Showing posts with label military science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military science fiction. Show all posts

Gears of War Book One (Gears of War (Wildstorm Hardcover)) Review

Gears of War Book One (Gears of War (Wildstorm Hardcover))
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Gears of War Book One (Gears of War (Wildstorm Hardcover)) ReviewBeing a comic book fan and a video game fan I most admit a bias towards Video Game comics. That aside this was a most enjoyable purchase. The art is terrific, the story is engaging and the new characters that are introduced are unique and a good fit in the Gears universe. Being a hardcover it looks great on the shelf and stands a much better chance of survival in a house with a one year old. I can't count how many comics I have that have lost covers or pages or have faded, just from being transported around to different homes and being read. Funny I know, reading a comic book and not stuffing it in mylar and never taking it out. I enjoyed Book 1 of Gears of War and eagerly await Book 2Gears of War Book One (Gears of War (Wildstorm Hardcover)) Overview

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Micro Book 1: Terror, Inc. Review

Micro Book 1: Terror, Inc.
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Micro Book 1: Terror, Inc. ReviewA great summer, fall, winter, spring read...! It moves like gangbusters and I loved the F protagonist. Get ready for a heavy duty dose of paranoia.Micro Book 1: Terror, Inc. OverviewYou can't see them, but they can kill you in seconds, on command.Dr. Ann Barnes discovers that microscopic medical robots she helped develop are being used to assassinate US politicians. She struggles to convince authorities that the threat is real even as rogue scientists try to kill her. She must track down her adversaries and stop them before thousands perish. The action moves from Boston to the Hawaiian island of Kauai; from 39,000 feet in the air to deep beneath the Pacific. Micro is part one of a trilogy.

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The Battle at the Moons of Hell (Helfort's War: Book I) Review

The Battle at the Moons of Hell (Helfort's War: Book I)
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The Battle at the Moons of Hell (Helfort's War: Book I) ReviewThis is the start of a space opera/military SF series with a number of pluses and some detractions.
On the plus side, the author is an experience RN and RAN naval officer which let's him permeate the book with authentic sounding detail - far more authentic than David Drake's Lt. Leary books for example, though a bit less fun (more on that). Also, his ear for political and military dialogue is more authentic than, say, David Weber. Finally, the author is smart and well-educated, and this comes through in well-written if sometimes stilted prose. Good space battles, some tense action, nice overall political sweep, good villains.
I have alluded to a couple of minuses. Not a lot of "fun" - our hero is a bit stiff, his love interest is hard to get excited about and I found him wooden. I also thought that the book could have been a little longer and in some parts skipped days of storyline too abruptly.
That said, I liked the book, liked the universe and enjoyed this as the start of a new series with a more "real-world" hero than lots of these military SF series have and a potential for a number of exciting, richly detailed sequels.
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Helfort's War Book 3: The Battle of Devastation Reef Review

Helfort's War Book 3: The Battle of Devastation Reef
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Helfort's War Book 3: The Battle of Devastation Reef ReviewFun read but not great literature. (potential spoiler) Get ready for another cliff hanger ending and be aware that their will be a Helfort's War Book 4.
The story picks up with the launch of the new Dreadnought strategy and we get into the internal politics of the Navy and society. You will see a thinly veiled story based on today's headlines with a futuristic spin. Young idealist frustrated by the "system"and by his personal heroism, grit and determination he attempts to overcome both the Hammers and the system.
Lots of bang bang action, multiple threads and a lot of heroism and team camaraderie.
View this as an old fashioned Space Opera with lots of villains, good guys, and beautiful women. Lots of fun but not great literature
Why four stars? It is a fun read to give you a break from a hectic day. I really like series and the books are easy to read and fun.Helfort's War Book 3: The Battle of Devastation Reef Overview

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The Sharp End Review

The Sharp End
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The Sharp End ReviewDavid Drake's work is more subtle than a first reading would suggest. If you were to read just one Hammer story, or one Belisarius, you might think he was rubbing your nose in the blood and gore like so many of today's movies do, just to get a gut reaction and celebrate the carnage. However if you read the books a second, and a third time, and reflect on some of our recent history, you begin to understand that while the characters entertain the background of blood and gore reflects the brutal reality of human conflict the characters must act in, and survive. War is ugly. The characters that evolve and survive are forever affected by this ugliness. A tremendous amount of history is created in conflict. We are a product of that history and that brutality - David Drake wants to make sure we remember that and that we don't forget the human nature of the people who undertake the most brutal of human occupations. I would recommend his books to anyone who wants to serve their country, or who wants to be responsible for sending sons and daughters to war. There is a rough side to that business, and David Drake does an excellent job of reminding us of the ugly, the profound - and most of all the human sides of war. And,
it's a rollicking good read!The Sharp End Overview

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Helfort's War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet Review

Helfort's War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet
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Helfort's War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet ReviewI've been a fan of the Helfort series since I finished the first book in one long all-night read. I was really looking forward to this installment and bought it as soon as it was available. All-in-all this is a good continuation to the story but not a great read. The main problem with this book was Michael's decent into incompetence, which is really annoying - the tactical genius and born leader from the first three books is reduced to a terrified rookie puking at the site of a dead soldier (even after witnessing spacers with rail gun injuries and floating body parts in the other three books) and the mediocre junior officer (Anna) is suddenly a hardened combat veteran after a couple of months in the field. Michael has been in numerous life or death situations with thousands of peoples' lives depending on his decisions - and Anna has to assign a corporal to babysit him during the last big battle? The guy calmly walked up to a police officer sitting in his office in the second book and kills him with a knife and then goes on to attack an entire enemy base and blow the place to pieces but he needs a babysitter when he goes out in the field a few months later?
How Anna treats Michael throughout most of the book is also a real problem for me. She can't meet him in the mess hall without making some demeaning remark - kind of like that annoying friend or co-worker that is always making childish remarks aimed at your manhood whenever they see you. Michael MUTINIED and faces a firing squad when he gets back to the Federation, was such an inspiring leader that almost all of his crew volunteers to mutiny with him, he devises one of the most daring and brilliant fleet maneuvers in history, and he maroons himself and his crew on the home planet of their hated enemy, all to save Anna from being raped and tortured to death and to repay him she takes every opportunity presented to her to insult and belittle him? And instead of putting her skills as a trained officer to work helping him devise another brilliant and inspired plan to bring the war to an end, she joins the infantry and leaves. This interplay between Anna and Michael is a very disappointing turn in the one romantic relationship of any consequence in the series.
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Helfort's War Book 2: The Battle of the Hammer Worlds Review

Helfort's War Book 2: The Battle of the Hammer Worlds
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Helfort's War Book 2: The Battle of the Hammer Worlds ReviewI just finished this book in a single day, and I quite enjoyed it. Paul writes well; his descriptions of the combat scenes manage to convey tension without being melodramatic; and his main character Michael Helfort comes across as being a 'real person' in that he is not a paper-thin, mono-emotional, engine of destruction type. He manages to bring Helfort through an entire spectrum of emotions from despair to intense hatred without the character ever becoming unbelievable. The plot line of the main story was well-constructed without any of those deus ex machina moments leaving you in disbelief that everything just happened to work out perfectly. Paul isn't afraid to develop and then cast away characters as their role in developing the story line comes to an end; since Helfort is the 'star' of the series, you know he's not going to wind up dead, but everyone else has potential bulls-eyes painted on them. This was very effective is that you never knew what was going to happen at any particular point in the story. In many books, the main character gains a cadre of friends/helpers around him, and you just know that they've become part of a group on 'untouchables'; Paul eschews this strategy and it works to great effect. Also, the people around the main character react in believable ways - not everyone who is a friend/family to Helfort winds up supporting him during parts of the story arc. This all adds up to a very well written and enjoyable story; and I look forward to the next installment.
So - why 4 stars and not 5? Two things really... while, the space combats are well written, I - like another reviewer - found the thought of rail gun attacks being effective over great distances to be a little tough to swallow. Also, one of Helfort's antagonists - his captain on the Ishaq - IS paper-thin. No development is given to this character, and no reason why the character acts the way she does is provided. Paul tries to allay this by having Helfort wonder what could have caused his captain to act thusly, but the total lack of any explanation is a jarring note. In fact, that is the one real weakness of the series so far; some characters that seem to play minor antagonist roles are given no development - they are just presented as people who for some unknown reason take an intense dislike to the hero. These are both nit-picking I know; but it was an odd enough note that it caused me to lose that intensity of involvement that great stories pull you into.Helfort's War Book 2: The Battle of the Hammer Worlds OverviewHe thought Hell was the worst they could throw at him.He was wrong.Back from tangling with the Hammer of Kraa, the most brutal, trigger-happy tyrants in humanspace, Junior Lieutenant Michael Helfort is assigned to the Federated Worlds heavy cruiser Ishaq, which is struggling to rise to the threat posed by a newly resurgent Hammer. Aboard the floundering ship, Helfort is coming to grips with a painful injury and the unpleasant truth that nobody likes a young hero–least of all senior officers.Without warning, the Ishaq and twenty-seven Fed merchant ships are blown apart in a horrific ambush, the first step in the Hammer's master strategy to destroy the hated Federated Worlds. Michael and a pitiful remnant of the Ishaq's crew escape the inferno. The Feds have no idea who's behind the heinous attack, and the Hammer are determined to keep it that way, consigning the Ishaq's survivors to a prison camp deep in the wilderness of the Hammer's home planet. No one's getting out alive to derail the Hammer's lethal master plan–especially not the FedWorlds hero who so humiliated them on the battlefield. It's payback time, and the Hammers intend to throw their entire space fleet into destroying Michael Helfort and the Federated Worlds. Too bad it won't be enough.

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