I always liked to mix up my reading. If I have been reading a few mysteries, I will try to grab some science fiction. If I have been reading something serious, I will look for something funny. And if I have been reading heavier, intense literature, I try and look for something light and fun. With that mindset, I grabbed up and began to listen to Cobra by Timothy Zahn. Reading the summaries Cobra was about enhanced super soldiers, so I expected something light, with a bunch of action and explosions. I had never read Zahn before, but I knew he wrote some Star Wars novels, so that is basically what I expected, a shoot em' up Western in Space.
That is not what I got. Instead, I got a detailed and intimate tale of the life of a soldier. Instead of raging armies of super soldiers taking on tanks and Mecha, there was a well told story about the effects of war on a single man. There was action, but most of it was one man, escaping bad guys, or taking on subversive plots with not just lasers and bombs but his mind. Even more so, the book was a look at what happens to soldiers when they are taken from war, and placed back into society, those people they were duty bound to protect, now looking at them with fear and scorn. The beauty of Cobra is that is followed our protagonist past his battle days, and shows you his life from multiple perspectives. It allows you to see how the active duty life of a soldier is only his first battle.
Cobra exceeded my expectations and again taught me that you can't always judge a book by its publisher generated blurb. As with many science fiction series, the seep sonorous voice of Stefan Rudnicki handled the narration. This tale was right in Rudnicki's wheelhouse, a character driven science fiction tale.