y Force of Arms closely follows Dietz's earlier Legion of the Damned. Force deals with the Thraki and a fleet of automated warships, called the Sheen, that is programmed to destroy them. The Thraki belong to the Confederacy of Sentient Beings, a defensive alliance that grew into an interstellar government. The Thraki plan to use the Confederacy as cannon fodder against the Sheen.
The cast of characters includes Legion General William "Bill" Booly III, Admiral Angie Tyspin, Maylo Chien-Chu and her uncle Sergi, and former War Commander Hiween Doma-Sa. The author depends on the reader's previous acquaintance with them. While dealing with this new threat, these characters also wrap up loose ends from the previous book, including a conspiracy against the Confederacy itself.
As they track the Thraki, the Sheen gradually move closer to Confederacy space, carelessly killing anyone who gets in the way until the Confederacy finds itself forced to embrace old enemies against the implacable threat. The novel's primary conflict is between the Confederacy, as it struggles to hold together, and the Sheen. Although the Thraki play a major role, they're primarily the plot device that brings the Sheen into Confederacy space. The various member races of the Confederacy must decide whether to stand together against the Sheen and if so, how, or whether to allow the Sheen to destroy the Thraki.
Funny costumes, little SF
Dietz handles exposition with humor, and he demonstrates a lot of skill with characterization. He quickly builds sympathy for his characters and makes each one stand out. That's particularly important for the minor characters who die to build the Sheen's reputation as an unstoppable threat. Dietz possesses equal skill in depicting the various agendas of his alien races and the reasons for their existence. Perhaps because he has so little space in which to make minor alien characters sympathetic, Dietz gives them instantly recognizeable traits and feelings. As a result, the aliens seem like humans in funny costumes rather than truly alien.
The Legion featured in these novels is a descendant of the Legion Etrangere--the French Foreign Legion--and it's clear that Dietz has done his research. When he focuses on officers and men of the Legion, the story feels authentic. His generals and admirals pay attention to issues like logistics and standardization that have real strategic importance.
For the most part, the combat sequences feel lifted from descriptions of modern battles or from military novels set in contemporary times. Although they're exciting, they don't read like science fiction. For instance, most of the weapons commonly used in the book exist today. The integration of current technology does appear, in particular when the Hudathan cyborgs use digital communications to coordinate their fire, but it's not extrapolated to the advanced technology available in the Confederacy. The strategy that the Confederacy finally chooses for dealing with the Thraki seems bizarrely difficult and no better than the simpler strategies discussed immediately prior.
Perhaps the novel would work better as a military novel if it followed a smaller group through the entire conflict. As it stands, there's too much political background and too many characters.
Since this is space opera, I would have preferred less military detail and more focus on mythic-scale characters. Although I think Dietz has created at least one--General William "Bill" Booly--he doesn't show us enough of his characters' journeys and emotional development for it to be satisfying.
-- Rich
am Breen is leaving Earth. Sam is a pug, a member of a North American youth movement that values face-to-face violence over the in-vogue custom of fighting by hiring a "vengeance vendor" to "slander-by-the-hour." But pug is dead and Sam, disillusioned, is going to teach English on Octavia, a water planet whose sentient species are eight-armed beings. He's wary about helping to spread Earth's consumer culture off-planet, but prefers a backwater job to working for the power brokers at home.
In the spaceport, Sam loses his Speak-O-Matic, which would have helped him to communicate on Octavia. He is too poor to purchase another, and humans are supposedly physiologically incapable of speaking Octavian. But Sam needs to pay off his student loan, so he continues on the trip to the planet where he will be trained, knowing that when he eventually reaches Octavia, he'll be dependent on those few Octavians who can speak English.
On Octavia, Sam has difficulty adjusting. In addition to conducting his first classes in English, he has to wrestle with the unfamiliar skills of breathing underwater, learning a new culture and trying to speak Octavian. Are his hosts laughing at him? Is he offending them? What kind of animal is a wallen, anyway, and why do the Octavians tell him that it's dirty? What happened to all the dolphins in Octavia? What's so special about the coral gardens? And what about Jinya, that cute Octavian teacher with the wavy tentacles? Does she like him? As Sam's grasp of Octavian improves, he begins to learn secrets about the planet that its government might be happier to keep hidden.
Grim reality behind the cartoon
No rigorous scientific extrapolation here; Angry Young Spaceman has more in common with Saturday morning cartoons. It's set in an impossible future reminiscent of the animated series The Jetsons. Shiny flying saucers zip everywhere; there's a gadget with a silly-sounding brand name to accomplish any menial task; and other than the few humans, all the characters are "toons." It feels like watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and takes some getting used to, but Munroe has created the "Toontown" effect deliberately. If readers are going to come to care about the alien characters, it won't be because they've been anthropomorphized; it's impossible to mistake them for humans.
This is a galaxy where Earth government is indistinguishable from megacorporation; it manufactures, owns and legislates not only all the resources on all the planets, but even political movements that might at first seem to be critical of government. Sam Breen is trying to leave behind the hold that Earth has on him, but he soon discovers that most Octavians adore Earth consumer products and can't wait to become more like Earth. The critique of the commodification of cultures is effective, as is the description of how one culture can come to dominate another; however, some of the most intriguing plot hints peter out rather than play out. Did all the dolphins disappear? Is Jinya in danger if she gets pregnant? Do Sam's skills in speaking Octavian presage upheavals in Octavian culture? Toward the end of the novel, a lot of the most exciting action happens offscreen, to be recapped in a brief sentence or two. It's a mark of how engaging the story is that these small gaps in it are so keenly felt.
Angry Young Spaceman is a rarity, a self-published novel with the quality and readability of a book from a professional house. Munroe had his first novel published by HarperCollins before deciding that he didn't want to be part of its media monopoly. His very public "Dear John" letter is available on his website. Both the novel and Munroe's publishing activities are very interesting stories indeed.
-- Nalo
[Don't miss our interview with Jim Munroe in this issue. --Ed.]
y Force of Arms closely follows Dietz's earlier Legion of the Damned. Force deals with the Thraki and a fleet of automated warships, called the Sheen, that is programmed to destroy them. The Thraki belong to the Confederacy of Sentient Beings, a defensive alliance that grew into an interstellar government. The Thraki plan to use the Confederacy as cannon fodder against the Sheen.
am Breen is leaving Earth. Sam is a pug, a member of a North American youth movement that values face-to-face violence over the in-vogue custom of fighting by hiring a "vengeance vendor" to "slander-by-the-hour." But pug is dead and Sam, disillusioned, is going to teach English on Octavia, a water planet whose sentient species are eight-armed beings. He's wary about helping to spread Earth's consumer culture off-planet, but prefers a backwater job to working for the power brokers at home.
