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Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

April 2009

"Soldier and Warrior"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

 

 To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg,jl@simegen.com  for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  
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Valor’s Trial by Tanya Huff, DAW HC June 2008

Kris Longknife: Intrepid by Mike Shepherd, Ace pb Nov 2008

The Lost Fleet Series by Jack Campbell: Dauntless, Fearless, Courageous, Valiant, Relentless, Ace SF pb June 2006 to April 2009.

The Hidden City, A Novel Of The House War, by Michelle West, DAW HC March 2008

Last month we looked at Valor’s Trial by Tanya Huff, an interstellar war story featuring a Gunnery Sergeant. This month we look at a similar series by Mike Shepherd with his 6th Kris Longknife novel, Intrepid.

It’s hard to tell which column the Longknife novels belong to – last month’s about the Karma of World Prominence, or this month’s one about intricate plots, intrigue, and actions that have highly improbable results.

Some people have an innate "touch" on the world, living a lifetime curiously immune to the principle that what goes up must come down. Others have their six months on CNN, and then fade from public consciousness.

Kris Longknife, the female hero of Shepherd’s series, is the daughter of a father and grandfather (not to mention grandmother) who are in the process of establishing an interstellar Empire (or perhaps democracy; it hasn’t been decided yet) after a messy war. She has defiantly chosen a career in military service, not politics, and has learned, well and truly learned, that Gunnery Sergeant is spelled G-O-D. Therefore, she has survived becoming a Lieutenant.

Now Kris leads an expedition out beyond the Rim into a region of space that can only be described as the Wild Wild West – where there are bandit strongholds and settlements based on splinter philosophies and religions. As usual, she pulls off several highly improbable stunts involving shooting skirmishes liberally laced with politics, and courts of law. She discovers layers of alliances, hidden intentions, and military intelligence.

But once again she has to wonder why she was sent out there. Did "they" send her because they knew what she’d find? Did "they" expect her to deal with it as she did? Is she being manipulated or educated? Is she being groomed to become a military commander or a queen?

These novels are written from Kris’s point of view, the view of a soldier in the field carrying out orders. She has only a few narrow glimpses of the big picture, and can only infer what "must" be going on outside her view.

This is actually the point of view we all live our lives within. We are born, forget all about whatever we knew before that, blunder our way from surprise to shock to hope and in the end give up our lives with or without satisfaction. This is the plight of the warrior from the beginnings of human tribes. And that’s why, I think, military SF, and all war stories are perennial favorites. We are all Soldiers – and some of us are also Warriors (or Gunnery Sergeants ).

Jack Campbell’s The Lost Fleet series is a case in point. I’ve only had access to volumes #3 & #4, Courageous and Valiant. They are both easy to understand without having read the prequel, consistently written, satisfying Military SF.

Lost Fleet is a story about Captain John Geary, a space-fighter pilot who leads a charge against an overwhelming enemy and gets "killed." His ship is destroyed, he ejects in a lifepod, and wakes up centuries later to discover he’s a Legend who saved the galaxy with his brilliant tactic that got him killed.

He’s just a pilot – not even a Gunnery Sergeant – but to this new civilization embroiled in a new hopeless war, his name is spelled G. O. D. Very embarrassing.

The Fleet that rescues him from his failing lifepod disintegrates in political strife after a major defeat in battle behind enemy lines. The fleet turns to Geary to lead them home. He takes the job only because the alternative is worse and has to learn the admiral’s trade on the fly. Meanwhile, he employs archaic tactics against the enemy fleets that are chasing them and wins against impossible odds, forging in reality the reputation well known as his Legend.

Gradually, the politics behind the war on both sides is revealed. There is spying and counter-spying. And a picture emerges – a virtual image implied and inferred of what is "really" going on among decision makers on both sides of the war – or could there really be three sides to this war?

This series is what Star Trek: Voyager should have been – suspenseful, filled with as much space-battle as Star Wars or Arthurian Legend, and as much Relationship and psychology driven plot as any SF Romance fan could want.

I definitely want to read the rest of the series – all the way to and through the point where Geary gets the Fleet home and has to face the consequences, political and romantic, of living up to his Legend.

Michelle West's fantasy opus The Hidden City is the first in a new series called The House War, and is even better than her first two novels I reviewed, Hunter’s Oath and Hunter’s Death. For my reviews of those two novels, see my September 1996 review column which is archived at http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/1996.html  

Unfortunately, West didn't use the "Pope In The Pool" technique from Blake Snyder's Save The Cat! series on screenwriting that I’ve reviewed in 2008, so suspense lags in spots, but still The Hidden City is an artistic masterpiece.

This is a 615 page fantasy novel told from several points of view showing all sides of the story of a ragtag pack of ragamuffins led by a girl called Jay and a maverick outcast from a royal line of wealth and privilege named Rath, magic users all. Rath lives by looting the archeological ruin of a city beneath the city where he lives, his deepest secret.

Starting life at the bottom of a decadent civilization, Jay attracts other children with her natural leadership that sparkles with compassion in a brutal world.

As the adult world is revealed from Rath’s view, we learn of the politics, religion, and power manipulating the lives of Rath, Jay and her followers. The theme of the hidden being revealed is reflected in character, relationship, politics, and magical theory.

Kris Longknife asserts personal freedom by joining the military, but strive as she might, she can’t break free of the Longknife reputation. John Geary is just a work-a-day pilot doing his job until he accepts the responsibility to get the Fleet home – planning for his life of freedom after that. Rath has given up House Name and privilege for freedom, living alone with no plans for the future except to stay away from family responsibilities.

All three of these lead characters display command, leadership, honor and responsibility while seeking only to be free and live a life that results from their personal choices.

None of them want their choices to have dire consequences for any other individual – nevermind an entire civilization – but none of them are likely to get their wish.

We all search for, demand, work toward, or simply seize this kind of freedom when we’re young. We don’t want to be fettered with the considerations for the welfare of other souls in this army of life. Yet most of us, eventually, and with some reluctance take on a Significant Other, a spouse, and/or child. Some of us go "home" to accept responsibility for failing parents, siblings in trouble, cousins, aunts, uncles, half-siblings, in-laws – responsibility for family. Some let others define their role in life, and some accept being defined as their plight.

Yet others become community leaders, elected officials, corporate CEO’s, decision makers whose decisions affect hundreds or even millions. What most of us don’t see is that such decision makers are in turn fettered by the expected responses to their decisions.

As we grow through life, as Saturn circles our natal charts adding maturity and responsibility, we go from throwing off the fetters of obligation to seeking out and accepting new fetters, ones we ourselves have chosen.

In childhood, our lives are orchestrated by others, and we dance to a tune we can’t even hear. Decisions are made for us, implemented without asking us – daycare centers, piano lessons, soccer practice, math tutors, or a mysterious, unannounced move from our home without any explanation of the word Foreclosure.

Our world is shaped by forces beyond comprehension and we just follow orders like a soldier.

Eventually, we make decisions that shape our own lives – college major, summer jobs, apprentice to a trade union, move in with a really cool friend who knows how to party. We become Warriors, pro-active on the field of life.

But that precious goal of freedom, once attained, like the privilege of staying up past midnight, isn’t all we’d imagined it to be. And we seek the very kind of fetters we originally fought so hard to break – Relationships, Responsibilities, an investment in the future.

Does it make a real difference that this time the future is one we, ourselves, have chosen? Are these novels we love, where the Hero thinks maybe he/she might be a puppet on strings pulled from behind the scenes, a reflection of our suspicion that our own freedom is an illusion?

To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg,  jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  

 

 

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