Review: No understanding of the Military!
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 11, 2013
I'm of two minds about this book. It's reasonably well written ... the story jumps along well enough ... but, and there's often a but, I guess ... it has some shortcomings. These may or may not be of any importance to you as a reader, or they may, but you probably will want to know about them before you consider purchasing it.As it is, the book is probably worth 2.5 stars ... if the flaws were fixed, and some of them may not be flaws, depending on your point of view and interests,  you could probably up it to 3 stars if you feel that is the case,So, what are the flaws?Despite this being a military SF book there are strong indications that the author knows very little to nothing about how military forces operate and why they operate in the way that they do. Some of the more egregious examples of this -* The main character, a Sergeant, is actually sleeping with (on a long term basis) with the Lieutenant in command of his Platoon ... she's his 'girlfriend' (and his mate, a Corporal in the same Platoon, is sleeping with one of the Privates in the same Platoon) ... even if future military forces have a more relaxed attitude towards women in the military (not at all unlikely, and not before time), there are very good reasons why such arrangements would simply not be tolerated.NCOs and Officers sleeping together? Well, I guess it could be seen as a 'class' thing ... Officers and Gentle(wo)men shouldn't be intimate with the working stiffs they command ... but the usual understanding is that such arrangements are prejudicial to good order and conduct. They have a potential, real, impact on the interpersonal dynamics of the group in question. How can you rely on the Officers or NCOs in question to work appropriately, not play favourites, and act appropriately in combat with their bf/gf in the same unit?At the very least, even a more progressive future military force would want to ensure that they were transferred to different sub units, if not to a completely different unit, to prevent even the suggestion of a possibility of such.In fact, the female Lt acts just like a girlfriend to the Sergeant, and not like an officer, in the whole section of the book that is devoted to that particular incident ... and, indeed, becomes directly involved in (and fails to prevent, or even seriously try to prevent, her boyfriend, the Sergeant, from getting into a lethal fight with their immediate unit CO, in fact KILLING him.* Following on from that, again, maybe the future military will be wildly different from those that exist in the present day in many things, but, based on the actions of the Sergeant in question that lead up to the killing of his CO, well, even though the CO drew his weapon, the actions of the Sergeant prior to that are such that I really cannot see any modern military force simply acquitting him and transferring him out of the alleged elite unit he and his Lt gf are in and across the other side of the galaxy. I can't see how he'd get away with anything much less than a dishonorable discharge and, more likely, extended time in the Stockade (years) and there's no way he'd keep his stripes.* The weaponry that is used is not particularly believable. In fact, it indicates, again, that the author may well have little or know knowledge of any military ... or, indeed, how guns and weapons in general work. The main weapons are .50 cal for the standard Battle Rifle, .75 for the support weapons (MG in effect), but the soldiers also carry needle rifles as well, which fire 1000s of needles like a shotgun ... not as attachments to their main weapons (as is current practise, for good reason), but as separate weapons.Then there's the fact that the .75 weapon also fires grenades. No explanation of how, really, except that the implication SEEMS to be (to me, but maybe I have misread it ... or maybe the author hasn't made it clear enough ...) that fires them through the barrel like a modern Mk 19 or AGS-17 Plamya (effectively grenade launching automatic weapons) rather than like a single shot M203 (usually attached under the fore barrel of an M16). .75 caliber grenades would be relatively useless, compared to modern 40mm types ... but it gets more ridiculous. The same weapon also fires *razor edged disks* ... how, it isn't indicated ... which have no conceivable advantage over, say, a /75 cal flechette round, and which would be far less accurate.* One of the enemy races, the one at the beginning of the book, doesn't wear body armour (the soldiers do) and carry only a light shield ... a physical shield, mind ... and, though they're 8' tall, the shield is specifically made of a light alloy ... and, yet, neither the .50 cal nor the .75 cal rounds seem to be able to penetrate it. And, of course, the warrior carrying such don't seem to suffer the slightest damage when it is hit. presumably, by multiple such shots.There's a good reason why modern armies don't use shields in combat any more. In fact, the last time anything like this, even vaguely, was used was by the Russians at the beginning of the Winter War against Finland ... and it failed miserably. Real world physics is like that. Any sort of shield that can be carried, even by an 8' alien, simply won't be able to either resist penetration by such large caliber rounds (if it could, it would weigh too much to be carried) *or* the shock damage to the appendages attempting to hold it would be such that said alien simply wouldn't be able to hold onto it after the first round, maybe two.And, no, the Aliens in question aren't some sort of magical supermen ... the main character defeats one of them in single combat, starting off with an ordinary terran made combat knife, which does a quite satisfactory job of carving up the alien ... though it isn't the weapon that finally kills it, it could well have been.* The 8' aliens attack in 'human' waves ... yet the armed forces send in Light Infantry against them, evidently with no heavy weapons. And, it seems to be implied, this is the case across the entire planet ... where the human force seems to have been dropped from orbit in penny packets and for which inadequate support has been provided. The lack of understanding of military tactics is astounding. It is implied, even though the internal evidence doesn't support it (and that is the shortcoming of the author's lack of understanding of all things military, I would guess) that the human military is well trained and has a long view understanding of history, and of military history, yet seems to display not the slightest tactical, operational, or strategic nous.I suppose, but it's drawing a very long bow, that one could argue that the Sergeant's view of said battlefield is/was limited and maybe he missed the superb deployment and leadership of his officers at higher levels ... but there seems no evidence anywhere to support such a contention.* The main two characters are alumni of an elite Ranger/Marine/SEAL/First In Scout type unit, and passed a course that, it is stated washes out 95% of the applicants ... yet, when they do their refresher course (they've been kicked out for some time for that little matter of killing their CO) they show less nous than a n00b Boy Scout in bushcraft. They have to be told by one of their companions that, when crossing the jungle survival course, that they can tell their direction by looking at the passage of the sun across the sky.Geez, I was taught that in Cubs (say, 8-10 years of age) ... you didn't even have to go on to Boy Scouts to learn THAT ... and yet these graduates of such elite training are surprised by this revelation ... it hadn't even occurred to them.OK, like I said, if you ignore all the above, or, if you know even less about the military, real world physics (for projectile weapons) or basic survival techniques taught to Cub equivalents aren't taught to elite Rangers, then maybe none of the above will matter ... but, I suppose, that begs the question of why you are reading overtly military SF?!?To be fair, while all of this grates, I haven't stopped reading the book ... and am about 2/3rds of the way through as of the initial writing of this review ... but I can't see how the author can redeem his book to better than 2.5 stars in the remaining pages. However, when I have finished, I will add an addendum to indicate if he manages to do better or worse in those pages.=====OK. Read the remaining third of the book ... and it doesn't get any worse. The story in the remainder actually holds together somewhat well. There are flaws, of course, like the government proving to (probably) be in league with the cannibalistic aliens, which isn't entirely unbelievable in and of itself, it's just that I find it difficult to believe that the main character was so oblivious of objective reality that he never had any inkling, ever, before the events right at the end (after more than ten years in the military) that his own government sometimes did things that were ... questionable. Really questionable.And this guy is supposedly a Senior Sergeant. I dunno, but that implies a level of deliberate obtuseness or outright stupidity that I find unbelievable given the level of promotion he's achieved.Maybe things are different in whatever country's military the author is familiar with (or maybe its, as I have suggested from the start, that he really doesn't have any familiarity with things military), but in the Australian military (the one I am familiar with), the level of ignorance displayed would beggar belief. The guy is a senior sergeant, and a long serving one ... I've known such NCOs and, no, they're anything but stupid ... and they're certainly not stupid enough to not be aware of covert and/or illegal intelligence operations in their area of deployment, even though they may not know about the specific details (it brings to mind some of the stories that my training CSM told us recruits about legal/illegal orders based on his experience with the AATV in Vietnam in the 1960s ... he knew what MAC/SOG [though he didn't call them by name] and their assassination teams were doing, and had seen them in operation ... and made it plain, in at least one instance, that he'd shoot the next bastard who shot an unarmed prisoner, regardless of whose side the shooter was allegedly on ... he certainly had no time for the VC/NVA, but he had no time for what he saw with his own eyes either ... I'm sure that people with US military experience can probably recall similar stories from their military, too).And at the end the government simply lets him walk away - no, doesn't gel.Sure, it's a quibble ... I *did* finish the book. The author *can* tell a story, but he really needs to do some more research and familiarise himself with the military, his own and others, so that the shortcomings that I've indicated don't reappear in his next book. I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for it to see if he can develop his believability skills, as he seems OK apart from that.=====One other thing, some of the advertising fluff compares the book to Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers' ... nah. Not even close. Not even in the same ballpark. Heinlein came from a military background and it shows ... Starship troopers shows that he had a deep understanding of the military mindset, and ALF Warz doesn't even come close. YMMV of course.