a flyboy that does ground combat this well. The combat in Occupied Seattle is fast paced and frequent. This is the story of the US repelling a Chinese invasion of Seattle. There needs to be fighting. Kennedy does it well. I mean, Asbaran Solutions is still the best written ground combat I've read, but I think Kennedy will be okay with that, since he wrote Asbaran Solutions too. And that's saying something: I'm a huge Tom Kratman fan and he's a former infantry officer. I know good military fiction when I read it, and Kennedy has the technique down.

Of course, you'll get some sea and air combat as well. Kennedy does that superbly, but that's what he's experienced with in the real world, so it's kind of what I expected. That's not to say it was done well; far from it. I enjoyed those parts of the book immensely. I just knew that I would. 

I love the characters in this book as well. Whether it's two twins trying to outdo each other, or a pilot running a ground unit, they're well thought out and make sense. No one is perfect, not even the members of the military in the book. I can think of one particular Master Chief that doesn't quite fit the stereotype too. That's okay. People are people and they don't always fit into neat little boxes.

The civilians in the book act right as well. Americans are not lemmings who would follow an invader to their own doom. They wouldn't take an invasion lying down and they don't. Oh,and of course the American citizenry has a high incidence of firearms ownership and a large number of veterans mixed in. Kennedy nails the attitude of the common man perfectly.

I remember taking a writing class in college and my professor informing me that I used too many characters. I also know I've read a ton of books that had and needed a Dramatis Personae in the back. Kennedy manages to avoid all of that. There are enough characters here to make the story work but not enough to create needless clutter.

And that's it because I was supposed to leave here five minutes ago.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Expended Rounds

Chris Kennedy
Occupied Seattle
Theogony Books, 2015

Occupied Seattle is available for purchase at the following link: