Customer Reviews

Starfist: Flashfire

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Flashfire (2006) is the eleventh Combat SF novel in the StarFIST series. The Coalition of Worlds consists of a dozen frontier planets that have accumulated a huge trade deficit with other planets of the Confederacy. Under the leadership of Ravenette -- the most wealthy member -- the Coalition worlds have decided that the solution to their problems is secession from the Confederacy. The Confederacy would have let the Coalition go to perdition in their own way, but there is always the problem of the alien Skinks.

With the Skinks probing the frontier, the Confederacy has beefed up its forces on the Coalition worlds and others in the vicinity. This additional military presence hasn't improved public relations on those planets, but everything about the Skinks is classified at the highest level. Various critics have pointed out the problems with withholding such information from the affected worlds.

In this novel, a mob of 300 Ravenette men, women and children forms in front of the main gates of Fort Seymour, a recently reinforced supply deport. The mob throws firebombs and other objects at the 30 soldiers facing them, although most are falling short. Suddenly a brick takes out the officer of the guard and a shot is fired at the soldiers.

After the shooting dies down, the vid cameras record the carnage from this incident and the Ravenette government distributes copies of the vids to news agencies throughout the Confederacy. The official reports reach the Confederation government central offices well after the vids appear on local networks. The President of the Confederacy -- Madam Chang-Sturdevant -- is quite irritated at the delays in the official reports, but has to face a full session of Congress with little more than the information in the vids.

The Representative of Ravenette -- Preston Summers -- makes a stirring speech and then presents the Coalition demands. An argument ensues and Summers assaults another representative with his cane. The Coalition representatives walk out of the Congress and then the Coalition presents an Ordinance of Secession to the Confederacy.

In this story, General Davis Lyons is commander of the military forces of Ravenette. He has served with the Confederation forces and is well aware of their numbers and abilities. He sees no way for the Coalition to win any war with the Confederacy and he informs the convention of delegates from the Coalition worlds that they are going to lose. Yet he has personal reasons for trying to attack the Confederacy and is appointed commanding general of all Coalition forces.

Major General Alistair Cazombi is commander of Fort Seymour. He was a fighting general and one of the critics of the high level policy on the Skinks. After serving on Avionia, Cazombi was assigned as C1 for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had a semi-public confrontation with the Chairman about Confederation policy of sequestering troops who have fought against the Skinks and the Chairman had him transferred as far from Fargo as possible.

Brigadier General Balca Sorca is commander of the 3rd Provisional Infantry Division, which has been transferred to Ravenette to provide additional security to Fort Seymour. Although General Cazombi is senior to General Sorca, the 3rd Provisional Infantry is an independent command and is not subject to orders from the base commander.

Despite advice from Cazombi, General Sorca uses a defensive line rather than a defense in depth. When the initial offensive by Coalition troops quickly penetrates the line of Confederation forces, the surviving troops have to fall back to positions previously prepared by Cazombi on the Bataan peninsula.

This location has been nicknamed "Bataan" from its obvious resemblance to the peninsula in Manila Bay on Earth. Originally used to store supplies, equipment and ordinance, the tunnels have been extensively fortified by Cazombi's troops and engineers borrowed from Sorca. Once the retreating troops are settled into these defensive positions, Sorca relinquishes command to General Cazombi.

This story tells of the Confederation response to this attack on Fort Seymour. Until a properly equipped and trained task force can be assembled, nearby Confederation forces are inserted piecemeal onto Ravenette. These reinforcements suffer heavy casualties while landing on the planet.

With adroit political maneuvering, Lieutenant General Jason Billie gains command of the relieving forces. The 34th FIST is assigned to his command. The men don't mind, since they have avoided an IG review of their unit, but Brigadier Sturgeon soon discovers that General Billie is a self-important incompetent.

Brigadier Sturgeon soon develops his own ways of obtaining intelligence and establishes cooperative arrangements with other commanders. He informs General Billie of enemy maneuvers and finds means of delaying execution of inept orders until the misperceptions are very apparent. In effect, the 34th is operating as an independent unit, but they can't really reach their full effectiveness with General Billie hanging around their neck.

Obviously, this story has many similarities to the start of the United States Civil War. The generals on both sides, and many of the troops, learned their trades in the same Confederation units. These generals are often personally acquainted with their opponents.

Ironic, isn't it, that the established government in this series is the Confederacy? In fact, this story is, in several ways, a caricature on the secession of the southern states. Nonetheless, the Confederation forces are far larger than the Coalition forces, much more than the Union forces outnumbered the Rebels. As General Lyons points out in this story, the Confederacy can surely overwhelm the Coalition given sufficient time.

This tale cuts off at the height of General Billie's foolishness. The story continues into the next volume: Firestorm. Read the two together if you can.

Highly recommended for Sherman & Cragg fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of large battles, military politics, and strange romantic affairs.

-Arthur W. Jordin

An excellent extension of the StarFIST series. I hope the authors can keep the series going with the same quality.

First, let me just preface this to say that I have read all of the rest of the books in this series and they were excellent. This one, even though the plot was different than the rest and it had great potential failed on several counts.

It was dis-jointed. What do I mean by dis-jointed? It seemed as if several chapters and paragraphs were out of place. For instance, in Chapter 27 Brigadier Sturgeon gets into it with the overall commander and dumbass, General Billie in "yet and another commanders meeting". In the following chapter, they are about to have a commanders meeting AGAIN and Brigadier Sturgeon is asking another General what he can tell him about their new commander and if he has what it takes. One would think that Brigadier Sturgeon, having already had an opportunity to take measure of the idiot in charge would already know and not have to ask.

There are quite a few of these places where it just doesn't seem to flow well in the timeline. And then, then there is the ending. What a weird place to let the storyline go. It just quits. Not even really a cliff-hanger, it just dies.

For the first time since I started this series, I have to say I was extremely disappointed. I enjoyed all of the others and would recommend any of them to friends and family.

Thanks for your time in reading this review.

It's an extremely well written book. I love the storyline it fits perfectly into the way the modern day military is controlled by political robots who know nothing about fighting a war. I look forward to the next book and hope to enjoy the adventures of the 34th fist last a long time.

Wait for Firestorm to be available. This is only the first half (I hope it's half and not 1/3!) of the story.
Not the best of the Starfist books, perhaps that will change when the next part comes out. Of course, that could be a year or more and who will remember the details and characters by then? I'm very disappointed. Still, it was fun while it lasted. I won't go over the story, that's already been covered in other reviews; just let me warn you that you won't be satisfied with how it ends.

I am an absolute sucker for all of the STARFIRE books -- they walk well trodden ground, but they are fresh and fun and worth the money and time spent so long as you like this kind of thing. I save them all, and as with the WEB Griffin books, read 'em again and again --

It is another well written book. The guys did it again. I love the storyline and how it is going. You kinda wish that the real warriors could do something about the pencil pushers that try to control them, but in the end it should work out. I look forward to the next book to complete this adventure.

Everyone else has given you the story line, so I will skip that. What I want to say is how this book ended with a clifhanger. Nothing was resolved. Boom just when the action was really taking off, its over.

I hate it when authors do this. Its getting to be more and more common that they do this. Just so they can sell more books instead of doing what they should do. Tell a story and do it well. This should have been one complete book, just like all the others in this series.

No warning that this was the beginning of a 2 or 3 part story in the discription of this book. I feel ripped off.

While the story is ok, I would pass on this one just because of how badly it ended.

I am very disapointed in David Sherman. A Marine should always carry through with their duty, and he failed at it with this book.

Action packed but not as classically sci-fi as most in the series (there's a big section about an impending IG inspection, for example). Despite that, I found it an entertaining and captivating adventure. The authors do a great job of showing how easily things can go awry when you put soldiers into an environment for which they've not be adequately trained. Their real-life military experience helps everything remain believable. The political scenarios also draw from current events. The characters remain true to prior books and the action remains fast-paced. I'm not so thrilled about the "cliffhanger" ending, particularly since it appears to be a case of one large book made into two small ones yet it was good enough that I'll be pre-orderig the next one. Not as good as many in the series but certainly better than most run of the mill sci-fi. An entertaining read.

During a violent independence protest at the main gate of Fort Seymour army depot on the remote planet of Ravenette, civilians toss bricks at the soldiers hitting a Lieutenant; the untrained in civil disobedience contract workforce fires at the crowd killing several people. The local populace and that of nine nearby worlds blame the military for overuse of force. Thus what started as a nasty trade dispute has turned bloody.

Those demanding independence from the Confederation rally everyone to their cause. Soon the combined strength of ten orbs assault Fort Seymour. The Confederation sends it battle hardened 34th Marine Fleet Initial Strike Team (FIST) to put down the insurgency on Ravenette, which the leadership assumes would end the revolt on all the planets. The marines lack critical Top Secret information that a well trained secessionist force is prepared for combat. Learning on the job the error of their ways, the FIST force adapts to fight a strong adversary while the real enemy, known to be waiting for the right moment by the pompous brass, the alien Skank prepares for its assault on the "winners".

Though the series is approximately a decade old and has had ten previous novels, this is a fresh exhilarating military science fiction that centers on conventional warfare. The story line is action-packed from the moment the brick hits the unsure Lieutenant Ios and never slows down as the troops on the ground realize how costly the secrets of their superiors are in lives. David Sherman and Dan Cragg provide a highly entertaining tale that carries a deep warning label about hiding needed information from the front lines fighting any war, past, present, or combat in a future outer space environs.

Harriet Klausner