Customer Reviews

The Road to Damascus (Bolo)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

For those of too young to have grown up on Keith Laumer's stories of self-aware fighting machines you now get a chance to taste what you missed. But these aren't KL's Bolos. No sir, gone are the independent tank sized fighting machines, the Bolo of the Ringo/Evans era are massive, 13,000 ton brutes that are large enough that only one is needed to protect a planet from enemy invasion

ROAD TO DAMASCUS is a story about one such machine. Obsolete and scheduled to be scrapped, a new war with aliens requires "Sonny" and his human commander be sent to Jefferson to protect them from the Deng, which he does with the usual Ringoisk style where you would swear that you were in the middle of the battle instead of just reading about it.

However the Bolo and the various wars it comes to fight are secondary to the real plot of the book, the subjugation of a once prosperous planet by a group of truly evil people. It was like reading Hitler's Mein Kampf all over again. The POPPA, a hideous blend of Nazi's and communists, use class warfare, brainwashing, gun control, goon squads, death camps and one really big semi-sentient machine to maintain their iron fisted rule. It is a story as much about politics as it is about war.

So what is a thinking machine suppose to do when the revolution comes? That's the big question and what makes this story different from any other Bolo story I've ever had the pleasure to read.

Lots of blood, guts, mystery, intrigue, and even a little romance thrown in. While RTD isn't your average Bolo war story it is a fascinating new look at human/machine interaction, revolution and dictatorship.

I liked and wholeheartedly RECOMMEND it.

The Road To Damascus, by co-authors John Ringo and Linda Evans. Set in the future, a nasty three-way war comes to the planet Jefferson. But the destruction and death of that war are nothing compared to the danger of the reconstruction afterwards, at the hands of people who want "only the best" for their citizens...and will stop at nothing to create it.

Caught in the middle of this is a giant, AI-run machine of war known as a Bolo. Obsolete and abandoned, it is used as an instrument of an oppresion it does not understand, as it carries out increasingly bloody actions in support of what was once a free and prosperous society, and now is little more than a brutal socialist welfare state.

Bolos were created by Keith Laumer, and have been the subject of several novels and short stories. They are to mere tanks what tanks might be to the Pharoh's chariots. "Historically" they evolved from the highly automated battle tanks of the 21st century; in fact some contemporary tankers who read Bolo stories call the M1 Abrams MBT the "Mark I Bolo" due to it's high degree of computerization. Intelligent machines of war, they are the ultimate war machines, designed to defend humanity from its enemies.

But what if those enemies are human? That is the question faced by Unit of the Line SOL-0045, also known as "Sonny." Ringo and Evans are top notch authors, and they spare few punches looking at the fundamental self-defeating politics of the left, while simultaneously portraying the tortured psyche of a machine caught between duty and honor. Likewise caught betwen friendship, family, and duty are two people fighting against Sonny -- Sonny's former commander and his wife, who are at the same time, desperately tyring to save their daughter from the clutches of the State. I recommend this book, whether you like military yarns, political intrigue, or love stories, it's got something for everyone.

Let's leave aside the question of whether making a Bolo _that_ big makes any sense (as I recall, Laumer's original Bolos were much less unwieldly..). That done, there still remain the open questions of the villians' motivations and the lack of supervision from Brigade HQ.

Given that Earth history is still known and studied, we are at first given to believe that POPPA's founders have some sort of commercial motive for their power grab, knowing full-well what the ultimate results will be. A half-hearted smuggling subplot attempts to explain some of this, but the book later has a change of heart and suggests that the top of the cabal are True Believers.

Also, given that the Bolo has a built-in FTL tranceiver, which apparently costs him nothing in resources to operate, it strains credulity that he doesn't give more situation reports to HQ and receive better guidance. This situation becomes completely untenable when Vishnu's Brigade rep decides to commit herself to action against POPPA. All it should have taken is one report from her to HQ for HQ to send a cease-and-desist down to the Bolo..

All that said, if you put aside your disbelief at the setup, there are some nice scenes here, including a surprisingly moving Bolo epiphany.

If you enjoyed any of Ayn Rand's books (Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead, et. al.) you will enjoy this. If you are looking for a more typical Keith Laumer or William H. Keith offering, you are likely to be disappointed.

The moral of this story is that government powergrabs designed to foster dependency on the government through transfer payments (welfare, unemployment, social security) creates a powerbase of voters by taking from those that create and work hard and giving to those that do not. The example here is exaggerated and not particularly believeable.

Long book at 757 pages (paperback) with less than 10% related to the action that is more representative of the series. That said, the story is not bad, just different than may be expected. Character development is certainly stronger than the shorter stories. Any story this long will have sections that begin to drag, and there is no exception here, but the dialog is engaging and I did develop a level of concern about the main characters.

Overall, good story if you know what to expect.

One of the threads running through all the Bolo stories is a consistent feel and style. The Road To Damascus (the title being a New Testament reference) has some of this style, but it is also a bit off. The Bolo's internal reflections, which are central to any Bolo story, don't come off quite right. Although "Sonny", the Bolo, is _only_ a Mark XX (the first fully self-aware series), he has almost no personality. Also, Bolos rarely take more than hundredths of a second to run analysis and programs. For some reason, the authors have Sonny sometimes needing tens of seconds.

Ringo and Evans are both experienced authors, who manage to drag this saga through some 750 pages, at least a third of which could be dropped without a loss. I didn't think authors were paid for novels by the word. Worse, the ending is a bit unfinished, and I really hope this doesn't mean there will be a sequel for Unit SOL-0045 of the Line.

Finally, the political premise at the core of the story makes no sense. There are some references to Second Amendment issues, and some analogies with Nazi use of scapegoats as an politically unifying tool. But why would a pair of rich heirs to an industrial empire undertake to engineer and pull off the complete destruction of a planetary economy and its society? If they wanted to fill their pockets, a working industrial base would yield more takings. The concept provides an unequivocable set of "bad guys", but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

SOL-0045, a Bolo Mark XX, was loaned out by the Concordiat to the planet of Jefferson to help defend against any attacks by the Deng as a three sided war rages across millions of light years of space between the Dinochrome Brigade and the advancing Melkonians and the losing Deng. After helping defeat a Deng invasion SOL finds himself under the control of a brutal, power hungry, government that plans to use him to crush all who get in their way. And as the legal government he HAS to obey.
Or does he? As the civil war grows, the Bolo has to find a way to escape the trap, the trap of duty and ethics. After all, Bolos were programmed to obey humans but they were also built to protect humans.
At 757 pages, this book is a tad longer than it needed to be and has just a tad too much in the way of politics. Also the Bolo felt a tad too human.

A few things were good with the book. The epiphany at the end was very interesting. Sonny was a pretty decent Bolo character, the only other character that was any good was the Bolo Tech who was introduced towards the middle of the book. Then there were some really good battle scenes scattered throughout the book.

Otherwise the characters operated at extremes. The mother was a tough sacrificing women who forged a planetary guerilla movement. The daughter goes from being a brainwashed brat from the pits of hell to a noble, tough and strong young woman. The Father is the stereotypical noble soldier who has seen far to much war and bloodshed. The evil government follows this same principle as being way over the top. The list goes on.

If you can ignore the worst points about this book in can be ok.

Gosh...I love me some Bolos. Have read 5 or 10 other Bolo books, and liked them all. Absolutely could not get through this one. I can't even think of another book that I couldn't stand long enough to finish...usually am able to plow through to the end "just to see what happens," but I just couldn't stomach this.

The authors convinced me right away that the bad guys were really bad. Super bad. Like, Darth Vader bad. But the book is 750 pages long. 750 pages that do nothing bad hammer in that point, over and over again, while the only "normal" characters try to understand "How can they be so bad? How can they do these things?" After about thirty pages of bad things, I didn't CARE why the bad guys were doing them. It's a Bolo book! Just fracking SHOOT them, already!

John Ringo is certainly making a name for himself in the SciFi category.
I have long been a fan of the 'Bolo' series created by Keith Laumer. This novel is a worthy addition to the series. Mr Ringo's writing is much improved from the 'competent, but flat' style used in his first novel "Hymn Before Battle". His characterizations are more vibrant, his conversations more realistic.
This novel is certainly very timely, given the current focus on 'collateral damage' in military actions. While he does tend to be a bit preachy at times, it is well concealed by an intricate plot and interesting characters. At it's heart, this is a book about duty. While the battle scenes are as good as anything he has previously done, the focus is on the personal costs to his characters of doing their duty and maintaining their honor.

I always look forward to Mr Ringo's offerings, and this one certainly did NOT disappoint.

The ET Volkswanderung has arrived to conquer the residents of planet Jefferson, cut off from the rest of the Concordant. Nothing survives the devastation of these marauding interplanetary travelers once they engage in their usual hostile activities. To battle the Volkswanderung, Commander Simon Khrustinov and his Surplus on Loan (SOL) Bolo prepare for one final onslaught yet they successfully vanquish the enemy.

However, much of Jefferson is in ruins from the war. Infrastructure either no longer exists or so feeble it might as well not be there. To rebuild the planet means a major influx of capital (both money and people), but few are willing to pay the cost. When the unpopular government tries to make tough decisions, it gains no support and collapses. Narrow vision Utopians take over with a special agenda to use the powerful Bolo to ethnically cleanse their enemies, not understanding the moral dilemma imposed on this thinking war machine with a conscience.

This is an exciting military and post military science fiction novel that would make Keith Laumer proud of what John Ringo and Linda Evans has done with his Bolo. The story line is at its best when the audience observes the reconstruction options and the ethics issues, none of which are easy or cheap. At times harsh and condemning those foolish enough to believe that no one besides the soldier and his or her family have to pay for war and its aftermath, readers will get the no free lunch message that there is a price to pay when conflict, even in the case of defense, is deployed.

Harriet Klausner