thanks for positive on the seafort saga, I found another one in the bookstore, Children of hope, that makes 7 in the series, havent started yet, but hope its decent. Im getting them at Half price books so not a big financial investment.
As for Starship Troopers, it depends on what kind of fan of sci-fi reading you are.The "classic" authors wrote in a time referred to as "the golden age" of science fiction. If you put the book within the time frame it was written it holds up pretty well. Our technology has rocketsleded forward from about 1990 to present. The information age, explosion of computers, the Internet and CGI have made the books and tech from the golden age seem a little silly. There was no Sub-genre of Military fiction before ST, so that in and of itself pretty much says it all about the book, even with some flaws. I call ST, the biggest little Sci-fi book I have ever written, Heinlein pack so much into so few pages it still amazes me to this day.
Finished the book ARMOR, didnt like it, to much introspective stuff and the book jumps to a complete set of different characters in the first 1/4 of the book. Takes a while to get into the new story line with the Pirate hero, then falls back into the Armor recording the warrior's encounters, which are pretty much ridiculas. One guy out of 10,000 deploy intsantaneously into a endless mob of mindless aliens, and he is the only one that survives, please! he isnt even wearing the heavier armor. Overall, basically ridiculas. I know the overall premise is the crazy situations of war and how they can have an effect on a character, even in the fantastical worlds of military Sci-fi, but this character, to me, you cant even identify with. You just start getting into the whole ant world scenario, and his trials, and then we flash over to some other crazy story line, that tediously works it way back to the main character.
Im on book 4 of 7 of the Seafort Saga by David Feintuch, its easy reading, better character development, dialog, and setting. The whole thing about the UN Navy and Reunification church is a little odd, but im rolling with it.The one odd thing I have found is that the Navy Ships dont carry any Marine contingent. Many times in the book the ships Nick Seafort is commanding go to general quarters to handle mutiny, borders, etc. The OFFICER is the strength character in these books, and this future miltary navy is hard to swallow sometimes on these types of encounters.
It is like one of the main things I never understood about the whole Gene Roddenbury Star Trek sagas, you have ships of the line carrying 400-1000 people, with a small officer corps, then the most critical person, the CAPTAIN, goes face to face and toe to toe on every stinking encounter. That just doesnt work in reality or sci-fi. The officer is there to oversee and direct forces, not dive into every encounters details. The details are sent back and evalutated to allow the officers to make decisions.
Im rolling with it cause the story is pretty decent, just not one I can really grab onto like starfist or the Ian douglas books. The dialogue is good and the story moves along, the only thing that gets bogged down sometimes is the constant conflict and issues with midshipman. The 18th century discipline applied is a little silly, especially for the future. Enlisting children into the navy then subjecting them to beatings and brutality is to old school for the future. Then stating this is the only way to instill discipline and devotion that will result in good officers, is over simplified. The officer being the strength character is and the only thing that can make these ships role is just overbearing a bit.
Overal I would give this series a 3 out 5 blasters. Easy read, good character development, good back story, just a little silly on the navy backdrop, and military scenarios the main character gets into.
Later,
Trang.
I
Just updating my progress, I got bogged down by the 5th book in the seafort saga, Voices of Hope, it was painful to read, and get thru. The story is multi-threaded driven from roughly four of the characters perspectives, as the overall story progresses. It goes on and on and on, until about the last 50 pages things finally start getting resolved, leaving me exhausted like it was hurried. 1 out 5 stars. last two books in series are on shelf, breaking to other things.
To re-energize, I did back to back rereads of Starship Troopers, 5th reread, then Forever War ,4th reread, really fun reads, and the diametrically opposed views of military that they present is interesting. I ran out and got Haldemans Forever Peace and Forever free and devoured them. Not as good as forever war, but still decent reads and additions to the Forever series.
Starship Troopers 5 out 5 stars
Forever War 5 out 5 stars
Forever Peace 3 out of 5 stars
Forever Free 3 out of 5 stars.
I am currently reading the Rick Shelley, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Shelley , line of books. I have 15 books, which encompass 4 separate series:
Dirigent Mercenary Corps (DMC)- Lon Nolan Main character - six books
Spec Ops Squad - 3 books
13th Space bourne - 3 books
3 book series - The Buchanan Campaign, The Fires of Coventry, and Return to Camerein
All these are not related.
Finished the first book, Cadet-Officer, in the DMC series, 4 out of 5 stars, it is very Military Sci-Fi oriented, regiments, company, and platoon level combat on a planet scale. The year is 2801, Confederation of Human Worlds (sounds familiar) has over 500 hundred planets colonized. The population of these reach into the trillions. The worlds unity is fractured into two factions, and to avert war, worlds who need military assistance garner it from Mercenary groups that operate within the Confederation. The world of Dirigent is the largest of these groups with the whole planet dedicated to their Mercenary Corps. The story picks up as, LON NOLAN, has left "the springs" military academy on Earth to join the DMC and become an officer. He is faced with a "baptism by fire", prior to being allowed to become a Leiutenant in the DMC. ThE DMC picks up a "Contract" and off we go......
The story is pretty much linear, but the action is great and moves along, seems a bit rushed and cut at the end, but am giving the rest of the books the benefit of the doubt as I move forward.
Likes/Dislikes so far:
1. Like how author lays it out plain, what year it is, what the situation is.
2. Like the clear definition of what the DMC is and how it operates.
3. Dislike the use of Bullet based weapons in the 29th century.
4. Like the med tech they employ, interesting.
5. Like the tactics, troop employment, description
If you have read any of these, throw out some feedback.
STARFIST still is great, and cant wait for the next installments!!
TRANG
Almost done with the Rick Shelley books, on second book of spec ops squad. I really enjoyed the 3 book series - The Buchanan Campaign, The Fires of Coventry, and Return to Camerein.
I took a Heinlein/Clarke break and read Moon is Harsh Mistress and rereading Stranger in Strange and Rendevous with Rama, all good books.
I had been hearing about Jack Campbells "Lost Fleet" so I picked the first book up, I about fell over when I looked at the back cover and one of the praise blurbs was from our own David Sherman, Quote "The best novel of its type I've read". its down the list to read but might slip it in sooner.
Once I finish Heinlein book, gonna spilt read the david weber Honor Harrington series, Chris Bunch's Sten and Last Colony, and John Scalzi 's Old Man War, to try and put dent in this pile I have created.
Sorry Havent been around much this summer, I have been working a lot of overtime in preparation for new job im starting on monday. Im going back into IT field, albiet the lower end. Gonna do Network Monitoringfor mainframe, midrange, and some unix boxes. Sun-tues 6pm to 6am. More money, better schedule, and free time.
Be well,
Trang