Review: Few Redeeming Features
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 11 4, 2013
I don't often rate a book at the bottom of the heap, but this piece by Christopher Nuttall has forced me to that step.  Apart from technical inconsistencies -- which it has -- the story line of the book is itself implausible.  Two star nations convene an important diplomatic negotiation on the surface of a planet for which they have no real military intelligence or awareness of prevailing local conditions?  Not hardly likely!The most damaging feature of the book is the blood and gore in which it relentlessly immerses readers.  We expect violence in a soldier's story and we know that war is hell.  But the battle scenes of this book are morally pointless and without redeeming features.  Also disturbing is the repetitive description of the evils of the Hindu caste system, with its portrayed consequences in an intellectually, economically, and sexually corrupt society of routine intimidation, rape and murder.  One must wonder if the author has ever spoken with a Hindu or traveled to India or Pakistan -- and if so, why he has chosen to exercise such a broad brush of thinly disguised racism.One technical detail among many loose ends:  the author either does not understand or has chosen to ignore the realities of surveillance by remotely piloted vehicles.  In this book, such eyes in the sky are constantly available and apparently immune from ground fire. In real life, most vehicles small enough to carry into battle on a soldier's back or in a small ground vehicle would be quickly swept out of the sky by marksmen or automatic weapons.  Even if we imagine that an order of magnitude improvement in optics allows small RPVs to operate routinely at altitudes over 5,000 feet, they still have to take off  and land at relatively short intervals over a city that is teaming with household troops.  This plot device fails the laugh test.  It is not the only one.I have read and enjoyed earlier books by Christopher Nuttall.  But if he does something like this again, he'll lose my repeat purchases for anything else.