Kevin Ikenberry's Deathangel

(Fair Warning: Deathangel is a book in the Four Horsemen Universe and I'm the Public Relations officer for The Mercenary Guild: The Official Fanclub of the Four Horsemen Universe. I'd like to think I'm being objective here, but honestly, I'd like to think of myself as rich and good looking too.)

Welcome to Day 3 of my five day Memorial Day Weekend Event. I know today is the end of the weekend and I've got two days left, but honestly my plans went to crap because I've been sleeping too much. Life sucks sometimes. 

Anyway...

Today's victim is Kevin Ikenberry, a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, having served as an armor officer and in Space Command. He says he got to play with a lot of cool toys as a member of Space Command. I wanted to ask what they were but I didn't because I don't need to be arrested for espionage if any of it is classified. I mean, I love the vets and I love my readers but I love my kids too and if I get busted for espionage I don't get separated from them.

I hear you out there....


But Jimbo, what about the book?

Kevin Ikenberry's Death Angel makes me want to break out into song. I mean think about it. You've hear Earth Angel right? The oldies track. Dig this:

Death Angel, Death Angel,
Will you be mi-ine
Bounty Hunter
Shooting all the time
I'm just a fool
That loves to read 'bout you...

Or maybe you're a fan of Aerosmith and their song
Jamie's Got a Gun
Tara's got a gun
Tara's got a gun
What did the villains do
It's Tara's last IOU

They say when Tara finally caught them
She lit them all up like a flame!...

Or sumfin'

Look, I dunno where I'm going with this. It's just a thought I had but it was a fun one.

Now, I did something I neeever, eeeeever do. I uh...

*looks over right shoulder*

*looks over left shoulder*

Uhh...

I read a book out of order. I haven't done that since junior high back about thirty years ago. (Wow, all the people I went to junior high with are thirty years older than they were then. It sucks to be them.) Let's face it though, Ikenberry is a vet and this is Jimbo's. I do my best to take care of my vets and if that makes it necessary to read things out of order I guess I'll survive.

I'm glad I did too because there is some seriously good stuff here. I read this entire book in a day. That's quick for me. It actually took me away from a Harry Potter marathon on SyFy and that's not easy to do. So props to Ikenberry for creating a book of such amazing distractivity? Distractiveness? Distractnisitude?

Ah, screw it. The Colonel wrote himself a good book and should be proud. There that at least makes sense.

*SIGH*

Anyway...

This is the story of a commanding officer, the aforemention Tara Mason and a unit she is attempting to build. At the beginning there is no joy in Mudville. She's got one dude he desperately needs a collision of shoe leather with his third point of contract. He's a basic malcontent knowitall type. She has a mission and a team of four. Her life is not quite impossible but it could be a lot easier for sure. And when she goes somewhere to find more people, things get ugly.

Of course, this is the Four Horsemen Universe and these are not romance novels. Things go boom. This go blast. There may or may not be a rather large thump involved somewhere and I'm telling you that read like it hurt. Like  bad. I'm not saying what but I will say I'm glad it wasn't me.

One of my favorite things about the Four Horsemen Universe novels has always been the technology and Ikenberry did not stint on that. We've got the space ships and the CASPERs and the MACs and probably something else I'm forgetting about. We've definitely got medical nanotechnology that's really impressive. The beauty of it is when modern day tech gets added in as well. In one moment, we've got an almost Artificial Intelligence and the next you've got a person with a semi-automatic pistol. It's a mixture of the fantastic and the familiar on par with Firefly.

Once again, we have a military man writing mercs. If you read my review of Chris Kennedy's Asbaran Solutions you know that worries me. Mercs don't work like a real military. Once again though, this is an author that gets it right. I wonder how much help he got from Chris on this. I guess I'll never know, but the atmosphere works. The mercs in the book act in a reasonable manner, and there actually is something approaching a normal military. The fact that Ikenberry got that right is, perhaps, a bit less surprising but he got it right, so I guess I can do without the surprise at this point.

Of course, Tara and her crew are neither regular military or mercs. They're bounty hunters working under the auspices of the Peacemaker Guild. The Peacemakers are basically the police of the Galactic Union, which has a lot less laws than your average modern day American would probably expect. Honestly, they have more of a Texas Ranger vibe and less of the feeling of a uniformed officer in a patrol car, but I like that about them. They're hardcore and they get the job done.

There is a lot on the line in Deathangel. Possession of an entire planet for one. Being a work of military fiction (or near enough anyway) there are many life and death moments. Things need to be seized, meaning that they must also be defended. No one is quite sure why or what's going on but that's accurate to the real world. The Confederate Soldiers at Gettysburg were looking to forage shoes. I've often wondered if the Union Generals learned that at any point during the battle and whether or not they would have changed their tactics if they did. Tara and friends aren't really sure what to defend at one point and it shows. She ends up making a lot of adjustments to make up for that lack of knowledge.

I only have one complaint about this book and I'm probably just whining. The Epilogue is there solely to set up the next book and for being an epilogue it is loooong. I've never been a fan of prologues or epilogues in general and well, this one didn't add a whole lot to the actual story that I was reading. Now, I am a bit behind in the series compared to where Deathangel comes and maybe a bit more knowledge would have helped, but as it sits I don't see a whole lot of need for it. 

Something I always do when I review a book that comes late in a series is to share my thoughts on whether it works as a standalone or not and this time I'm not sure. You definitely don't have to have read all of the books before Deathangel to enjoy it because I haven't read them all and I do enjoy it. That much being said, this is a well developed and rich universe and there are a lot of concepts that might not be understandable if you're coming in cold. I mean, I understood it all, but I've read the first ten-ish books in the series. That's different. So, I dunno. Maybe start with Cartwright's Cavaliers and just look forward to this one. I know I already can't wait to re-read it in context once I get there.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 MAC rounds

Deathangel
Kevin Ikenberry
Seventh Seal Press, 2019

Deathangel  is available for purchase at the following link: