Title: The Ghost Brigades
Series: Old Man's War
Author: John Scalzi
Genre: Sci-fi
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: May 1, 2007
Format: Paperback
Pages: 347

 

The Ghost Brigades departs a bit from Old Man’s War, being the rare series that switches main characters between books. Whereas the first book was a narrow, Starship Trooper-esque novel, The Ghost Brigades starts to expand the world building. We get to see humans and aliens do much more than shooting at each other this time around. Politics both inside and outside human culture start coming into play. It becomes more apparent here that things are not as simple as “humans good, aliens bad”. This is like the Rogue One equivalent to the series, where we see the good guys doing some definitely unethical things in order to win.

New protagonist Jared Dirac is fairly different from John Perry in the first book, but still a fantastic character. Being able to showcase an equally good story using someone with a very different personality really showcases Scalzi’s writing ability. For reasons that would contain spoilers, Dirac starts out with an almost childlike personality. And is immediately thrust into the life of a special forces soldier. He picks up traits from his brothers-in-arms, but his core personality persists throughout the story. It adds a unique nature vs. nurture aspect to Dirac and to the story as a whole.

The first book highlighted that essentially all aliens (and humans) are in a constant, all-out war. Habitable planets are extremely rare (which itself is rare for a series like this) and everyone fights for real estate. But here we start to see that there is some trade and some aliens are willing to make alliances. Not forever, but long enough to crush a common enemy. And humanity has been successful enough in its conquests to make many, many enemies. At the same time, though, old hostilities and habits can make “allies” quick to turn on each other.

What really sets The Ghost Brigades (and Old Man’s War) apart is that it is pure, military sci-fi. There are hardcore action sequences, but there is also humor. Politics play a part and so do the everyday lives of characters who know they are cogs in the machine. Scalzi manages to write all of this around a host of interesting characters, some new and others returning from the first book. All the while, he keeps things focused without turning the book into a space opera or some other sub-genre. Not to say space operas and other genres are bad, but keeping that rare focusing is a large part of what elevates The Ghost Brigades from good to great.

Title: Man of War
Series: Eric Steele
Author: Sean Parnell
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: September 11, 2018
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 356

 

Man of War is an exciting action-thriller and phenomenal debut for Sean Parnell. Featuring protagonist Eric Steele, Man of War holds the same level of being crazy but not entirely unbelievable as stories like Jason Bourne and John Wick. Steele is a badass among badasses in a secret government program called the Program. The Program is a typical action story secret organization; a black ops group that goes in and kills bad guys. No politics, no red tape. They simply take out targets. Which works out well until they are betrayed by one of their own, Steele’s mentor.

Parnell has written another book about his own military experience, but Man of War is his first work of fiction. Steele and other military characters are written in a way only someone with firsthand experience could manage. Thrillers like this are filled with tropes, Man of War being no exception, but Parnell’s writing stands out with how his characters act. The way Steele walks, talks, and behaves all comes off as very real. He is in every way a soldier, as he lives and breathes. And as much as his skills are essential, it makes things harder as he faces off against a former brother-in-arms.

The story also stands out because Steele is not invincible. He is very good at what he does, the best of the best, but is still a man. Even with the training and resources at his disposal, he is just one man. Things can potentially go south due to factors outside his control. Steele is not the sort of protagonist who will go into a fight outnumbered and walk away clean. The fight will be dirty, and he may not come out unscathed. It added a depth of realism in a genre filled with Mary Sue supermen.

Along with the military action, the story also features a political element. Readers see various high-level government officials working against each other. The good guys focused on the safety of the nation and the bad guys focused on their own personal gain. Pieces of the sub-plot felt off, with its conclusion a little rushed, but it provided a good secondary antagonist. All in all, Man of War was a whirlwind of action and suspense drizzled with good pacing and great characterization.

Title: Overlord, Vol. 9: The Caster of Destruction
Series: Overlord
Author: Kugane Maruyama
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: January 22, 2019 (English); June 29, 2015 (Japanese)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 320

 

The Caster of Destruction picks up shortly after the end of The Invaders of the Great Tomb. Some details from the side stories in the previous book are relevant here, but it primarily continues the main story. Among Overlord fans who keep up with the original Japanese versions of the book, Vol. 9 is largely considered to be the best. The battle between the Kingdom and the Empire mentioned in previous novels takes place here in epic, fantasy proportions. That being said, there are a few faults in here that have more to do with translation quality than plot/characters.

Like the previous books, The Caster of Destruction is split into several parts. Each part shows different character perspectives and acts like a mini-story within the main story. The beginning is a bit slow as it builds up to the battle but speeds up as the war approaches. It does feel like as this series goes longer, we start to see more of the same. People underestimate Ainz and co. for <insert reason> and bad things happen to them. Many sections are from the POVs of these characters. It gets a little stale building up characters who readers know are likely to be slaughtered.

But when the slaughter actually commences, audiences will not be left bored. This is another installment in the series that hammers in a key point: Ainz is the bad guy. He may have been human once, but he is now literally a heartless monster. As the story goes on and more time passes, he seems to lose more and more of his former humanity. What he does, or orders others to do, to people continues to be horrific while he feels nothing. He is not without mercy, but his definition of ‘mercy’ is not exactly the dictionary definition.

SMALL SPOILER BELOW

One thing very irksome in The Caster of Destruction was a translation error. In this book, Nazarick becomes a country and Ainz gains a title as king. The country is called the Sorcerer Kingdom with Ainz known as the Sorcerer King. For whatever reason, the translation changed his title to King of Darkness and the nation to the Kingdom of Darkness. Which seems to be the most generic villain title in any work of fiction, ever. Considering the Overlord anime, which covered the events of this book last fall, successfully translated the Sorcerer King title correctly, I do not know what happened there. Granted it was still good to read this book given the budget issues the show had during season 3, but the mistranslation felt the book feeling somewhat incomplete.

Title: The Fall of Dragons
Series: The Traitor Son Cycle
Author: Miles Cameron
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Gollancz
Release Date: October 19, 2017
Format: Paperback
Pages: 560

 

The Fall of Dragons marks the end of the Traitor Son Cycle. The story picks up immediately where A Plague of Swords left off; no time skip this time around. Miles Cameron has long since found his footing with this series and written it as a true epic. The first book feels somewhat standalone, but the others all segway into each other marvelously. On structuring, the Traitor Son Cycle is a bit like The Lord of the Rings. Each book is more of Part I through Part V than standalone novels. The series could be read like one giant volume that was only split up because the publisher insisted.

Miles Cameron, as a historical scholar, knows what he is talking about when it comes to a medieval setting. The function of politics in those times, the use of different weapons by soldiers, the way armies maneuvered around each other, and other relevant factors all come into play throughout the series. On top of that, he manages to artfully weave fantastical creatures and magic into the real-world elements. All the while it produces this incredible story that focuses as strongly on the characters as people as on the events reshaping them and the world they live in.

There is so much happening throughout this book. Armies are engaged in a war spanning the world and POVs jump between the various conflicts throughout. Cameron seems to have polished this part of his writing a bit as the series progressed. Some chapters are short, others are long; some events need more detail than others. By the end very little is unresolved; the sub-plots are wrapped up as neatly as the main conflict. And all throughout, everything feels real. People die, friend and foe alike, as the war rages towards its end.

Compared to the other books, particularly A Plague of Swords, The Fall of Dragons feels a bit rushed. There is little time for the characters to stand around and talk in this final segment. If they are not fighting, they are catching their breath between battles. And despite the sheer level of everything happening, it is made very clear that this is a small piece of a much larger story. Wars of this scale have happened before. If the survivors and their descendants are not careful, it will happen again. Yet despite this sense of a greater history, the story in no way feels incomplete. While this is a small chapter of the world’s history, it is The Red Knight’s story. And just as his story started with the actions of others, who is to say what new stories will evolve from his legacy?

Title: The Fireman
Author: Joe Hill
Genre: Horror
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: May 17, 2016
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 752

 

The Fireman was more of a 3.5 star book but managed to hold my attention through its lengthy page count. Enough that the half star deserves to be rounded up instead of down. That being said, the book is a bit of a mixed bag. Some things are good, others are bad. On the whole, the good does outweigh the bad. The extent to which that is the case (if it is) will vary from reader to reader.

This is a sort of post-apocalypse story. A fair amount of time passes over the course of The Fireman, carrying the story from the start of the disaster to its aftermath. It is not so extreme that humanity is facing its end, but modern society certainly changes forever. That being said, the book only highlights the big picture of how things are changing from time to time. The main characters are fairly isolated for most of the story, giving things sort of a Walking Dead vibe. But the level of devastation is more on the level of the Black Plague than a true apocalypse. Compared to life before everything is terrible now, but the human race is not completely doomed.

As far as real-world comparatives go, The Fireman is probably more similar to The Stand than any other book. Both books involve a new super-disease that runs rampant and devastates society. In the aftermath, the survivors largely find themselves in one of two camps that are ultimately set against each other. The body count from the disease is not quite as high in The Fireman, but its effects are still similar. Another common factor is the fact that both books are fairly slow.

If The Fireman had one weakness, it is that is was a slow burn. This is not a story that skips around between major events. Those moments of danger are certainly more intense, but just as much page space is given to the characters living their new lives as well. There are some time skips here and there, but the story features as many slice-of-life sections as anything else. It would be a little extreme to call this a bad choice. But parts of the book just crawl. To the point where readers feel a little thankful when something bigger starts happening again. For people who love horror/thriller, The Fireman is a recommended read. For people who do not care for longer stories, not so much.

Title: Airframe
Author: Michael Crichton
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Ballantine Books (originally Alfred A. Knopf)
Release Date: September 28, 1997 (originally November 27, 1996)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 431

 

Airframe is one of Crichton’s better books, but for different reasons than most of this other work. Without spoiling it, the book does not follow the same format as many of his other books. On one hand, that wound up being a little off-putting. On the other hand, it made the read a bit more exciting. It was like watching an M. Night Shyamalan film and there is no twist, which for people familiar with the style is more of a twist than any twist that could have been written into the story.

That is not to say Airframe does not have any parallels with other Crichton novels. Like in his other works, Crichton takes a scientific topic and builds a story around it. In this case, commercial airplanes are the subject. Going in knowing a bit about aircraft helps but as per usual Crichton works explanations into the story. Also, like his other works, something goes wrong with the science and people get hurt. Some characters are trying to fix the disaster while others try to twist it for their own purposes. The sense of mystery behind these events leads to a story best described as a thriller.

On the whole, Airframe is one of Crichton’s best novels. The thing that sets it apart is a greater sense of realism. For the most part, his books take a scientific topic and stretch it just enough so that it is still believable. In Airframe, the events still have a scientific basis, but this is something that could really happen. That added sense of realism makes the danger hit closer to home, as well as the consequences following the accident. Just that sense of “this could really happen, this could happen to me” makes the story particularly terrifying.

Characterization is not exactly Crichton’s strong suit. The central character here is well developed while the rest are as 2D as B-movie characters. There is also a sense that Crichton may have had some biases that bled through to Airframe. Largely the sense that he dislikes lawyers and hates TV people. Now maybe that was just for the sake of this particular story, but it came off more intense than that. In a thrilling mystery like Airframe, it is hard to review it too deeply without spoiling anything. On the whole, it would probably rank as my favorite Crichton book (thus far) if I did not have such a positive bias towards Jurassic Park. If you care for Crichton or thrillers in general, Airframe is definitely worth the read.

Title: Old Man's War
Series: Old Man's War
Author: John Scalzi
Genre: Sci-fi
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: December 27, 2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 313

 

Old Man’s War does quite a bit for a single, short book. Not a lot of material here is necessarily new and that is fine. Sci-fi is a tried and tested genre and most readers should not expect anything too radical. We all go into books like Old Man’s War expecting to see spaceships with some kind of faster-than-light travel, laser/energy guns, etc. As far as military sci-fi goes there are two main types; stories about either the Space Army or Space Navy. Old Man’s War falls into the former, focusing on boots-on-the-ground soldiers.

It is hard not to compare a story like this to similar books, and Old Man’s War is more reminiscent of Starship Troopers than anything else. The military aspect is largely the same. New troops spend a lot of time training, feeling like badasses, to go fight aliens. But once the fighting starts, they are fully exposed to the horrors of war with staggering casualty rates. Unlike Starship Troopers, mankind does not mainly fight a single species of alien. The galaxy is basically a free-for-all with hundreds of different aliens involved. Everyone fights everyone; no species are truly allies. At best, there are some temporary “not enemies”.

There are a few other staples of sci-fi in Old Man’s War as well. Most species are roughly on the same technological level. The sole exception being the “one-above-all” species who could wipe out everyone else if they really felt like it. Like in most Army-type military sci-fi stories, the spaceships do not really do much. On the rare occasions they engage in combat, ships seem to turn into burning wrecks after taking a few hits. It is mentioned that ships have shields, but they do not seem to offer much in terms of combat protection.

For all the tropes, there are a few different things the book does extremely well. Case in point, habitable planets are rare. To the point where hundreds of alien races are in a constant state of war over them.  Unlike most other series where every second or third star system can support life. Granted, Old Man’s War gives the sense that on a galactic scale, ships cannot travel that far. So, the limited distance does somewhat explain the scarce real estate. And, of course, the base premise of 75-year old people becoming soldiers. That was definitely a new one with the way it put older, more experienced people in boots normally reserved for young soldiers made for very interesting characterization.