Dan Abnett's Horus Rising

I have a confession to make. This is my Science Fiction and Fantasy Review blog. I've had it for eight whole years now. I like to consider myself an expert in all matters Science Fiction and Fantasy and, if you're not one, I can probably fool you into believing it, too. One of the reasons I say "fool" is that, before very recently, I had only a concept of the whole "grimdark" sub-genre. I mean, the name is pretty much self-explanatory but I hadn't actually read any of it for myself.

When considering what I should read to acquaint myself with such a sub-genre a pretty obvious candidate arose: The Warhammer 40k universe is the original grimdark universe and it is very easily available, as long as you don't mind robbing a bank to get it. I mean, it's not as expensive as buying the minis, but I've never played the game. I just know what the books cost. But that led me to another problem: 40k is a freaking gargantuan universe. I mean, I've seen bit universes before. I'm a fan of the Four Horsemen Universe. I love pretty much any Dungeons & Dragons fiction, but I'm  a bigger fan of Dragonlance than pretty much anything else and the amount of fiction in that universe alone can be just a  bit daunting. Neither of those, both of those put together, don't come near the amount of fiction in the 40k universe. I didn't want to randomly select whatever. That's just not me, so I went researching.

In researching my choice of a starting point, the one constant suggestion was The Horus Heresy, but the one thing every person who made a list recommended not reading was also The Horus Heresy. Apparently, fifty-four books (plus, I gather, a few more anthologies) is too much for some of these lightweights. But not Jimbo. Oh, no. The 4HU is almost that size now, and Dragonlance is even bigger. BRING IT!

So, off I went in search of tasty treats to my local Amazon website and found the first book: Dan Abnett's Horus Rising. It wasn't hard to find. Type the name in, up it pops, there goes my money and BAM! I'm lost in space riding along with the feared Luna Wolves on their mission to make planet Sixty-Three Nineteen compliant with the edicts of the emperor. 

What followed was a lot of fun. If you're as into giant space battles and armored troops charging face first into gunfire, you can't miss this book. If you look a little bit of political intrigue to spice things up you can't go wrong. If you look for the bond between brothers that have faced combat you're in the right place. I was carried along right from the beginning and finished the whole book in basically three days. It was amazing.

What I hadn't counted on was the way Horus Rising and its author, Dan Abnett, dealt with the moral implications of making war. There is a lot more to this book than its awesome action sequences. The Warmaster, the aforementioned Horus, has a collection of captains under him which form the "Mournival", a group of men which act as advisors and the collective conscience of the Luna Wolves.  I was a bit surprised by this. It had an almost Japanese air to it, like an idealized samurai drama, only the code of the Legions is nowhere near the Code of Bushido. It's more like the warrior-philosopher thing, the feeling that the code makes things right  and that it's what a warrior should live for.

The warriors, the Luna Wolves and their brothers in the other Legions, are dedicated to the truth as they see it. This is a philosophy of pure science. It is openly derogatory toward religion and I can't say I was all that happy with it. I'm a Christian, after all, and Christianity is no more welcome in the Legions or on Terra than any other religion. I can live with it though, because it's fictional. Still and all, it led to a bit of a villainous air to this story's heroes. I kind of like that though. Even the good guys aren't good. That's grimdark, right?

Missing from the first novel were the references I had gained from others. The Luna Wolves travel through space to fight a fierce enemy upon receiving a distress call but I don't remember any reference to "psykers" (assuming that I spelled that right) being burned alive. Clearly, there is more to this story and I need to keep reading, but I'm okay with that.

I've heard people wonder if it's possible to enjoy 40k fiction without playing the game. I can honestly say that I've never sat a 40k table and I've never read a single one of their rulebooks, but I loved Horus Rising. There is so much here. I don't feel like I've missed a single bit of background necessary to understand what's going on. I do feel like Abnett went out of his way to make sure he included what was there, but he does it without making his worldbuilding overly obvious. Some would refer to this as "Heinleining" in the details and they're not wrong.

I have to admit that I have seen several posters with 40k troopers carrying swords and chainsaw swords alongside their guns. I always thought that was leaning heavily on the goofy side, but if you read Horus Rising it suddenly makes sense. These are troops that use their weapons effectively and their swords are no exception. If some of them seem to like sword work a little too much that's okay. I enjoyed that part of the story and it's not like they don't have other ways to combat the enemy when a sword isn't what's appropriate.

I'm forced to admit that I can't wait to get and read the sequel. It's my understanding that this is a shared universe, but I've read plenty of those (to include the 4HU and Dragonlance) and that just makes me enjoy a series more. There is something about reading a long series by a single author that I really enjoy, but a new voice keeps things fresh. I'll be headed to download False Gods soon. I can't wait.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Cracked Carapaces

Horus Rising
Dan Abnett
Black Library, 2016

Horus Rising is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Horus Rising

DT Read's Echoes of Issel The Sergey Chronicles: Book Two

 

I remember seeing something D. T. Read had written about one of her Seventh Shaman novels. She thought a lot of fans might not like it because it was less action oriented.  I can't remember which one it was (And this is a common failing of mine. ) but it focused on Ku, the main character of that series, and his coming terms with being a husband and a father during some leave time during a war. I kind of wonder if she thinks the same thing about Echoes of Issel. I hope not. Seriously, not all of Science Fiction has to be space battles and explosions. Echoes of Issel has both of those, but this is a really phenomenal character driven drama.

Some of you missed the first book in The Sergey Chronicles, Ganwold's Child. You should be ashamed of yourselves. That much having been said, Tristan, the main character of both books, kills his first person in combat at the end of Ganwold's Child. If you've done the reading (and I have)  a lot of combat vets suffer from PTSD not from the horror and fear of combat, but because of what they were forced to do. A lot of Echoes is Tristan trying to recover from his PTSD related to that kill, and it makes sense.

A lot of Echoes of Issel is also Tristan and the rest of his nuclear family, his father Lujan and mother Darcie, as they try to become a family again after years of separation. As well as Read writes her action sequences, her forte really seems to be family interactions and bonding. She knocked it out of the park here. She obviously put some study in for this one. Some of what her psychologist character says sounds like it comes almost straight out of a textbook. I'm guessing it might. Seeing that study put into use as she takes us through Tristan's actions toward his father especially was amazing. Then add in a dash of a stranger in a new land (Darcie raised Tris among aliens) and things get really complicated. Read works through things with her typical aplomb and if I may have felt a desire to get in Tristan's face a couple of times that just means that:

A.) I'm a crusty old dude who doesn't deal with teenagers being teenagers any better than the crusty old man who raised me.

and 

B.) Read got an emotional reaction out of her reader. Emotional response being the goal of any smart artist, that translates into "job well done."

None of that is to say that Echoes of Issel is all talk and no action. The second half of the book, following a training interlude, is almost a straight Military Science Fiction action novel. Tristan remains a civilian but goes to war as a civilian scout attached to a Special Operations unit. Things get hectic.

In fact, Echoes of Issel  was part thriller, part medical drama and part Mil-SF. There is a lot here and it's actually impressive to see all of that in one book and have it work. 

Totally non-spoilery hint:

Don't mess with that Sergey kid.

Anyway...

I had gone into Echoes of Issel with full knowledge of the fact that Tris would be joining a SpecOps unit, but I don't think I was totally prepared for it. Most of the combat in Read's books, at least the ones I've read, have been mainly space battles. Fighter versus fighter, ship versus ship, etc. The combat in Echoes is much more up close and personal. Tris is fighting on foot with a rifle for the combat sequences. I should have expected that, but for some reason it caught me by surprise.

Huh?

Goofball? Me? You're just noticing that? Seriously? 

Your powers of observation are weak. 

Continuing on...

Read, being a retired Lieutenant Colonel, has a ton of knowledge and experience with things military and it shows. She has the military feel down. I expected that. What I didn't expect as much of was how well she integrated a young man with no real military experience into a military unit and made it feel real and make sense. I would expect members of a SpecOps unit to have reservations about having a civilian into their ranks and they do. But Tris, being an intelligent young man, earns his place in the unit and it feels organic. I could actually believe it happened as I read it. It felt right. I don't know how else to put it.

And Read's background as an intelligence officer shows through. She not only displays knowledge of how to conduct a debriefing, she also shows how that intelligence is put into use. There's a bit of ops planning revealed here, and I'd be willing to bet she sat in as a consultant during her military career as well. Echoes of Issel was not just well conceived. It was well executed.

The best Military Science Fiction always includes some political intrigue. Wars are, after all, an extension of policy using other means. The most talented authors not only acknowledge this basic truth, they use it as a tool to move their stories along. Echoes gives us just enough of the political end of things to move the story along without becoming overwhelming and bogging things down. I won't say precisely why, but I have a feeling that there is a political angle coming up in the next book, which I'm totally looking forward to.

I'm going to admit to being a bit miffed at myself here as well. I, was aware that Read was going to attempt to sell this series to Chris Kennedy Publishing (Theogony Books being their MilSF imprint) and I didn't get this book before CKP did the smart thing and bought it. It was totally for sale months ago. I had read the first one. I could have just flopped down the cash for Echoes of Issel and the next book (the title of which escapes me) months ago and I didn't. That was a mistake of titanic proportions. I’m kicking myself about it, if only because I still don’t have the last one in my greedy little hands. This is a problem which will, of course, be solved in due time but which was totally preventable. I'm looking forward to finally putting that problem to bed.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Borbiks

Echoes of Issel
D.T. Read
Theogony Books, 2023

Echoes of Issel is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Savage Wars (Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars Book 1) By Jason Anspach and Nick Cole

It's hard to believe, but just a few short years ago, I heard about this Nick Cole guy, and how he was this great GameLit author who had just been banned because he said something naughty. At the time I kind of pigeonholed the guy and decided he was a writer of GameLit (which I love) and I'd probably never see anything from him BUT GameLit. I was okay with that though, because he was good at it and, let's face it CTRL ALT REVOLT was a pretty awesome story and so was Soda Pop Soldier, although I seem to have failed to review the latter. My bad. My seriously bad, because Soda Pop Soldier was not just an awesome book, it was a gamers dream in a lot of ways. 

Oops.

Yes, that is my official excuse. 

Then one day, along comes this Anspach guy, throws him in the trunk and refuses to let Cole out till he agrees to co-author some awesome Military Science Fiction.

I mean, probably not. But that makes a good story, so that's what I'm going with.

Anyway...

This is a really awesome book. Apparently I missed it when it was first released because that's life in the salt mines, but I'm glad I got caught up.

It's weird because I hadn't read the Galaxy's Edge or Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars series and for some reason I assumed that the Savages would be some kind of alien. And they kind of are. The Savages in the book are humans who left Earth to settle the stars in sublight ships and have evolved into uhh...

Something? Post humans? Monsters?

I'm struggling to find the right term here. They are, however, definitely xenophobic toward both other groups of Savages (basically, anyone from a different ship) and the rest of the human race, including those that stayed behind on Earth and eventually moved out to populate the universe using faster than light ships and got their before the Savages. 

The Savages tend to invade a planet, take what they need and leave...

Eventually.

And at some point, they begin to obtain FTL engines and it's on. 

The scary part is that no one knows where they are out in the void. Anspach and Cole seem to have a grasp of the fact that space is freaking huge and there really is no way to find something in the Darkness if it doesn't want to be found. I like that. 

Our story starts right in the middle of a fight against the Savages when they invade New Vega. The fight is up-close, intense and personal. Neither author seems to have wanted to spare anyone the details and I like that. Too often, Military Science Fiction (as well as Military Fiction and quite frankly Military Non-Fiction) seem to want to shy away from the goriness of it all. This is war at its ugliest (or at least the ugliest it can be to those of us who don't experience it in person) and it feels real and gritty. 

Something else that feels real is the lack of true leadership at the highest levels. The feeling I get here (and I could be a bit off) is that the various human militaries that have been fielded for this battle are under the command of an entity that is a close analogue to the United Nations in terms of aim, purpose, usefulness, and competence. 

For those of you that missed it, that means that The Galactic Confederacy (Sort of. The GC is more of a hope than a governing body at this point) is  a group that wants to make things better, has no clue how to do so and stumbles over itself through cluelessness and a general lack of trust. I'm thinking that Savage Wars is a trilogy prequel and hopefully things get better for humanity's last great hope, but for right now I don't think much of them. Still though, the whole new society aborning thing does give Savage Wars a feel similar to the better parts of Star Trek: Enterprise only without the ending that I hated so badly. 

Our main characters are soldiers stuck in a war against an enemy that they can't understand. The trans-human nature of the enemy is something that they grapple with and eventually figure out, but it's not really like fighting typical human beings for the most part. Also, they Savages tend to enjoy a large technological advantage. And that brings up an interesting point.

I don't think you need to read the Galaxy's Edge series to enjoy Savage Wars because I haven't read the other series and I loved this book. I do, however think I may be missing something here. I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that the Savages have developed super weapons over centuries in space (and the alien super weapon thing is a theme in the story) with no reason given. It messes with my mind a bit. I mean, once you accept that they have everything that follows makes sense. I just feel like maybe there's a threat out there that I don't know about, or maybe they've made war against each other previously or...

I dunno, sumfin'

There are twists and turns aplenty in Savage Wars and that makes sense. War is not a static situation where one side can simply dictate how things go. Both sides have a say and things go wrong regardless of which side you happen to be on. If some things made me want to scream, then so be it. They work. Savage Wars, at least from the point of view of this fledgling author, seems to have been well planned and executed. The characters may not have known exactly how the Battle for New Vega was going to go, but the authors clearly did and if flows smoothly, believably and entertainingly.

Oof. I was feeling another -ly ending there and couldn't come up with one. Feel free to pretend it's there. 

Of course, we don't do spoilers here at Jimbo's and so I can't talk about my favorite part of the Savage Wars.  I will say that it's the best kind of twist: I had no clue before it happened and then couldn't believe I missed it afterward. I am, however, seriously peeved that I can't mention what I want to and totally plan to stick my tongue out at whichever author I meet if I ever happen across them at a con.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Crusty NCOs

Savage Wars (Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars Book 1)
Jason Anspach and Nick Cole
Wargate Nova, 2020

Savage Wars (Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars Book 1) is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage from Amazon at no additional cost to you.

The Backbone of Surprise by C.S. Ferguson and Greg Ferguson

So I, being me, picked up my copy (metaphorically. I read the e-book.) of The Backbone of Surprise by C.S. Ferguson and Greg Ferguson wide-eyed with curiosity and not knowing what to expect precisely. I knew I was getting a work of Military Science Fiction, but I didn't know much else besides that. The Amazon blurb gave me a bit more of a clue, but not much of one. It opens with a battle and that's always a good thing. I went from zero to "Let's find out what these heroes are made of," in nothing flat. And trust me. These heroes are no slouches.

But then things take a turn for the worse and something weird happens. For me, it started with "WTF?!?!?" proceeded to "OOOOUCH!!!" and then "NO REALLY, WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!!" I mean, yeah. That was rough. It was awesome, but I'm still in pain just thinking about reading that. Of course, our hero, Digger Stewart, had to find out what had just happened, too. And that's when you truly wander down the rabbit hole. And please believe me when I tell you that Alice ain't got nothin' on this book. It gets really weird, really quickly.

But, let's face it: We're science fiction fans. At least I am, and I'm not sure why you'd be here if you weren't. Weird is what we do. It's our main thing. Who else dresses up and goes to conventions? If you can do the Vulcan Hand Salute, the whole world thinks you're crazy. Drop a Star Wars quote, even an obvious one, and people think you're out of your mind. Well, trust me on this one. Digger ends up with so much weird in so little time, all while under fire, that he feels like a normie in the middle of a meeting of the 501st Division. 

And things just keeping going farther into the strange. Digger feels a little overwhelmed at first, then he has to get involved in the crazy (kinda the way you wished that one girl you dated in high school would have) and that's when things get interesting. He ends up in a military unit that he never knew existed (and doesn't exist on paper) doing things he never knew was possible and in parts it almost feels like there are two separate Science Fiction universes mixed here. It's a transportation thing, and it's just kinda...

Weird.

I love it. And it's not really a concept I haven't seen before, it's just that when it's mixed with another form of FTL travel that it has nothing in common with...

Yeah, that's not how us weirdos usually work. It's cool though and it makes some things possible...

Meanwhile, other things are happening and the enemy is bigger and more organized than the heroes know...

And that's where things got a little strange for even me. Don't get me wrong, it was an awesome kind of weird, but we're doing some things here that hit some hot buttons for a guy like me. 

The Backbone of Surprise is the first book in a series entitled The Transhuman War. Transhumanism is something that pushes a few buttons for me, and some of them are flat out contradictory. Since it's my blog, let's explore this for a second.

There are ethical concerns with transhumanism. The Holocaust (yep, Jimbo just Godwinned his own blog) was more about eugenics than it was about hatred. I know that's not how it's taught now, and believe me racism and hatred were a big part of it, but Hitler was breeding the Meister-Reiss and the people he had murdered were slaughtered because they didn't fit his definition of the perfect human. Whether it was for racial and ethnic reasons, because of congenital deformities, mental challenges, or sexual orientation, the Nazi movement was bent on engineering all of that out of the human genome. They decided to achieve their goals though mass slaughter and that taints everything that comes after.

There is also a religious angle with transhumanism and it's one I'm not fully qualified to discuss. (Jimbo spends too much time on SF/F to read theology too.) My ex-GF would get all fired up about this, but she's no longer with us. Suffice it to say that some people see it as a violation of God's plan for the human body. There may be Bible verses to back that, there may not. I haven't studied it.

And yet...

There are no death camps in The Backbone of Surprise. There are no persecuted minorities, although there are hints that the bio-engineered are leaning toward hating on normal humans, there doesn't seem to be a whole that they can do at the time of the book on a wide scale. And then there's this...

If I'm reading the backstory on this correctly, and I wasn't exactly taking notes, cybernetics in particular were outlawed because they were used in a war. There are a couple of different aspects of this that bother me:

1.) Wars aren't between people. They're between governments. People just get stuck doing the dirty work. Denying a person the ability to do something because some government official gave the wrong orders rankles me. 

2.) Government over-regulation makes me angry. Making yourself think quicker or run faster does nothing to harm another person. From my point of view most things that don't cause physical harm should be legal. And no, I'm not worried about your feelings. Those are a separate issue.

And our heroes are fighting for the government against people who make cybernetics and bionics. It's like gun control writ large. And, since I already Godwinned the post, it's worth mentioning that the first industrialized country to introduce nation wide gun control was Nazi Germany. And, let's face it, 

I'm a big fan of the people doing things that only governments used to be able to do, because that dilutes government power. Of course, when people want to use that same technology to build their own power base, results are mixed. And a lot of what Biofate, the bad guys in the book, are doing is geared toward an eventual takeover as well.

There's a lot to The Backbone of Surprise that I don't necessarily know how to classify in a real world sense, and I think it's good to have this discussion because a lot of the tech in the book will probably be available in the not-too distant future. It's better to have a plan, I guess. I just don't know what an intelligent plan looks like and how, or really even if, fairness plays into it.

Of course, none of that has anything to do with the entertainment value of The Backbone of Surprise and entertainment value is what I usually review based on. The Fergusons have given us the gift of a rollicking good time, fun characters, political intrigue and intense combat. I can't wait to get more of this series and I'll be checking the rest of the trilogy out soon. Even if it does make me think too much.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Broken Laws

The Backbone of Surprise
C.S. Ferguson and Greg Ferguson
Theogony Books, 2023

The Backbone of Surprise is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Blaine Lee Pardoe's Splashdown

I'm never going near water again and you can't make me.  Nope. You can sandblast me when I start to stink, but I'm done with anything clear and liquid looking. Seriously. Who  knows what lives in that stuff?  It could be aliens. Wait. I hear you laughing. There can't be aliens in the water, right? Well, actually, yes there can and all it took was Blaine Lee Pardoe to point it out. Splashdown is not his newest novel, he has a few others already published in his Land & Sea series (and I'm already about one hundred and fifty pages through the second one) but I just got around to reading it because I'm, like, a lazy nerd or sumfin'.

Probably. I mean maybe. Then again how many of you nerds have published over three hundred posts promoting the genre? So maybe I'm just goofy instead of lazy. I'm definitely something though.

Ok, so maybe I'll just say I should've read the book sooner.

At any rate, anything I had read by Pardoe previous to this (besides his interview here.) was in the Battletech Universe, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I did know that I've always loved both Pardoe's writing and his BT Mercenary unit, the Northwind Highlanders, but I had never read anything where he created his own setting before. I was a bit concerned, but I shouldn't have been. Splashdown is the best thing I've read by Pardoe and that, my friends, is a serious compliment indeed. 

As a kid my first love reading-wise was mysteries. I grew up not knowing much about the world of Speculative Fiction because my parents were mundanes. I was reading the Hardy Boys by the end of first grade. Of course, I later moved on to Speculative Fiction, but that love will always be there. I mention that because Splashdown, at least in part, reads like a mystery. It's a good one, too.

See, weird things start happening. A plane disappears. It is later found reassembled, on the sea floor under a whole bunch of water. (I'm not going to look up the exact depth. Let's just say it's diver squish deep.)  Some people disappear near the water. A ship goes to see and contact is lost. It's never seen again. And no one knows why.Well, except Pardoe and his readers, but that's the fun part. 

I know I mentioned that Splashdown reads like a mystery in parts, but it doesn't have the crusty old police detective you may be expecting at that point.   Nor is it truly a cozy. The investigators, rather than being a random housewife or crossing guard, are professionals of a different type. We have the military intelligence community, an investigative reporter, and a billionaire looking to profit off of the crisis doing the legwork. Well, sort of. The billionaire actually pays people to do the legwork, but you get the idea. 

And even once the humans find out that there is an alien presence, there's more of a mystery as well. Splashdown takes place in the year 2039, so the tech is a little more advanced than ours, but not by a whole lot.  Humanity doesn't really know what it's up against. These are not your standard Trek/Wars type "funny looking human" type aliens. These are actually aquatic species. Their armor and armament appear to be part of their bodies, but they're not the Borg. The weapons grow as a natural part of their anatomy. And what's worse, they don't work the way our weapons do, so defending against them, or defeating their armor, isn't as easy as it should be. 

That's not to say that Splashdown is only a mystery book. There is plenty of good, old-fashioned, ass-kickery to go around here. I'm just not going to tell you who it is that gets their asses kicked. Let's just say that the fights are well written, suspenseful, somewhat gory, and don't always go the way I want it to. Earth is hurting. Things are looking grim.

And of course, what's a Blaine Lee Pardoe book without robots? This time around they're known as ASHURs: Augmented Soft/Hard Unconvention Combat Rigs. These things are impressive. They come in various sizes and loadouts, but by and large, other than some specialized recon models, they pack about the same punch as a light or medium 'Mech in Battletech but are closer in size to the mecha that appear in Matrix Revolutions, or at least that's the impression I got of them. ASHURs are super cool and function almost as part of the infantry. I've been a fan of mecha since the early 80s and Robotech so seeing them so well done was a real treat.

The world Pardoe sets up in Splashdown is so intense and topsy-turvy that the government is actually forced to act in an intelligent manner. As hard as that would be in real life, Pardoe makes it work, in fiction at least, by putting the right person in charge and feeding him the people he needs. I love it. I'd like to see such an approach implemented here in the real world, but I probably never will. It reads like a common-sense loving person's dream though. 

My one complaint is that we don't know enough about the aliens and why they're here. That's tempered by the fact that we need to not know everything yet. The air of mystery I mentioned earlier is important to the story. I still want to know what these things are, where they came from and why they want to conquer my planet. Then again, this is book one of a series and I have faith that we'll learn more in the future. If I'd have picked this series up earlier, there's a good chance I would know what was going on. 

For right now, though, I'm just going to keep reading. I can't wait to see what comes next. There is some stuff going on that looks promising. There's more stuff going on that looks troublesome. I need to know how this all gets resolved. That's why I'm already about a third of the way through Riptides, the second book in the Land & Sea series. 

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Bouncing Alien Sand Fleas

Splashdown
Blaine Lee Pardoe
Wargate Nova, 2023

Splashdown is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you. 

Tom Kratman's A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex

(Welcome to Day Four of Jimbo's Memorial Day Extravaganza: You Can't Court Martial me for Being AWOL Because I'm A Civilian Edition. What's two weeks between friends, right? Seriously though, my apologies to both of the authors whose reviews came in late. 

Today, we honor Lieutenant Colonel Tom Kratman, US Army, retired. He served for a total of thirty-two years, primarily in the infantry but also in the Inspector General's Office and Public Affairs. He was deployed to Panama, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Egypt.If you don't follow him on Facebook for his stories of serving in Panama, you're dead wrong.  He was awarded both the Combat Infantry Badge and the Ranger Tab. He has also been married for forty-four years, has four daughters and a bunch of grandchildren.)

First off, the disclaimer: The Colonel, despite being an amazing author, has the tendency to put things into a story that will probably put about seventy-five percent of the populations knickers in a twist at some point. If it's not his blatant disregard for the point of view of Transnational Socialists (who he styles as "tranzies") it's the rampant sexuality often expressed by those same people in his books. Things can get pretty explicit. If we're being real with each other, I may be tempted to point out that I love his books for those reasons among others, but if you're the easily triggered type, I'm sure that there's a Sweet Valley High book out there for you somewhere.  My sister liked those when she was about thirteen. Or maybe you could go all Dumbledore and peruse some knitting patterns. Either way, buckle up when you pick up a Kratman novel, because things are always interesting and the man just Does. Not. Flinch.

Anyway...

I'm reviewing these two books together because when I contacted the Colonel for his interview (and thank you to him and all the other authors who have replied over the years. I really have been blessed.) he mentioned that they were intended to be one book but he went a little long. I'm okay with that. I had a lot of fun with them.

The series (I think it's called the Carrera-verse) starts out on a planet named Terra Nova on their version of September 11, 2001. It brought back a lot of that day for me, even if the details were (necessarily) different. What our hero, Patrick Henessy (later restyled as Patricio Carrera) goes through that day is unthinkable. It changes him, and he was already leaning on the harsh side as I remember it. He crawls into a bottle for a bit, but once he comes out, look out!

A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex are both books about training and equipping a force to fight a war and then actually fight the war. Kratman's military experience shows here. He has the expertise to know how to train a force to fight effectively. These novels live and breathe authenticity. They also live a breathe a certain attitude.

Kratman would not be a good guy to go to war against, and neither is Carrera. Some of the methods that Carrera's troops use, both in and out of combat, do not meet up to the standards of the Geneva Convention. That's okay with me though, because the people he's fighting are not privileged combatants under the Convention and don't enjoy it's protections.  A Desert Called Peace is one of the very few (maybe the only) books where I would encourage a reader to read the notes at the beginning. There is something there that is very pointed and which would be well taken. I know I went back and read it AGAIN to make sure I got it right the first time I read these books. And then I read it a third time when I re-read these for the review. Seriously, it's shorter than any of my blog posts, but it lets you into the head of the author.

Wait.

I feel like I'm forgetting something. Is there something else I should be writing about?

OH YEAH! THE PLOT OF THE BOOKS!!!

Listen, Carrera goes from a retired gentlemen to a general leading an army in all but name quickly. It works though. I really got the feeling that it was something he was born to do and it just took him longer than it should have to realize it. He has more than enough motivation to do so once he gets going after a shock worse than many people could have survived. Carrera comes up with a plan, finds people to help him bring it to life and moves with alacrity to get involved in a war that is maybe a little more personal to him than it should be for a leader.

Seriously, just about every decision Carrera makes sense in context but, taken as a whole, I'm not sure the guy is exactly sane. The thing is that he's crazy like a fox. He seems a bit obsessed at times and approves things that I'm not sure I ever could, but he gets the job done. I would compare Carrera to Ben Sisco from ST:DS9 on one of his worst days. I mean, Carrera never actually did anything that would kill every human on the planet, but he LIVED on the planet he was fighting on. 

Then there's his other side: Carrera does absolutely everything he can to take care of his troops. Granted, he's the commander of a mercenary unit and doesn't have to force things through the legislature ala the Veteran's Administration in the US,  and that does make it easier, but he does whatever he can. Whether it's medical care, a pension for those wounded in combat, or even an extended version of the GI Bill's educational benefits. Speaking as the guy with the history degree, the first US president to not do enough for his soldiers was Washington, and there hasn't been a president that got it right since. 

And Carrera, like Cisco, is not a heartless monster. He loves and protects not just his men, but his family. It's the loss of his wife and children that push him into action and lead him to found the Legio del Cid to begin with. Carrera is a more complicated, fully formed human being than almost any other protagonist I've read.

And I  haven't even touched the action in ADCP and Carnifex. I could read these books for the action sequences alone and be satisfied. They're gritty and realistic. What they are not is a World War II propaganda film. Kratman's action sequences are ugly and violent, they way they should be. He has been there and done that and doesn't spare the details. 

Of course, there's also the politics. Hennesy/Carrera starts out in the Republic of Balboa, which is totally not Panama. Obviously. It's on another planet, see? But when he starts a mercenary army in the heart of the country, he attracts some seriously negative attention. And then there's his relationship with the Federated States of Columbia, who should never be mistaken for the US. Nope. Not at all.  

And of course, there is politics on the other side, with the United Earth Peace Fleet (not the UN) and the actual enemy, an army of Islamofascists that may remind an uncharitable individual of Al Qaeda. Kratman does a good job of showing both sides, although he has an obvious rooting interest. I'm okay with that though. It matches mine.  

In short, if you want to read something that is entertaining, believable, action-packed and believable read A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex. It's that simple.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Legitimate Reprisals

A Desert Called Peace
Tom Kratman
Baen Books, 2013

Carnifex
Tom Kratman
Baen Books, 2013

A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex are available for purchase at the following links. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

D.T. Read's Ganwold's Child The Sergey Chronicles: Book One

(Author's Note: So I know I reviewed this previously, but a new edition just hit the 'Zon yesterday and I had to let everyone know.  Read had these self-published and resold the series to Chris Kennedy Publishing/ Theogony books. And yes, I've read the new edition. I got an Advance Review Copy awhile back. As much as I enjoyed it before, and I gave it five stars last time, it's better this time. The story is largely the same, but some of the language has been cleaned up and Ganwold's Child reads like it was written by a more experienced writer. If you've followed any writer for long enough, you either know what I mean, or you need to go back and read their first published book and their latest and tell me there's no difference. I'll wait....

Thank you for admitting that I'm right. Now, go read this book. And keep your eyes peeled, because books two and three of The Sergey Chronicles will be along here shortly.

I haven't changed much of the review below, except to update the cover (and OMG is that an awesome cover) buy links and bibliographical data, but it's a good review. Read it again. I would.)

(Welcome to the Third Day of Jimbo's Memorial Day Weekend Extravaganza! Yeah, I know I'm two weeks  late, but like Papa Heinlein once said, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by." Yeah, I suck. I know. My apologies to both remaining authors. 

Anyway...

Today, we're honoring Lieutenant Colonel Diann Thornley Read, an Air Force Veteran with twenty-three years of service. She was an intelligence analyst, providing briefings to officers with much higher rank than hers. She served in Korea, Bosnia, Iraq, and Italy. She was awarded a Joint Service Medal Commendation and told that she "was the only American the multi-national coalition could understand."She says that, given the chance, she'd do it all again, too.

She states that she used a couple of locations where she was stationed for inspiration for her stories. I think that's probably where that air of authenticity comes from.)

Ganwold's Child by Diann Thornley Read (who can totally feel free to confuse with DT Read that I've reviewed previously, because they're the same person. You'd have to ask her why she uses both. Any confusion you may be feeling regarding that is totally my fault though, because Jimbo.) started off just a wee bit confusing for me. We're introduced to an alien race with its own language and idioms right off the top and I found myself scratching my head. It only lasted a few pages though, and then things got really, really good. 

Our main character is a guy named Tristan Sergey and he loves his mama. She's sick, the aliens he lives with don't have the tech to help her (based on symptoms, I'm guessing cancer but if the disease is ever mentioned by name, I missed it.) and so he sets off to save her due to a sense of Jwa'lai or duty to his mother. I find this concept fascinating, because it makes so much sense. One should always do as much as one can for his mother. On the other hand, although Read does a good job explaining what it is, I feel like I'm missing some kind of deeper cultural thing. If you've ever taken Anthropology, you know what I mean. That's really impressive. It hits just the right note. So off he goes to meet his father, who he can't remember because he's been stranded on this planet without contact with other humans since he was in diapers. He hopes that dad will help him - assuming Tristan can find the man in the first place.

Tristan is one impressive dude, too. The tech level he starts off at is basically stone age or a bit higher, and by the end of the first book (this is part of a trilogy) he's flying space fighters. He can also take a beating better than just about any other character I've read, and I loved Ben Raines from The Ashes series by William W. Johnstone. This is one bad dude. I don't want to give too much away, but don't give up on this kid. And a kid, by the standards of my forty-six year old self at least, he very much is. This works to his advantage at times. Young people recover from physical trauma more quickly. It can also sometimes work against him.

When Tristan finds his way (along with his friend/brother Pulou) from the alien village he was born in to the technologically superior human settlement nearby, he finds out how little he knows the hard way. He has not sense of history and knows nothing about politics. This is a dangerous situation for anyone, but even worse for him for reasons that would be spoilers. You'll have to trust me when I say it's not a good look for him, at least until you buy the book, which you should do immediately. I'll wait. 

...

...

...

...

Are you back yet? Good!

The political intrigue in Ganwold's Child is well done, layered and hints at a much bigger conflict than what we're shown here. I'm waiting to find out what's still out there, but I won't be waiting long. I'm going to buy the next book.

See how that works? SUPPORT YOUR AUTHORS PEOPLE!!

Anyway...

Tristan's quest starts off bad, gets worse and then, well..

Read the book.

Read has built an entire universe here and it kind of makes me sad that she's only written three books in it. Her worldbuilding is excellent. There are some things going on here that make sense in context and you learn a lot going through the book, but you hardly notice what's going on. I love that about it. Tristan is not stupid, but he is inexperienced and naive, and I learned a lot along with him. What I got ahead of time was necessary for the story and kept the intrigue level high.

And I guess that's the thing about Ganwold's Child. There is a lot of physical action. If you like fist fights, shooting, dog fights and, of course, splody stuff this is definitely a good book for you. The cool thing about Read though, is that she included all of that without turning it into a Michael Bay-esque disasterpiece with special effects and no story. When something happens in Ganwold's Child it matters. The reader cares, and not just because they have to, but because the characters get our attention and hold it.

Let's face it. Read knows more about building up a babyface than the WWE ever will. The other characters drew me in almost as much, though. Ganwold's Child is full of both heroes and villains. Some of the heroes are a little more likely than others, but they all deserve the title. And the main protagonist, the wolf in sheep's clothing, is very easy to hate. Read did a good job with him though. He thinks he's a hero and that everything he does is warranted.  

It's worth mentioning that I was a bit concerned about Ganwold's Child. I write a bit of fiction myself here and there and my older stuff is not as good as my newer stuff. That makes sense. Writing is like anything else. You get better at it with experience. This is Read's first (published) novel, and I was kind of thinking...

Yeah, nevermind. 

My mama told me I shouldn't think because thinking always gets me in trouble. She would've been right here, too, because Ganwold's Child is a damn good book. If I were to go searching for differences between GC and her Seventh Shaman series, I would only say that the language in the newer series feels a little more relaxed and, honestly, who gives a rip? A good book is a good book. 

I'll let you all know when I've gotten to the next two in the Sergey Chronicles, but I will be getting to them. I need to find out how this ends. The first hit may not have been free, but it got me hooked. Read is an author worth following and I'm glad I got on the bus early in her career. Let's see where she goes from here.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Peimu

Ganwold's Child
D.T. Read
Theogony Books, 2023

Ganwold's Child is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Michael Z. Williamson's That Was Now, This is Then

(Welcome to Day Two of Jimbo's Memorial Day Extravaganza! Today we're featuring Michael Z. Williamson.  Mad Mike seems to think I know how to do math. He's done five years in the US Air Force, three years in the Army National Guard, twelve years in the Air National Guard, then another two in the Army National Guard and another three in the Air National Guard. I think. Any mistakes are mine.  He deployed for the Mississippi flood in 1993 and for Operation Desert Fox in 99, as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008, retiring as a Technical Sergeant. His army MOS was Untilities Equipment Repairer (52C30) and his Air Force MOS was Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration.

He got to play with some construction equipment and some small arms. 

He's married with a total of four kids from two marriages, three cats and some livestock.He is also the proprietor of sharppointythings.com and michaelzwilliamson.com, to go along with The Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse

 

Being a book geek (and I think I qualify, what with having a blog about books and all) there are few better feelings that finally getting a chance to read a book that you've been waiting on. You all know what I mean, right? It's a rush to finally crack that spine (okay, open the file on your Kindle, but work with me here, okay?) and get to readin'. It is, however, better when that book is everything you wanted it to be.  So when I got to read That Was Then, This is Now by Michael Z. Williamson, I was both excited and happy. That's a powerful combination. And if you're reading it a little late because you didn't realize that it had released, that's your bad, or mine, as the case may be. 

Those of you who remember the first book in the series, A Long Time Until Now, will find all of their old friends back, if not always for a long time. Some of our friends have decided to stay home this time. I can't say I blame them. As much fun as these books are to read, living them might not be the most enjoyable thing ever. Living in the dim, dark past isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Personal lives are a thing too, and not all of the old crew is still in the military, so they can't be ordered to go. All this to say that, if someone is missing, it makes sense that they're missing.

Of course, we have a couple of additions to the team as well. Both are females that have their Ph.D.s and neither has my phone number. The former is fine. The latter would be unacceptable if they actually existed. Ya'll need to stop hogging up all the brainy chicks. Anyway...

This time we're headed back to grab another squad that got stuck, and things didn't go so well for them. They didn't have the skills that the first squad had, and they've been there longer. Things are pretty grim. But not everyone wants to go home, and their reasons, while not always admirable, make sense. And that leads to one of the cruxes of the novel.

When is it okay to take people's lives over and tell them what to do? If someone has established a life in a place where they are welcome and doesn't want to leave, do you have the right to drag them away? What if they're being there could cause problems for someone else later? What if you want to kick the dude in the junk for the reason he wants to stay? Does that have any bearing?

And, without getting too far into spoiler territory, I think I might just kick that dude in his junk if I ever meet him. Seriously. Read the book, you'll get what I'm saying. Fortunately, dude doesn't actually exist so I get to stay out of prison, but some things I just don't countenance. Ick. Not that he's portrayed as a hero or anything, but still. Then again, it's something that comes from the real world, so I get why it's here.

Military conflict with the natives of the time they've gone back to is part and parcel of the series. It's about what you'd expect. Williamson has a knack for showing the adaptability of literal cavemen in the face of technology they can't match, too. It's not a situation where the primitives give up and it's not to a point where they do something stupid either. Certain situations lead to conflict and always will. They do their best with what they have and they don't waste their lives. I'l take it.

I want to take a camping trip with the gear they get to take to the past this time, too. Seriously, every year when I do this (at least for the last few after I got a better idea of how to do this right) I send the authors a questionnaire so I can do their bio, and I always ask about what cool toys they got to play with while they were serving. I frequently hear about a lot of cool stuff, but I've never heard about ANYTHING that comes close to some of the field gear the Bykos (not the Cogni) have.

All of that aside, That Was Now, This is Then was a very human novel. The speculative element is there in the technological sense but, honestly, Mad Mike does one of the best jobs about really getting things down to the people and emotions that I've ever read. I'm guessing dude has some education (maybe formal, maybe not) in psychology, sociology and anthropology. I have a bit (freshman level classes I took in college but I got A's in all of them) and I'm seeing some things in here that look awfully familiar. Williamson has considered things in early societies that most authors would miss. Kudos to him. 

I'm also a fan of Williamson's take on time travel. Too many times it's something that's either taken for granted (Dr. Who) or at the very least one hundred percent accurate (Back to the Future) but that doesn't really make sense in a lot of cases, especially with what, for the Bykos, is new technology. Things get wonky and they don't always go right. Longer gaps in time are less precise, it all makes sense. It's consistently inconsistent. I like that. Too much science fiction makes technology infallible. That is clearly not the case here. 

There is an obvious opening left for a third book. I've heard rumors that we'll see it, but nothing seems to be confirmed at this point. While I can't make any guarantees, I really hope to see more soon, because there is too much awesome here for this series to die early. If it comes, you'll get a review here. If not, I will personally stick my bottom lip out so far that I step on it. Test me if you think I'm playin'.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Stun Guns

That Was Now, This Is Then

Michael Z. Williamson

Baen Books, 2021

That Was Now, This Is Then is available at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

D.T. Read's Mountains of the Gods and Crucible of the Gods (The Seventh Shaman Books Two and Three)

Listen folks, go read these books!

REVIEW WRITTEN! PUT IT IN THE CAN!

*Takes celebratory gulp of Coca-Cola Classic*

Sorry to those who are disappointed by that statement but I don't really drink and Mountain Dew is the Hard Stuff, so...

Yeah.

Okay, so I'm not that lazy. Usually. That's not the whole review. Probably. 

Being dead serious though, D.T. Read has outdone herself with Mountain of the Gods and Crucible of the Gods. These books kick so much afterburner that I had to congratulate her on her Facebook page before I had finished Crucible.It and Mountains are that good. I thought Running from the Gods,  the first book, was amazeballs (and it is) but these two kick it up a notch. I guess I kind of expected that, but I didn't really expect that.

 I mean, the first book in a series like this is usually world-building and moves a bit slowly. This is especially true when the first book is basic military and Military Occupational Specialty training. Things take a minute to build to where they really take off. Starting with Mountains that's not really the case anymore.

Mountains of the Gods is the story of a young pilot's introduction to real-world combat. He serves in a military that is currently losing a war and needs him out and doing his job. He does his best to do it, too. Don't get me wrong Akuleh Masou (AKA Ku) is a terrific pilot and he's game for the fight, but things seem not to go the way he wants them to at times. The historian in me believes that this just might be because the other side gets a say in what happens, but it hurts Ku just the same.

And that is something that is missing in a lot of military fiction. I just had this conversation with a friend of mine on Sunday night while I was out with some friends from a fan organization that I'm part of. The author of the series is amazing and writes truly awesome books (that's why I joined the organization) but I hadn't really thought about that until recently and I wonder if it's his background as a history student that causes that. Historians, after all focus mostly on the Butcher's Bill and not as much on individual stories, unless they're talking about some general somewhere.

Ku faces war and all of its ugliness head on. I don't want to spoil too much here, but he faces the psychic shock of the experience in a very visceral way. Ku is not the hero of a World War II movie that was made during the 1950s. He goes through a lot and it beats him up sometimes. He has to deal with the flashbacks afterward. More than anything else I've read, with the possible exception of J.A. Sutherland's Alexis Carew series, Ku has to deal with the things they don't show on the recruiting poster. 

It almost feels paradoxical to say this, since military fiction is a lot older than I am and leaving that part out has always been part of a working formula that sells, but it adds a lot to the story. I've read a lot of heroes of a lot of works that don't seem as real as Ku and his friends do and it's because they deal with the parts that people don't want to talk about. Seriously. I'm a huge Mel Gibson fan and Hal Moore didn't feel this real in We Were Soldiers  and Hal Moore was a real guy who really did what they show on the screen. 

I guess that's what really drew me into these books. Ku acts like he would act in real life. He deals with problems as they come up, just like he would in real life. He struggles with a lot. I've been there. I haven't had the same problems, never having been anywhere near a combat environment, but struggling is a feeling that I'm a lot more familiar with than I wish I was.

Let me put this out there, too. It's spoiling but I can't help it. Ku has to seek out help for his mental issues at one point. His PTSD hits him hard and he find someone to lead him through it. Again, mine wasn't combat related but I've had to do the same. It wasn't easy for me. It wasn't easy for Ku. There probably aren't many people on the planet who find it easy to ask for help with mental issues. But he did it. I did it and so have many others. But we've endured and so has Ku. He also has a tendency to bounce back from physical trauma that is truly impressive. I'm wondering if a particular injury he suffers wasn't stolen from something that happened in the real world, because it feels realistic but has just a bit of "I don't think you could make that up" to it. 

Maybe I'm spending too much time on the protagonist and maybe I don't care. Ku is on my Top Ten List of Fictional Characters to Have a Drink With Someday, Except never, because he doesn't really exist, but you get the idea. It's not all just about what he does while in uniform either. I really have to tighten the snerk collar here, but Ku does things in an honorable manner in his personal life when it is very obviously hard for him to do it. He's a solid dude, the guy you want at your back when things go awry.

*SIGH*

Yes I'll have his babies, but only if he asks politely.

Something else I've noticed that I don't always see in Science Fiction: Read treats matters of faith with respect and reverence. It has happened elsewhere. I've reviewed Declan Finn's work here a lot and he's a man whose faith comes out in his work. J. Michael Strac, Straz, Stratz...

The guy who wrote Babylon 5, who I believe is an atheist, was also very respectful of religious beliefs but that's not always the case. Asimov wrote a planned future of the human race with no mention of religion or religious movements. Suzanne Collins never put so much as an "Oh God" in The Hunger Games. The organizers of David Weber's own con wouldn't let him hold a prayer meeting on a Sunday even though he's an actual deacon in his church. Seventh Shaman is so named because it involves a lot of religion which, in its own way, is closer to something you'd see in Dungeons and Dragons than what you'd get in a JMS work but I say that lovingly. I've been a D&D guy since Second Edition. I'm still trying to roll the stats to get a paladin. It's not just the way the religion feels either. It's the effects granted by its chanters which are considerable.

Speaking of religion, there are parts of what Ku deals with that remind me of things I've read in the Old Testament. I won't say what and I won't say how, but I have a feeling that Read may have done a bit of study in her time. I just get that feeling based on things. I don't want to reveal too much here so I'll move on. If you're familiar with the Old Testament though, I dare you to read Crucible and tell me I'm wrong. 

Ku, of course, is not the only character in the book. People like Hanuk, Gram, Derry, Kimmie, etc..

They make sense too. Pretty much anyone Ku comes in contact with has motivations and takes actions that make sense in their own mind. That doesn't mean that everyone is friendly or that it's all hunky-dory, but once you're immersed in Read's work you'll stay that way until your dispatcher calls and sends you on another call...

Oh, sorry. That's more of a 'me' thing I guess.

The action in both books is realistic and engaging. Things go bang and boom when they should and the actions taken by Ku and his fellow pilots are both realistic and believable. At times it almost feels like you're in the cockpit. As mentioned previously, the other side gets a vote in ways that matter and that makes the lives of Ku and his fellow pilots interesting in ways that they probably wished that it wouldn't but that's how it would work in the real world. 

There is a lot of foreshadowing going on here. In some ways it feels like the prophecy in Harry Potter. It's not quite the same though and the outcome doesn't seem quite as obvious. I'm pretty sure I know what's coming but not exactly when or how or what it will mean once it happens and I'm not sure the characters in the books do either. I'm okay with that because it adds a little more intrigue to an already tense series and I can't wait to see it resolved.

I got into this series too early. It's not done yet and I need to know where it's going. I know the fourth book will be out soon. I'm thinking there might be one or two more after that, but I'm not making any promises. I can hope though, right? It's not like I'm losing it or anything.

Probably?

Maybe?

Well, let's just say that shaving my head keeps me from pulling my hair out.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Missiles Fired

Mountains of the Gods

D.T. Read
Theogony Books, 2022

Crucible of the Gods

D.T. Read
Theogony Books, 2022

Mountains of the Gods and Crucible of the Gods are available for purchase at the following links. If you click one of the links and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

P.A. Piatt's Cherry Drop

So I was kind of reluctant to read Cherry Drop. See, I had read and reviewed P.A. Piatt's Redcaps Rising and, while it was a very good book, it was very humorous. I was kind of concerned that Cherry Drop was some kind of weird allusion to a cold medication and that this was going to be some weird, humorous craziness. I mean, I like humor in my Urban Fantasy but well-written Military Science Fiction has this sort of feeling to this that the type of humorous atmosphere in Redcaps Rising is just not conducive to. I wasn't going to read it. It wasn't going to happen. Then one of my friends, who I don't believe has ever read Redcaps Rising, but reads lots of MilSF,  said something nice about it. I trust my buddy's judgment, so I thought I'd try it. 

I'm glad I did. Cherry Drop is every bit as well-written as Redcaps Rising, but it doesn't have that comedic feel. It has the military feel that it needs. I'm extremely happy to report that it works. I felt like I was there with these guys. Now, part of that may very well be that it's been hotter than the inside of Satan's armpit here in Michigan, but whatever works. They were in the jungle. I was baking my behind off in a cab in a hot, humid place. It just felt right. I will grant you that there were no crazed aliens trying to eat me, but I can feel comfortable thanking God for small favors there.

The story begins with our hero, one Second Lieutenant Abner Fortis, about to make his first drop into combat IE his Cherry Drop. He's been sent to lead a short platoon whose last platoon leader is no longer available for duty. His men don't trust him. His platoon sergeant is a corporal. Yes, you read that right. His troops are kind of cranky...

And they send him on a mission to a planet where he has no way to contact higher. So he's on his own, with a little help from a non-promotable subordinate and a mess lands in his lap. Granted, this SHOULD have been a milk run but it turns out that it wasn't. Fortis watches everything drop in the pot when he should have spent his deployment napping and waiting for his ride home to show.

There are a lot of action sequences in Cherry Drop and they are all well done. Piatt has a knack for keeping things moving and unpredictable. Fortis, being a cherry, has a tendency to do the dumb thing every once in awhile but that actually fits. There is a reason so few second lieutenants make it back from their first combat assignment in the real world. The fact remains that Fortis has just enough luck, enough brains and enough support from his NCOs that he makes it through and actually manages to get some stuff right. 

The initial enemy Fortis and his troops face is not all that creative or dangerous. I mean, the bugs can kill you but they rely on numbers and ferocity as opposed to tactics and strategy. The troops are missing a key piece of intel on them and they still manage to win some battles before they figure it out. 

Fortis's Marines face a situation that would not be familiar to many United States Marines in that they get hung out on a branch with no help and a jacked up situation. Fortunately for them they, also like real world Marines, manage to bring themselves through somehow. No matter what the odds, they seem to at least keep their integrity intact. 

Of course, every Corps has its traditions and the ISMC is no exception. Whether it's using slang terms (like DINLI, which stands for Do It, Not Like It and is a term I'd actually like to see pass into general usage because it works so well.) or brewing homemade hooch in violation of regulations (which, oddly enough, is called DINLI) the ISMC has things that need to happen and they do. I love that aspect of the story because it's part of what make the book work. Every military force has its own idiosyncrasies and that is one major part of what makes Cherry Drop work.

The enemy is not who it initially appears to be. This is a good thing, because it makes things more interesting. The reason I never liked Pern (and yes, I know that's heresy) is because thread sucks as an enemy. It is mindless, falls in sheets and has no real ability to fight smart or use tactics. I can't deal with that kind of an enemy. After awhile, we see someone new enter the fight, and they have a lot more intelligence and adaptability. Of course, none of that means that their superiors are going to see eye to eye with their decisions or that they're going to be exceedingly popular with the public afterward, but c'est la vie, right?

I like reading newer MilSF because the tech makes sense. There's so much that the modern military has that a writer forty years ago could never have imagined that it boggles the mind. Still, when I see troops in a far future story they should be using things like unmanned drones with webcams. It makes no sense if they're not. Now, maybe I'm wrong and at some point in the future we'll invent something that's man portable and works better. I'm not counting on it though, and until a better idea crops up, they need to be there. A lot of really well written older science fiction is missing concepts that your average Joe would come up with now simply because no one had thought of it then. I'm not blaming the authors. I get why it's not there. I'm just saying that as a fan reading a story now, some things need to be there and Piatt includes them. 

All in all, this one's a keeper. Also, I'm kind of bitter that I didn't realize that I could nominate it for a Dragon Award until it was too late.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Lost Troopers

Cherry Drop: Book One of Abner Fortis, ISMC
P.A. Piatt
Theogony Books, 2021

Cherry Drop: Book One of Abner Fortis, ISMC is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Space Force: Building the Legacy, edited by Doug Irvin

 

(Welcome to Day Two of Jimbo's 2021 Memorial Day Extravaganza! For your reading pleasure [COUGH] we've got an anthology today. Not all of the authors are military, but the following (and maybe someone else if they left it out of their author bio in the book) are:

Chris Dinote, 20 years USAF and USANG and still serving.
Ray Daley - 6 years RAF and we love our allies here at Jimbo's. 
Brennen Hankins worked for the Air Force on the ground. That's all the bio says.
Ali Abbas isn't technically military but he served as a civilian contractor to the military, so he gets an honorable mention.
Karl K Gallagher served as a crew commander and mission planner in US Space Command in the 1990s.

I'm sorry if I left anyone out. I'm too lazy to do the real research on five authors for one book.)

So I have to admit that I was pretty jacked up to read Space Force: Building the Legacy. See, I have a degree in history and what I do is primarily military and political history (so the Potsdam conference and the effect of the US Civil War on the election of 1864 would both be of interest to a guy like me.) and the creation of the Space Force was a wow moment for me, because I’ve never been alive for the creation of one of the Armed Forces before. I mean, the Army, Navy, and Marines were all founded at the beginning of the American Revolution. The Coast Guard was founded in 1790. That all happened before my family emigrated from the Old World. The US Air Force was founded in 1947, before my mother’s parents met and after my father’s parents met but before he was born. I didn’t get to witness any of that. But then one day, the Donald was on TV announcing a new military service and I was here to see it! That was an exciting day. I honestly meant to get to this sooner and I’m kind of sad that I didn’t,  but I’m also kind of happy that I get to do it for Memorial Day.

Thoughts on Space Force: Building the Legacy as a whole:

I never, ever recommend this, but you should start with Irvin’s note at the beginning of the anthology. I usually hate the foreword because it gets in the way of reading the first story, but this one actually feels relevant. There’s a first time for everything I guess. But seriously, he’s right about some things that I should have already considered but didn’t.

What comes after that is a collection of stories that all have remarkably different points of view and occurences. What could have been a series of stories about battles really isn’t. The point of any military force anywhere is to fight wars…

And yet that’s not all that goes into it. Somehow, Irvin managed to find authors who wanted to tell the stories that are super important but get left out. Good on him.

And now for the fun part:

“Best and Brightest” by P. A. Piatt

I like this one. If you read my review of Piatt’s first novel, then you know I love his whacky, zany, madcap style. Of course part of that is probably because it’s nice knowing I’m not the only person with a penchant for pushing out words and a sanity deficiency, but Piatt definitely knocked it out of the park on this one. I never thought you could use a bulldozer like that but hey, it sounds like fun.

“Frickin’ Guard Guys” by Christopher DiNote

This is the story of a disgruntled former member of the US Space National Guard’s JAG corps. He gets is head turned around something fierce. I liked this one too. There may be a bit of irony here but hey, I like irony. 

“For the Duty” by Ray Dudley

Is about a Brit who gets seconded to the USSF. HIs impression of what’s going on around him isn’t necessarily everything you would want it to be, but he gets the job done. The historian in my likes this one because it matches up with everything I’ve read about British attitudes toward the American military during the World Wars. 

“Dick Dibble’s Birthday” by Susan Murrie MacDonald

I love the premise of this one and how it’s based on an old USN excuse to throw a party. It reminds me of a poster a friend of mine had back when we had first gotten out of high school. The main character of “DDB” is Sean Fitzgerald Rooney and he is a world class genius of the non-genius sort. If it can be done he can do it. He’s not always on the up and up but he’s always out to help a friend. If he enjoys himself in the process, is that his fault? I also like his irreverence. Seriously, I’d totally buy Rooney a Guiness if only he actually existed.

“The Decision” by Brena Bock

If you’ve ever seen Master and Commander then you know that, when in the service, one must always choose the lesser of two weevils. Or sumfin’. Look, sometimes people in the military have to do things that suck in order to keep things for sucking worse. This is the view of someone who has to do something truly sucktacular in order to save a bunch of lives. This is what Jack Nicholson is talking about when he says “You can’t handle the truth.” It’s the whole point of the ST:DS9 episode “In the Pale Moonlight.” It’s a sad story, but as part of our Memorial Day event, it is perhaps important to remember the officers that had to make the tough calls that kept everything that went to crap. This is a somber story, but it’s a good one and it needed to be here. The ironic part is that it started out so optimistically. Bock outdid herself here and I wouldn’t argue with her if she wanted to make this a novel. I’d even review it for her.

“CAG” by Richard Paolinelli

If the entire planet and every human being on it were under the threat of death, what would you be willing to sacrifice to save it? What if there was no time to even consider an outside intervention and it was just you out there doing what needed to be done? How far would you go?

I love this story as it is. I don’t think it would work as a novel the way “The Decision” would, but I’d love to see a full length treatment about Robert Carrington, the CAG and his rise through the ranks though. I think he deserves it.

“Olivia and the Asteroid Pirates” by Jim Robb

I don’t want to say too much about this story because it’s too easy to spoil. Let’s just say that I loved it and leave it at that.

“Slivers of Hope” by  Rosie Oliver

Wow. Just wow. This is a story of human resilience. It is a story about human brilliance. It’s something I wish I had written, but didn’t. I’m not sure about the science here, but it makes sense from a layman’s point of view. Yeah. This one is going to haunt me.

“One Time, One Night on Aldrin Station” by Brennen Hankins

This one is the story of the old salt and the newbie. It’s a tale that has taken place millions of times in just about every military ever and that’s awesome. Of course, the old man (Stargeant Grantham) has a few tricks up his sleeve, well, isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work?

“What We Learned from the Fire” by Ali Abbas

This is well written and sobering. It shows the dark side of military service but that’s a valid part of it. It also includes a bit of gallow humor, but that fits as well. 

And last but not least...

“Visitors” by Karl K Gallagher 

I loved this story! It’s the story of a new alien race and the only human that can be found to serve as an ambassador to them. I don’t want to spoil the reason why, but it works. I love that the anthology ends on a positive note, but not necessarily a triumphalist one.  I could see this as a novel as well.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Successful Launches

Space Force: Building the Legacy Doug Irvin, ED Midlands Scribes Publishing, 2020

Space Force: Building the Legacy is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon I get a small percentage of the purchase at no cost to you.