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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing, October 19, 2004
The only reason I don't give it 5 is because it is a reprint in a different format, with all stories previously published.
Spoiler alert for the main story.
That said, Rolling Hot, the prime story, is one you simply must read if you want to grasp the military mindset. It ranks up with Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the novel, not the stupid movie with the same title) and Haldeman's The Forever War.
Drake always manages to impart wisdom under the horrific gore. It's actually incredibly subtle in its own perverse way. Drake loads on the blood as a cautionary tale. He served with the 11th Armored Cavalry in Vietnam, and it still shows in his writing and occasionally in his talk. This isn't gore to titillate, this is gore to revolt, just in case you start to develop the theory that violence is a neat thing. It's harsh enough it will probably override years of stupid shootemup computer games in the current generation. Yes, it's THAT grisly.
But the characters are where the story is. Along with a decrepit, burned out, wrung out bunch of leftovers from previous engagements, a civilian reporter rides along. His goal was to investigate the "Waste" of money on the mercenaries that could be spent on additional indigenous forces. All he sees at the beginning is the rough, crude exterior of the unit.
On post during an attack, he winds up dragging along during a hell for leather chase across the continent, a desperate attempt to relieve the capital with the only troops available--the Slammers' sick list. It's that or be left as fodder, and the enemy doesn't care that he's a "noncombatant." Violating the non-interference concept reporters try to embrace, he mans a gun and offers his best military skill--shooting a grenade launcher as he learned as a reservist years past. "That's it, Turtle! you flush 'em, we'll shoot 'em!" one of his squad mates advises through a burst of fire. Even more than the Slammers, this is the last place he wants to be, and there's simply no choice.
At the end of a brutal, casualty-ridden drive across a hostile wasteland of enemy action, bad roads, "friendly" fire and inadequate supplies, he has the answer to his question. Why spend money on professionals? Because they're the only ones who can accomplish the impossible. As Montesquieu said, "A rational army WOULD run away."
That's when the story took a twist. Upon relieving the town, the mercs are shunned and ridiculed for their "disgusting and unprofessional" appearance by the alleged professionals of the local army and government. Our reporter reacts with righteous indignation and murderous rage that troops brave enough and dedicated enough to pull off the impossible are regarded as trash by pretty boys with no trigger time...
...and is stopped by one of the gunners, who tells him, "It don't mean nothin'."
I was appalled by the ending. I was outraged. It seemed to not be an ending in any fashion. It was six months later, during a discussion where I was trying uselessly to explain the concept of military duty to a civilian who simply CANNOT understand what it means. Some can, some can't. Those who can't never will. That's when I understood. "It don't mean nothin'."
Nineteen years of service. A few hours to read. Six months for it to make sense. And a story I will never forget.
And sadly, most civilians will never get it. That's not an insult, it's a cultural observation.
Bravo, Dave.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Rolling Hot" is Five Stars, all by itself..., December 31, 2005
Baen Books has a very bad habit of repackaging previously-published material in different editions and not warning the reader of the fact. This is a Naughty.
On the other hand, this edition keeps "Rolling Hot", the single best of the "Hammer's Slammers" stories, in print, and for that alone it'd be almost worth its cover price. Add in "The Tank Lords", which i had not read before, and i bought it quite happily to replace a copy or "Rolling Hot" gone AWOL.
Since the most important part of this book (as far as i'm concerned) is "Rolling Hot", i'm reviewing mainly that story:
This is, in many ways, the best that David Drake has given us yet.
In a war not unlike the one in which Drake and i both found ourselves involved a while back, an ad-hoc unit of odds and sods finds itself rolling hot to try to relieve their employer's provincial capital.
While these are members of Hammer's Slammers, the deadliest mercenary unit going, they are hardly the Slammers' finest, ranging from maintenance personnel pressed into service as the crew of a patched-up tank to their CO, Capt. Peggie Ranson, who is just this side of a Section 8, and a civilian reporter, who accidentally winds up along for the ride, who furnishes a viewpoint for the reader.
It is this viewpoint (one of several from which Drake tells the story) that makes this book, in my opinion, about Drake's best -- by giving us someone a lot like ourselves, putting us inside his head then and putting him through an accelerated version of the hardening process that produces a professional soldier from a raw replacement, Drake shows us even more starkly than usual, that war is, indeed hell. And why.
Drake is not going to let us get away from war without rubbing our noses in it; he wants the reader to see soldiers as people, not fungibles, like bullets. (When Colonel Hammer gives Peggy Ranson the initial orders, he says that, in order to move fast, she is authorised to "combat loss" [abandon in place withouy survey] damaged vehicles. She replies sardonically [and presciently] that she's probably going to be combat lossing crews.) He wants to show people who haven't Seen The Elephant what war is, and to -- just maybe -- convince a few of us that War Is Not A Good Thing.
Reading this book can be harrowing, as you watch men and women who are at least recogniseable and often sympathetic characters kill and die. If you can read it and watch those characters fighting and dieing, and not find yourself in some sort of emotional state as you read Chapter 13, which is a slightly-less-formal version of a military arrival report of Task Force Ranson's arrival in the capital, listing the few remaining of the vehicles and personnel that they rolled with, then you have Not Been Listening or you Just Don't Get it.
"...still i wonder why -- the worst of men must fight and the best of men must die..." -- that was the question when Woodie wrote "Reuben James"; it's still the question.
One of the absolutely most revealing looks at the military mind and what the military actually DOES that i have ever read.
[For musical accompaniment to this book, may i suggest
"Drive On", by Johnny Cash, on his "American Recordings" CD, "Johnny Come Lately" by Steve Earle on "Copperhead Road", "Bad Moon Risin'" (and "Fortunate Son") by Creedence Clearwater and "Sam Stone", by John Prine...]
"The Tank Lords", the story of a misfit in a Rather Odd society who watches as the Slammer demonstrate why it is better to deal honestly with people like them, is also excellent.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Collection of Drake's Early Hammer's Slammers Military SciFi., February 16, 2006
The is a collection of related stories, about Colonel Hammer's Slammers, a group of mercenaries who ply their trade on other planets, in the far future. I'd previously read some of David Drake's more recent works, like the excellent THE REACHES series (Sir Francis Drake in Space); so, I'd been exposed to his ability to describe the horrors of war in great detail. While the descriptions of future tank and other military technology are superb, and there is plenty of action, I found most of these stories to be more battle-oriented than his later works, with simpler plots, and somewhat harder to follow dialog.
Here are brief reviews of each of the individual stories from THE TANK LORDS:
*** UNDER THE HAMMER (1979) - Short story. Details a newbie's first day among Hammer's Slammers - and he ends up having to learn fast.
*** 1/2 ROLLING HOT (1989) - Full-length story, which makes up the bulk of the book. Lots of detail of the horrors of war. A hodgepodge group of mercenaries (recruits, burnouts, maintenance techs) at a rear guard/maintenance site have to deal with an enemy ambush, and scrape together a force to launch a counterstrike. Mixed in with this are great descriptions of future military technologies, which still hold up well over 16 years later. I'm greatly impressed with his description of the tank commanders' display technology, the Unmanned Air Vehicles (which I'm very familiar with), and his description of battlefield digital communications (even today's 4th ID can't yet match his descriptions). When all the communications satellites are taken out, he even describes a way of getting long-range digital messages thru via meteor scatter.
*** NIGHT MARCH (1997) - Short story. A strange case of mistaken identity ensues when communications on a night march are fubar.
*** CODE-NAME FEIREFITZ (1985) - Short story. A Captain is assigned to dig out a horde of rebels from an underground bunker complex (eerily predictive of Tora Bora situation in Afghanistan, occurring 17 years later); but, he must also deal with his ex-Slammer born-again Christian brother, who has ties with the rebels.
***** THE TANK LORDS (1987) - Novellete, and the book's namesake. This story plays out on a despot lord's manor on an off-world Kingdom (imagine King John from Rocket Robin Hood, and you would be fairly close to the lord's persona); it is an excellent little tale about a young page, who worships the tanks and "the tank lords" who are visiting his lord's manor - and how he comes to transform himself into one of them. Much political and sexual intrigue, along with some decently exciting moments. Not the typical Drake tank lords story of mayhem and gore, although there is some at the end. This story almost single-handedly brings the whole book up to a 4 star rating.
The entire book is available in electronic format vie the Baen online free library.
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