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Redliners by [David Drake]

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Redliners Kindle Edition

by David Drake (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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They were the toughest fighters in the galaxy-
until they got used up.

The mission: redemption-or death,
The troops were walking dead already,
so there wasn't much of a downside.

Major Arthur Farrell and the troops of Strike Force Company C41 had seen too much war with the alien Kalendru. They had too many screaming memories to be fit for combat again, but they were far too dangerous to themselves and others to be returned to civilian life.

The bureaucracy that administered human affairs arranged a final mission with the same ruthless efficiency as it conducted the war against the Kalendru. C41 would guard a colony being sent to a hell planet. If the troops succeeded, they might be ready to return to human society.

When the mission went horribly wrong, Art Farrell and his troops found their lives on the line as never before, protecting civilians to whom bureaucratic injustice was a new experience. And there was one more thing...

A story of soldiers and civilians,
of hope and, possibly, redemption.

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (DRM Rights Management).

Print length

388 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

July 1, 1997
File size

591 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Drake returns with great success to the pattern of his best military sf novels. After a near-suicidal operation, an elite company of recon troops has been "redlined" --declared pyschologically unfit. A complex and somewhat improbable experiment is mounted to save them: they will escort a column of civilians across an intensely hostile world to a final confrontation at an alien biological warfare center. This scenario proves the foundation of an excellent book, full of Drake's usual superb action scenes and ingenious weapons and menaces. Drake also does considerably better by his characters, both civil and military (including the women): even one of his stock-in-trade personae, the guilt-obsessed trooper, takes on new life under the name of Caius Blohm. This is, far and away, the prolific Drake's best book since The Sharp End (1993). Roland Green --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

David Drake was attending Duke University Law School when he was drafted. He served the next two years in the Army, spending 1970 as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Viet Nam and Cambodia. Upon return he completed his law degree at Duke and was for eight years Assistant Town Attorney for Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He has been a full-time freelance writer since 1981. Besides the previous novels in the Lt. Leary series (with the Lightnings, Lt. Leary, Commanding and The Far Side of the Stars), his books for Baen include the best-selling Hammer's Slammers series (the most recent entry being Paying the Piper) and such stand-alone books as Ranks of Bronze, Starliner, All the Way to the Gallows, Redliners, and many more. For Tor, he has written the best-selling "Lord of the Isles" fantasy series, the most recent installment being Goddess of the Ice Realm. --This text refers to the mass_market edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00AXAHZ8C
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Baen Books; 1st edition (July 1, 1997)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 1, 1997
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 591 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 388 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #18,199 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #77 in Military Science Fiction (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
841 ratings

About the author

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David Drake

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The Army took David Drake from Duke Law School and sent him on a motorized tour of Viet Nam and Cambodia with the 11th Cav, the Blackhorse. He learned new skills, saw interesting sights, and met exotic people who hadn't run fast enough to get away.

Dave returned to become Chapel Hill's Assistant Town Attorney and to try to put his life back together through fiction making sense of his Army experiences.

Dave describes war from where he saw it: the loader's hatch of a tank in Cambodia. His military experience, combined with his formal education in history and Latin, has made him one of the foremost writers of realistic action SF and fantasy. His bestselling Hammer's Slammers series is credited with creating the genre of modern Military SF. He often wishes he had a less interesting background.

Dave lives with his family in rural North Carolina.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

841 global ratings

5 star		56%
4 star		26%
3 star		12%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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A well done 'Alien Life Against Us' military sci-fi

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2013

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I went from Bios to "Redliners", not realising that I was reading two "alien life against us" novels back to back.

Unlike "Bios", which was character focused, "Redliners" is military sci-fi action end-to-end, and explores how a crack team of shock troops, who are burnt out (or 'redlined') from one too many sorties that's gone wrong, are assigned guard duty to a ship of colonists settling on a hazardous new world.

There are wheels within wheels because things are not what they seem, and this establishes considerable tension both within and between Strike Force Company C41 and the civilian colonists.

Drake writes good action sequences and he is not afraid to dig into the characters psyches so we understand what is motivating them. And he happily kills characters off, mostly in a very messy fashion (it is combat after all), which is terrific because there is genuine tension in not knowing who might go next. His civilians, literally plucked from their high-rise tenement and shipped off to build a new world, are brittle and belligerent and bewildered by turns, which I expect we all pretty much would be in the circumstances.

The combat is with the Kalendru, an alien race that we've been at war with for some time, and some spectacularly hostile vegetation on the colony planet. That plant life was crazy vicious and I liked that (eventually) there was an explanation for why the plant life was so hostile. Considerable detail is provided for the weaponry, including the effect of each on life and limb. And tactics are comprehensively covered, so you are very much in the shoes of the platoons as they go about their business. The perspective is one-sided in that while we are given some observations about the Kalendru (and one direct mind meld), they are generally instigators of action, rather than characters in their own right.

Drake also throws a couple of high-ranking Government Administrators into the mix, and we learn early on that one of these, nicknamed "God" by pretty much everyone, has ulterior motives for just about every decision he makes. This keeps the melting pot of strung out combat troops, intimidated civilians, shoot-on-sight aliens and feral flora bubbling on high for pretty much the complete novel. In particular, the development of empathy between Strike Force Company C41 and their civilian charges is very well done.

"Redliners" is a good story, well told, but it is not perfect. Drake has an interesting layout for his pages - rather than indent new paragraphs, there is a gap between them. And where you might expect asterisks (or some other symbol) to demarcate sections within a chapter, Drake just uses a larger space, so you miss the odd change of topic as you read which is jarring. His prose is generally good, but there is the occasional judder where it feels stilted.

These are minor points however. If you like military sci-fi with a high mortality rate and machine gun rate of fire, then "Redliners" is for you!

Good yarn with strong message

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2022

Verified Purchase

Lots of Drake's writings have a point and none more than this. It's unique framing makes it worthwhile, mostly. Definitely could have used another edit pass or two to remove repetitive content and sharpen a few points of dialogue. It reads like an early work but if you're a fan of Drake it will feel both familiar and new.

Kindle Customer

My teenage self saw as a fun SciFi read; as a combat vet I understand

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2022

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I first read Redliners when I was a teenager because I enjoyed shoot them up science fiction and read many of Drake's books and other war fiction. I thought the book was interesting. I have read the book a few times over the last 35 years. Each time I took more meaning from it. It has been about ten years or so and two combat deployments since i last read it. I knew Drake wrote about his coming to terms with his Vietnam experience, now I understand why Drake wrote the book. Thank you David Drake!

2 people found this helpful

Lots of Military Action

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2013

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This book was issued in 1997 with a fourth edition issued in March 2006. Where have I been? This was my first exposure to David Drake. As other reviewers have stated, the story line has some gaps that needed to be filled. I did not connect the Category 4 Chief Administrator (John Smith) in the Prologue to the Category 4 (al-Ibrahimi) in the rest of the book until the very end. They were apparently the same person. The unit here (the Strikers) are designated as C41. The alpha designator indicates the size of the unit - C being about 100 personnel. Very few are actually mentioned by name. The unit is sent to a planet (Maxus 377) to fight the Kalendru with a population of over 500,000. The battle is fierce and C41 is extracted. End of discussion. The unit - C41 - is deemed unfit to be assimilated back into normal society and are redlined. Hence the name of the book. The Chief Administrator decides to use C41 to guard a colony of civilians being transported to a new planet (BZ 459) to be colonized. No one trusts anyone else as this evolves. On this new planet, everything is a hazard, even the vegetation which turns out to be electronic or smart. C41 finds a crashed Kalendru space ship which is not supposed to be on the planet. The planet is populated by humanoids in addition to the smart vegetation. The soldiers and the civilians are attacked by 264 of the humanoids who are defeated by the few C41 personnel remaining alive. At the end of the book the Chief Administrator has knowledge not available to anyone else and instructs C41 personnel to look for a door/underground entrance to tunnels that house electronics that will turn the vegetation off. They do find the door, the vegetation is turned off and becomes normal trees and grass. The mission is successful and the story ends. While I agree that the story line had gaps, to me it was written in such a manner that held my interest. The hazards that C41 had to face, while bizarre, seemed to be unique and well thought out. Anyone who likes a military type fiction with lots of action should like this story.

One person found this helpful

Burnout to the Nth degree

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2022

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Not the best book by David Drake but still a nice read. Battle hardened, beyond PTSD, soldiers cannot be let out of the military so shipped out to another colony world to guard colonists. The somewhat shallow aliens need to have their ass kicked though. From start to finish was nonstop action. The government was an enigma though: as an institution they appeared to be rather cold-hearted yet the ones you meet in the book seem like normal humans. After a bit the book drags a bit, one battle melds into the next. Still an enjoyable read.

One person found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Jaycee

a good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 12, 2013

Verified Purchase

Interesting twist to the story made it worth reading. Kalendru seem easy to beat, why don't they wear armour? They have a convenient psychology and are depicted in a shallow, just because there needs to be an enemy, kind of way. A bit starship troopers without the nazi references but with a very distasteful name for the enemy which I feel should have been avoided, it rather spoiled the story for me and was unnecessary. And, not too badly written. Can only give it three stars though because of those things.

S. Wong

Cracking good action story with food for thought

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2015

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Cracking good action story; Drake at his best. The combat scenes drag you right into the middle of the action, written by someone who's been there and seen it.
Behind the action though is a serious look at what combat does to the men and women who go through it, how they cope, the role that society plays in judging them and also ultimately redeeming them.
This reminds me strongly of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, which you can read just for the great action scenes or you can take deeper if you want to. This will easily rank up there as a classic of scifi.

iain russell

All action sci-fi

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

Gripping story concerning a company of elite soldiers given the task of protecting civilian colonists on an newly surveyed planet. The military unit are combat fatigued to the point of dysfunctional, the civilians don't really want to be there and from the very outset they are up against an extremely hostile environment, relentless attacks from the natives as well as enemy alien troops. Fast paced all action sci-fi that never lets up right to the end.

JW

Extraordinary

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. But Damon if it is not difficult to describe. Ok, as far as I can see it this is a book about PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and it is defiantly a story about redemption. The author is clever with a circular story line that really hooks you to the characters and gives you a stake in there storyline. I would totally recommend for anyone who wants something more than a pulp sci fi shooter.

Raul Leite

When humanoid aliens aren't the only enemy...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 13, 2004

Verified Purchase

Pennance is a suitable sub-title to this nice piece of writing, and in fact it's used a few times throughtout the book.
The story deals with the "redliners", those soldiers that went one mission too far, and are now more of a liability than an asset to the civillian society. One final mission is given to Strike Force 41, safeguard civillian colonists en route to a new planet, before they are dismissed from service.
Things don't go quite well, unfortunately, for the planet they land is ridden with dangers, not only from the alien Kalendru, who naturally don't like Humans (duh!), but also from the planet's flora.
As usual, Drake's battle descriptions are crisp and easy to follow, with enough situations and technology to keep fans of this sub-genre happy.
A good read, not only for the military action, but also from the refreshing and different enemy introduced.

12 people found this helpful

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