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mburnamfink 's review for:
Terms of Enlistment
by Marko Kloos
Amazon had the entire series for $2 per, and they're quick reads, but this is by-the-numbers powered armor MilSF with little to recommend it.
About a century from now, Earth is severely over populated, divided between the North American Commonwealth and the Sino-Russian Alliance. A cold war on Earth is hot out in space, with starships and space marines raiding alien colonies. Most of the population are welfare rats, and for them the only hope is a colonial lottery or military service.
Grayson, our protagonist, signs up, goes through bootcamp (where little happens, except for an unlikely sexual encounter), and winds up assigned to the Earthbound Territorial Army. See, conditions in the welfare projects are so bad that the only thing keeping crime from spilling out into middle class sections of the country are occasional raids by powered armor troopers with dropship support. Grayson deploys to Detroit to suppress a riot, which his squad does by machine gunning hundreds of people, and then blowing up an apartment block with thermobaric rockets. In the aftermath, he transfers to the Navy as an IT geek and has his ship blown out from under him by an unknown threat around a distant colony world. He discovers that humanity is not alone: the colonies have been invaded by 80 foot tall aliens named "Lankies" with advanced biotechnology who are terraforming human colonies in months and killing all the locals. Grayson hooks up with some survivors, helps kill one Lanky, and is rescued. Fin.
On the plus side, Kloos writes great battle sequences and has some realism to his military institutions (he's a vet). On the minus, the characterization and world-building is utterly lacking. The North American Commonwealth is a nightmare dystopia, and nobody seems to care. David Weber has more insightful thoughts about welfare states! On the military side, we have space cruisers and battle carriers and powered armored because they're obligatory in this genre, not because they fit into any kind of tactical picture. Aliens show up, and they simply die with no explanation.
As a character, Grayson is slightly better than a blank slate. He hates the housing projects that he grew up in, but without any sort of depth. There's no introspection about his unit going warcrimes-a-go-go on Detroit, or what it means that he's killing people just like himself a year ago or like his own mother. I've read of bunch of combat memoirs, and dehumanization and casual violence against civilians isn't something that just happens.
About a century from now, Earth is severely over populated, divided between the North American Commonwealth and the Sino-Russian Alliance. A cold war on Earth is hot out in space, with starships and space marines raiding alien colonies. Most of the population are welfare rats, and for them the only hope is a colonial lottery or military service.
Grayson, our protagonist, signs up, goes through bootcamp (where little happens, except for an unlikely sexual encounter), and winds up assigned to the Earthbound Territorial Army. See, conditions in the welfare projects are so bad that the only thing keeping crime from spilling out into middle class sections of the country are occasional raids by powered armor troopers with dropship support. Grayson deploys to Detroit to suppress a riot, which his squad does by machine gunning hundreds of people, and then blowing up an apartment block with thermobaric rockets. In the aftermath, he transfers to the Navy as an IT geek and has his ship blown out from under him by an unknown threat around a distant colony world. He discovers that humanity is not alone: the colonies have been invaded by 80 foot tall aliens named "Lankies" with advanced biotechnology who are terraforming human colonies in months and killing all the locals. Grayson hooks up with some survivors, helps kill one Lanky, and is rescued. Fin.
On the plus side, Kloos writes great battle sequences and has some realism to his military institutions (he's a vet). On the minus, the characterization and world-building is utterly lacking. The North American Commonwealth is a nightmare dystopia, and nobody seems to care. David Weber has more insightful thoughts about welfare states! On the military side, we have space cruisers and battle carriers and powered armored because they're obligatory in this genre, not because they fit into any kind of tactical picture. Aliens show up, and they simply die with no explanation.
As a character, Grayson is slightly better than a blank slate. He hates the housing projects that he grew up in, but without any sort of depth. There's no introspection about his unit going warcrimes-a-go-go on Detroit, or what it means that he's killing people just like himself a year ago or like his own mother. I've read of bunch of combat memoirs, and dehumanization and casual violence against civilians isn't something that just happens.