Customer Reviews

Lieutenant Colonel (Dirigent Mercenary Corps)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a Lt Col myself I can appreciate the hero's dilemmas. If you screw up, others are going to eat it big. I've enjoyed the series, and am wondering how soon he'll pin on 0-6. The hero does spend a lot of time agonizing over his thought processes. He should be more confident of his abilities, otherwise he shouldn't wear the rank. The one book, one rank option will limit itself. I'm sure there were other missions he could have done as, say, a Captain. You generally do not get promoted after a small campaign. Overall good series, the author does have a good understanding of the military community.

Yet another in the on again off again installment following our protagonist into ever higher commands. One of the interesting aspects of this series is that Shelly doesn't try and give us a campaign-by-campaign account or the hero's (Lee Nolan) career. it almost has the feel of a "best of" series which is refreshing and different. Shelly has also started to (thankfully) move away from the always predictable, and always boring formula present in many sci-fi military books. That of having a climactic battle at the end where the hero and his friends are almost killed, only to have some outside deus-ex-machina force come to save the day. My only knock is that the ending feels rushed. Like there was a publishing deadline and all the action and story lines had to be wrapped up in five pages. It's one thing to have an "ends with a whimper" finish, quite another to make it rushed. Overall a good afternoon's read, better than most of the sci-fi movies out there :-)

I continue to find Shelley's writing stilted, his characters wooden, his science uncompelling and his plots trivial. Any number of military SF writers do a more compelling job: Weber, Moon, Drake, Dickson, Pournelle - even Roland Green. Shelley seems to have taken a basic course in expository writing and over time his ability to infuse characters with complex emotions, conveyed in some way other than baqld narrative, has remained static. This is a book in which the author neither challenges himself nor his readers.

Yet another in the on again off again installment following our protagonist into ever higher commands. One of the interesting aspects of this series is that Shelly doesn't try and give us a campaign-by-campaign account or the hero's (Lon Nolan) career. it almost has the feel of a "best of" series which is refreshing and different. Shelly has also started to (thankfully) move away from the always predictable, and always boring formula present in many sci-fi military books. That of having a climactic battle at the end where the hero and his friends are almost killed, only to have some outside deus-ex-machina force come to save the day. My only knock is that the ending feels rushed. Like there was a publishing deadline and all the action and story lines had to be wrapped up in five pages. It's one thing to have an "ends with a whimper" finish, quite another to make it rushed. Overall a good afternoon's read, better than most of the sci-fi movies out there :-)

This book blends in to rhe rest of the storyline quite well. Shelley hasn't lost a thing in this writing, he perhaps has gotten my attention faster and with a continuity that makes me ready for his next offering. I just wish so many of his books were more available.