Andreas Rosboch's Blog

Livesuit (Captive’s War I½)

Humanity is engaged in a war with a savage and relentless enemy over vast tracts of space and time. Kirin is a paramedic on a human settled planet. Together with his colleague and friend Piotr he enlists in the Livesuit Infantry, composed of elite troops who spend their entire tour of duty encapsulated in suits made of living tissue. The suit is responsible for feeding, waste elimination, and medical care. Kirin soon begins to suspect that the livesuits have much more sinister aspects.

This excellent novella is very much in the vein of The Forever War. Humanity is lost in a war which, due to the distances involved in both space and time, is well beyond the comprehension of the troops. Friends and lovers will never be seen again once separated, and the end goals are remote and difficult to fathom. Kirin’s slow loss of humanity, both mental and physical, is the perfect metaphor for pointless war.

Behind the Veil (Transdimensional Hunter III) – John Ringo & Lydia Sherrer

As Lynn Raven and her friends are about to graduate from high school, the Transdimensional Hunter national championships loom. Lynn’s suspicious mind starts to see glimpses of the sinister truth behind the transdimensional monsters, while she also has to deal with bullies, hormones, and keeping the team focused.

The battle scenes and banter are solid as in the previous two books, making this an easy page turner. This installment also develops Lynn’s character, and the storyline in general, moving things forward nicely.

Ice Trials (Time Trials II) – M.A. Rothman & D.J. Butler

After the events in Time Trials, the team is transported to a new mysterious location in the deep past. Surjan unintentionally shakes things in the civilization they find there.

Unfortunately the first part of this book left me decidedly lukewarm and disinterested, so I have up after about a quarter of the book. The characters don’t engage me as a reader, and unfortunately this particular LitRPG title falls flat.

Spin (Spin I) – Robert Charles Wilson

One night, when best friends Tyler, Jason, and Diane are children, they escape outside from an adult party. As they watch, the stars disappear from the night sky. Earth has been enveloped in a membrane which will come to be known as The Spin. Who created it, or why, is a complete unknown. As it turns out, time outside the membrane passes thousands of times faster than inside. Within a few decades of time on Earth, the sun will have aged to the point of enveloping the Earth, dooming everyone inside. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up and lead their lives, a culture of fatalism takes root, but Jason, a genius scientist with drive and ambition in spades, has other plans for humanity.

The premise is very clever, and the scope is ambitious. Mr. Wilson takes the reader on a decades-long journey, both in the wider story of Earth and humanity itself, and the much more intimate narrative of Tyler, Jason, and Diane, that veers off in many unexpected directions. The trap of a Big Dumb Object scifi premise is not developing it beyond the obvious, but in this case the author certainly does. Where the novel falters a bit is focusing too strongly on the story of Diane’s descent into religious cults based on The Spin, and Tyler’s actions in response. While certainly the eschatological element of the physical effects is worth exploring, it becomes too long winded, and the somewhat tacked-on side story doesn’t do very much to set up Diane and Tyler’s future anyway. The story goes very dark in places, but that, in essence, is what Mr. Wilson is exploring. How would humanity react when the clock is ticking?

The Winds of Fate (Make the Darkness Light II) – S.M. Stirling

A few years after their arrival in the Roman Imperial Era, Arthur, now Artorius, and his former students have set the Roman Empire well on the path to rapid economic and military expansion. But just as things seem to going well, they learn than in ancient China, another time traveling team arrived on the same day that they did. These were sent not to prevent future apocalyptic nuclear conflict, but to ensure China ruthlessly dominates the world.

This is a pager turner just like the first installments, especially for a history enthusiast. The subtle and not so subtle changes, engendered by the protagonists are explored in detail, with extensive discussions on the consequences. There are a number of long tangential infodumps, but these are so interesting that they don’t detract from the pacing. The internal struggles of the five “moderns” as they have to grapple with the fact that they will not have lasting peace in their lives are well explored. The battle scenes are excellent, despite being in a way extensive essays on military technology development. One critique is that Mr. Stirling oft repeats the same background facts about various characters, indicating that perhaps one more editing pass would have been in order.

Defiance (The Spiral Wars IV) – Joel Shepherd

After retrieving the data core from the Kantovan Vault, the crew of the Defiance proceeds to an ancient asteroid settlement known as Defiance. The plan is to uncover technologies and equipment to help them fight the encroaching machine intelligence threat.

The story moves forward some more. Mainly this book stands out for the great action sequences, which unlike in previous books where many characters were wearing semi-obvious plot armour, feel like they have very real stakes.

Not That Kind of Good Guy (Shadow’s Path I) – John Ringo

Michael is a thirteen-year-old orphan who grew up in a ghetto, raised by a transexual black prostitute. He is also extremely intelligent and a smartarse. For reasons unknown, he is bestowed with superpowers. The Junior Super Corps enlists him, but he doesn’t quite fit in. In the background, world spanning shadow organisations spar within vast hidden conspiracies.

This is a controversial book even for Mr. Ringo. Michael is an fast talking, clever, precocious youngster with ADHD. He does not fit the establishment mould, mostly because he speaks truth often uncomfortable. While the book suffers from excessive infodumps, especially at the start, and is in perhaps too many ways a platform for Mr. Ringo’s ideology, it also exposes harsh truths about society which many people would benefit from hearing. Mr. Ringo can write engaging prose and good action scenes with his eyes clothes. Writing something that delivers a message while having a terribly contrived backstory is quite a feat. If you’re the kind of person who is offended by strong and controversial opinions, you will be offended. I may not agree with Mr. Ringo’s political views as a whole, but I respect him for approaching and explaining them in an honest and mature, albeit often hilariously smartarse, manner.

Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars III) – Joel Shepherd

Our heroes must venture deeper into Tavalai human space in their search for evidence of a conspiracy against not only humanity, but several other species as well. This instalment involves a heist, breaking into a mysterious vault on a planet with a crushing atmosphere.

There is a bit less character development and more story focus in book three, but the great action continues.

Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars II) – Joel Shepherd

The story continues as Phoenix and her crew ventures ever further from human space in order to track down evidence of an ever-vaster seeming conspiracy against the current order. Old and terrifying ghosts from ancient history, in the form of the Hacksaws, machine intelligences that once dominated the spiral, are found to be very much still a presence. The mysterious and advanced alo race, ostensibly humanity’s allies, seem connected to the Hacksaws, somehow.

The second instalment takes the series more into an adventure direction, as the story itself solidifies into a quest. The crew must track down clues and ancient mysteries, whilst navigating a complex network of shifting loyalties and alliances. The action scenes remain excellent, and the characterisations are solid.

Renegade (The Spiral Wars I) – Noel Shepherd

Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande and the rest of the crew of the capital ship Phoenix are going home. One hundred sixty years of war are over, and a victory parade awaits. Erik subsequently reconnects with his family, ultra-rich industrialists with a keen interest in human politics. But things soon go awry as Phoenix’s captain is framed for a crime he did not commit, and the crew must escape the homeworld, taking Phoenix, in order to not meet the same fate.

Mr. Shepherd builds a rich and intricate universe of shifting alliances and complex national interests, both between the various spieces inhabiting galaxy, and amongst the humans themselves. Past history going back tens of thousands of years indicates that no one is without blame in some way, and every race and faction has skeletons in its closet, including humanity, which itself is still traumatised from near extinction. The action scenes are top notch, especially those involving the marines. One gripe is that the descriptions of large ships, space stations and other locales, while comprehensive, are often a bit confusing.