2021 military SF, first of a series. Cole Shaw signed up because the
alternative was waiting to die on his failing colony planet. Now he
drives a mech.
So um yes. I did not expect this to be subtle, or even
particularly good. And it isn't. But I did end up rather enjoying it.
Plenty of fighting, of course, and at least a tissue of justification
for why great big mecha are a sensible war machine (the
neural-connected human pilots can map their existing body image onto
them, which makes them more agile). Not so much for the enemy mecha,
which just have a conventional cockpit with levers and things, but
never mind. But there are also the alien "sentinels", organic/tech
hybrids scaling from "quite scary" up to "kaiju", that seem to have
been left to guard ancient alien sites on unexplored planets. Lots of
plasma rifles and photon cannon (which fire a bolt you can dodge,
apparently), and energy axes, and blood and gore and guts and veins in
your teeth.
Yeah, there are the squadmates, some of whom rise to two personality
traits (religious and horndog!), but given some of the stuff they go
through here I suspect their post-traumatic stress would override any
personalities they might have had anyway. There is a gradual
escalation of power, but I genuinely appreciated the way Melchiorri
stripped all that away again at the climax to bring the final conflict
down to a raw will not to lose.
This is mostly action, and if you don't enjoy the action there isn't
much here for you. If I'd been in a different mood I wouldn't have
appreciated this at all. There were definitely moments which were
risible, and this won't be on a book of the year list for me. But in
spite of all that I was entertained, and honestly I think that's all
the author is aiming for.