2016 space-navy SF, third of its series. The war drags on, and
Archangel's government tries to hold on militarily while it makes
diplomatic and undercover pushes. For both of which, reluctant hero
Tanner Malone is the right tool…
Well, this gets quite cunning. The enemy has used Malone as the
face of their propaganda ("look, this bloody-handed butcher is coming
for you")… which means that he can change the tenor of a situation
merely by being present. And Our Side's leadership has noticed this.
Not that they thought to ask him about it – I mean, he's a serving
enlisted man, nobody cares about his opinions.
So this book ends up breaking one of the most hallowed principles of
mil-SF, that being in the military is Good and always the best
possible thing that anyone can do. Tanner is quite determined that
once he's allowed to leave ("for the duration of the war", of course)
he's going to get out and have an actual life and not come back –
and while many other people disagree with him, he still has some
agency of his own.
Of course there is still fighting, in space and on the ground,
including a chaotic three-sided affair after Tanner's obsessiveness
finally pays off and he tracks down the person he's been after since
book one. But there is a welcome acknowledgement that fighting is
really not good for the mental health of the people who do it, even if
they manage to avoid death or crippling injuries. And that sooner or
later claiming you're the good guys while funding black ops does come
back to bite you.
All right, perhaps Tanner is just a bit too present at all the
important events, a bit too capable at whatever he needs to do.
There's certainly some wish-fulfilment here. But this was an excellent
conclusion to the trilogy. (Not to the series; all the main plot
threads are wrapped up, but book four is a side story from another
viewpoint, and book five carries on with Tanner's life after the war.)
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