Review: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (2005)

Posted on February 22nd, 2008

Free download!

There are only a few military science fiction books I consider significant, but his is one of them. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Drake’s “Hammer’s Slammers” series, and Haldeman’s Forever War are the big ones for me. I would place OMW in the list as being in the same vein as Heinlein, a position I think Scalzi has explicitly stated.

John Perry is seventy-five, his wife has passed away, and he is stepping into the Colonial Defense Force’s recruiting station as the novel opens. The mysterious CDF ships him off-planet, gives him a new augmented body and sends him away to interesting planets to meet interesting aliens and kill them.

There are crises of conscious as he wonders why he is doing what he is doing (think Forever War), and interesting encounters like when he runs across someone wearing his dead wife’s body, and of course, lots of fighting with aliens. I don’t think I need to go into too much depth here because there are reviews all over the web discussing this book. I will simply say it is

Excellent/Very Highly Recommended. I promised you a free download, but you’ll have to work for it a bit. You can get this by signing up with Tor’s mailing list. They are launching a new site and are giving away digital downloads as they countdown towards launch (next is Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin). If you are worried about spam, use a junk email account.

Sign up here. FYI, it took a few days for me to get the email with the link.

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Review: “Mercenary” by Mack Reynolds (1962 novella)

Posted on January 26th, 2008

UPDATED- See postscript at bottom.

Novella that is basis for the novel Mercenary From Tomorrow (also 1962), which I will review shortly. Two other novels followed in the same setting with some of the same characters: The Earth War (1963) and Time Gladiator (1964). Note that this author is published as Dallas McCord Reynolds as well as other names.

“Mercenary” is a novella set in a dystopian corporatist future where people are born into castes that are difficult to leave; the only caste advancement is through the military or the priesthood. On the other hand, basic necessities such as food, clothing, and housing are all provided by the government.

Large corporations settle disagreements by hiring mercenaries and staging battles where the arms are limited to weapons technologies existing before 1900. The middle and lower class public, like in 1984 or Brave New World, spend their days high on trank parked in front of the television watching the arranged battles.

Joe Mauser is a career mercenary, one who has spent two decades in his profession, but still remains a minor celebrity on the war circuit. Seeking advancement to the top caste, he signs on with Vacuum Tube Transport, a corporation facing certain loss in an imminent engagement. The corporation is willing to back Mauser’s advancement if his plan is super-secret battle plan is successful.

Mauser’s plan succeeds brilliantly, but circumstances conspire against Mauser’s advancement, although he (maybe) ends up with the girl.

There is quite a bit of exposition here on the economic and social structures of the world. Probably too much if truth be told. However it is interesting that Reynolds maintains the old the East and West communist/capitalist ideologies while expressing them as distinctions without differences: both are controlled by ruling classes defending their own positions. The recognition of living in that stagnant oligarchy, and the desire to change it, is what provides Mauser common ground with the upper caste woman with whom he is romantically interested.

There was a bit much exposition, but the mercenary/adventure portions were engaging enough. Because this story interested me enough to see it continued in the other novels of the series, I rate it:

Good/Recommended. You don’t even need to sign up to get it at Project Gutenberg in a couple formats or at Manybooks.net in more.

P.S.- I was able to get a copy of Mercenary From Tomorrow and read it. It turns out that MFT is a combination of “Mercenary” and another novella, “Frigid Fracas,” basically stuck together, although they do take place chronologically. In addition, there are some areas of “Mercenary” that have been fleshed out, such as certain subplots that do not appear in a straight reading of “Mercenary.” That first half is an improvement over the novella; it almost looks like the novel was written first and then edited for a shorter length.

The transition from the “Merc” section to the “Fracas” section is abrupt and should have been massaged. The pacing of MFT definitely suffered because of the two discrete story arcs, and the eventual conclusion as a bit more upbeat than the wayReynolds left the end of “Merc.”

I have a copy of Time Gladiator, but now I want to read Earth War first, which I do not have. Looks like it’s time to do some digging. If any of the series shows up on Project Gutenberg, I will post it.

Tags: free science fiction, public domain science fiction, Review, speculative fiction
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Review: “Shock Absorber” by E.G. von Wald (1955)

Posted on January 22nd, 2008

Damn fine short story, somewhat in the vein of The First One, but here the author feeds the reader enough to let them see the twist coming.

When a particular spaceship returns from combat and puts in at Mars for overhaul, Lieutenant Maise is assigned as its new executive officer. The previous captain, after seeing action eighty-eighty times, was killed during number eighty-nine along with the previous exec. Lt. Maise therefore takes over command for the two months the ship is refitting in drydock and awaiting the replacement captain. The small crew is hostile to Lt. Maise, suspecting he may be a dreaded Psi Corps officer. Word has just leaked through the fleet that those with special psi abilities are being put into regular Space Combat Service officer positions because they have better odds of surviving combat missions, but the fleet is tense. Outright mutinies against such officers have occurred, started by crews unwilling to obey commanding officers they perceive as relying on hunches instead of experience in combat.

Commander Frendon is assigned as the new commanding officer. Commander Frendon is, of course, the very epitome of the Psi Corps, a too-young, too-skinny, nervous fellow who has no idea how to command. Lt. Maise has his hands full keeping the lid on the mutinous mutterings Frendon’s appearance engenders. The talk centers around a plan to poison the captain by exposure to certain Martian plants, a plot which Maise relays to Frendon. Frendon is poisoned anyhow, Lt. Maise takes over as captain, and Maise and the crew become best buds because the crew knows it did not poison Frendon and now trusts Maise’s judgment.

As I stated, there is a twist at the end that is seen coming a mile away, but again the strength is more in the build-up, in giving the reader just enough to think he’s smarter than the author and to keep reading to prove himself right, than in the final payoff.

Lastly, the opening is a little clunky, with exposition disguised as extended dialogue, but it certainly fits better here, in the format of a military briefing, than in other stories I’ve seen.

Very much recommended. Command your own copy at Project Gutenberg in a couple formats or at Manybooks.net in more.

Tags: free science fiction, public domain science fiction, Review, speculative fiction
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Review: “The Highest Treason” by Randall Garrett (1961)

Posted on January 16th, 2008

Great novella and sharp cover image.

This space opera is set roughly a century and a half in the future when the Earth forces are losing a war against an alien warrior civilization. Earth and its colonies have developed a society where equality is prized above all, and as a result institutional advancement is based solely on seniority rather than merit. Initiative and creativity are discouraged while paperwork pushing is rewarded.

Colonel Sebastian MacMaine is a Harrison Bergeron-type character: a capable military strategist that finds himself weighted down by a leaden bureaucracy. As one of the few men able to see that the Earth forces are losing the war due to their self-selected mediocrity, MacMaine finds that he must act when the opportunity arises.

So McMaine learns the alien language from captive prisoners, springs an enemy prisoner-of-war from confinement, hijacks a spaceship, and defects by delivering himself, the spaceship, the crew, and the POW general into enemy hands as a show of good faith.

After a period of confinement and a character reference from the freed general, the ruling alien military council allows MacMaine to take strategic command of a fleet opposing the Earth forces in return for a lucrative salary and retirement.

Macmaine shows that he is a masterful strategist and delivers crushing defeats to the Earth forces opposing him. Not stopping there, he shows that he is even more ruthless than his alien overlords by ordering the entire civilian population of a captured colony (120 million men, women, and children) hanged.

Following that atrocity, MacMaine is quickly branded the worst traitor mankind has ever seen and a large reward is issued for his capture. MacMaine still has a trick or two up his sleeve, however, and escapes his pursuers after leaving a taunting note.

While it may not sound like it from the description, this is really a story about sacrifice and redemption, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed if you give it a try because it holds up extremely well, comparing favorably with much military space opera of the 1990s.

I have some small complaints, such as the tendency to paint both the alien and Earthmen with respective overly broad brushes, but it doesn’t distract much from the story.

Very highly recommended. Break free of your shackles and get it at Project Gutenberg in a couple formats or at Manybooks.net in more.

Tags: free science fiction, public domain science fiction, randall garrett, Review, speculative fiction
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