Space Battles! Book Review: Starfire

Starfire by Dale Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I remember reading some of Dale Brown's earlier Patrick McClanahan stories, and thinking they were a tighter, leaner version of Tom Clancy-esque stories. I only read a few of those earlier novels, but only because I got behind and didn't want to try to catch up.

Starfire continues the Patrick McClanahan world though, and gives it over to the next generation of heroes, including Bradley McClanahan. He's the son of the famed General from the other stories. The narrative does a good job of catching the reader up on major events that lead the world and characters to where they are currently. That was good for me, since it had been some years since I had ready anything in this series.

I remember this series being very real-world military fiction. Cutting edge technology featured heavily in the stories I remember. Starfire goes beyond the cutting edge technology firmly into the near-future science fiction. A near-death character is kept alive inside of a robotic suit of power armor. College students develop an orbit-to-ground power-transmitting device and test it from a military space station, only to realize it makes a really good space-based weapon. And in this story, a new cold war has started over space-based weapons and vehicles.

On the whole, this was a good, fun book. Fans of previous installments will enjoy where the story goes. Fans of Tom Clancy or similar political/military fiction will enjoy this, though it's not as heavy on the political as a Clancy tome.

To nitpick, the narrative is very heavy on detailing the technology and sometimes spends way too much time describing in excruciating detail what is happening. In fact, the opening scene with a character going into space on-board a spaceplane, and docking and boarding a spacestation is one of those too-much-detail scenes. I almost didn't make it through that opening passage. But once I did, the action and actual story-telling picked up. Later sections that went into detail weren't nearly as in-depth as that opening passage and were easily skimmed over. I don't really need to know all the specific manufacturing and deployment history of certain missiles, jets, or whatever, just give me a nice quick overview if what is absolutely relevant to the narrative.

Overall, a good action/military story with a strong space element to the story.



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Book Review: Grunt Life

Task Force Ombra: Grunt Life by Weston Ochse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Starting off with a thorough reading an uncomfortable topic (suicide, specifically a service member suffering from PTSD committing suicide), this book gives him and others suffering like him a second chance in a special unit fighting an alien invasion.

The alien invasion comes fast, and off-screen, while our characters are still in training in their new unit. This leads quickly to the typical trope of the last remaining vestiges of military fighting the aliens. They quickly realize all their efforts are having no effect, and must find new ways to gather intel, fight effectively, and win. By the end, they've made some progress, but in no way have won the war yet.

I enjoyed this book, though the suicidal tendencies of the characters were at times uncomfortable to read. People this distraught, this broken, make unique character point-of-views. But it's their overcoming of this that makes them readable heroes.

There's no paranormal stuff here, it's just the military against the aliens. Fans of Bob Mayer's Atlantis and Area 51 series, James Rollins, Matthew Reilly, Myke Cole, or Jean Johnson will enjoy Grunt Life.

An eARC of Grunt Life was provided to me for review through NetGalley.

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Book Review: Breach Zone

Breach Zone by Myke Cole
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Breach Zone seems to neatly wrap up the Shadow Ops trilogy of the US Military's use of magic-wielders and the US Government's oppression of civilian magic-users that started in Control Point.

Control Point introduced us to Oscar Britton, who I thought would be the main character for the entire series. The second book, Fortress Frontier, brought us a new main character in Bookbinder and only briefly brought back Britton. Breach Zone features yet another main character, this time one that we did meet previously: Harlequin, the Aeromancer. Bookbinder also features prominently in a secondary role, with Britton only coming in at the end to wrap things up.

Breach Zone uses frequent flashbacks to Harlequin's past as he meets up with and falls in love with Grave, who eventually becomes the face of the bad guys in the entire series - though who is really good and who is really bad is completely a gray area throughout the series. The series ends with all the sides still not happy with each other but at least trying to work things out, at least as far as magic is concerned.

The Shadow Ops series is a good read: science fiction, fantasy, military fiction, and maybe urban fantasy all rolled up into one. Good stuff! Breach Zone was a fitting and satisfying end to the series. I don't actually know if this is the end of the series, but it does work well as that.

Breach Zone was provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley.com for review.