Review: Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos

I believe this is the author's first book. So not only a new author to me, but to all his readers!

Update (May 7): I forgot to add this to the Literary Escapism blog's New Author Challenge 2013. I've done so now!

Terms of Enlistment
by Marko Kloos
Series: I hope so
Genre: Military Science Fiction
Published by: Frostbite Publishing, 2013
E-book, Purchased
293 pages
Grade: B+
Synopsis: The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements, where you're restricted to 2,000 calories of badly flavored soy every day. You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world, or you can join the service.

Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces of the North American Commonwealth, for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price…and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or angry welfare rats with guns.

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This book was recommended to me by fellow blogger Li from Me and My Books. Thank you so much, Li, as Terms of Enlistment is one of my favorite books of the year so far. She recommended it after I read and reviewed another military science fiction--The Scrapyard Incident by Phillip Nolte. I've read military science fiction for years (Robert Heinlein, Elizabeth Moon, Tanya Huff, David Weber) and regular military fiction (mainly books about WWII when I was a teenager). I like adventure stories and military science fiction pretty well guarantees that!

I enjoyed this book very much. It's an exciting adventure story. Written in first person, present tense...gives it an immediacy...it's a bit like a journal or listening in to Andrew's thoughts. The author does a good job with the mechanics of writing this way. I don't imagine it's that easy. The book is self-published, I think, but the editing and writing are first-class.

The book opens with Andrew getting ready to leave the next day for his enlistment in the North American Commonwealth (NAC) military. These opening pages give the reader a flavor of the life he's led in the tenements where he was born and grew up. This is a good backdrop so we know why he's so determined to leave, succeed in the military and get off polluted, overcrowded Earth.

We experience the life of a recruit with Andrew as he learns the discipline and skills required in a military...what thousands of other recruits have learned through the ages. 

It feels strangely liberating to do precisely as instructed. I don't have to worry about displeasing the sergeant as long as I follow his orders exactly. For now, I resolve to not even scratch my nose unless being ordered by someone with chevrons on their collar.

and 

It feels a bit like a college dorm, only with guns and uniforms, and instead of learning trigonometry or North American History, we learn better ways to kill people and blow up their stuff.

This book does a good job of letting the reader discover the world through Andrew's eyes rather than with an omniscient POV. The book has some romance in it, but as happens in military life Andrew and Halley have to go their separate ways after Basic Training. But they continue to correspond with each other. Mr. Kloos also shows the closeness one feels towards comrades when in a unit together. Each person counts on his fellow soldiers. We've seen that comradery in recent years as soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are eager to return to their unit even after terrible injuries. They don't want to let their fellow soldiers down.

Andrew's military career has its ups and downs, doesn't always go the way he wants it to and he's not always sure he's made the right decisions, but he learns a lot during this book and is a different person than the "welfare rat" we see at the first of the book although the seeds were already there...his absolute determination to work toward a goal (leave the tenements and Earth). Much of the book is a real page turner and I hope Mr. Kloos is writing another book about Andrew and that it will soon be available!

Review: The Scrapyard Incident by Phillip Nolte

 

Another new author! Another addition to the New Author Challenge 2013. This challenge is hosted by the Literary Escapism blog. 

The Scrapyard Incident
by Phillip Nolte
Junkyard Dogs, book 1
Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera
Published by: Amazon Digital, 2013
E-book, purchased
365 pages
Grade: C+

Synopsis: Ensign Tamara Carlisle, a brilliant, beautiful but decidedly quirky young officer on a remote assignment to obtain information needed to finish her advanced degree in Military History...
Lieutenant Ryan Harris, a talented and experienced engineer who harbors doubts about his ability to command...Engineering Technician Angus Hawkins, a savvy veteran and former Chief Petty Officer busted down in rank for brawling...
 
These three unsuspecting individuals, marooned after a devastating sneak attack on the United Terran Federation Naval Reclamation Center-- a huge, orbiting Junkyard located in a remote corner of Federation space-- are forced to confront their limitations and team up to fight back against unknown, heavily armed foes who threaten their continued survival...
 
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This is a self-published book and looks like the first book written by Phillip Nolte. I enjoy space opera and military science fiction and I liked this book. It could have been written tighter and I saw some editing errors, but overall I enjoyed the book.

I thought the idea of the Scrapyard was good. It's a junkyard for spacecraft! The Scrapyard is formally known as the United Terran Federation Naval Reclamation Center--the derelict spacecraft left after a war and additional junked spacecraft brought here. The military has a base here because the parts from the spacecraft can often be sold and used for repairs. The military center is destroyed in a sneak attack and all but three military who are away from the Center in the Scrapyard during the attack are killed.

The three military left after a sneak attack are all engaging characters:

• Ensign Tamara Carlisle...with a tattoo on her face and especially her habit of talking to herself while she was thinking is a well-drawn character. 

She got into the short line that had formed as the newcomers were processed.
"...Reclamation center...checkpoint...credentials...take it easy, Tamara...," she mumbled to herself.
"Pardon? said the man directly in front of her, turning slightly to acknowledge the speaker behind.
"What? Oh, I must've been talking to myself again. Bad habit. My apologies."

I thought this was a clever character trait and made her more human and individual. However, this makes other people think she's odd and she hasn't fit in well with her academy classmates. She is intelligent, but she's an outsider in the military. This book reminded me a little of Elizabeth Moon's book Once a Hero about Lt. Esmay Suiza. Lt. Suiza is also young, very talented and an outsider in the military.

• Lieutenant Ryan Harris is a stereotypical engineer...good at the technical, but not a good people person. During the course of the book he discovers he's a better people person and leader than he thought. 

• The former Chief Petty Officer--now Engineering Technician Angus Hawkins (demoted due to a fight several years ago)--was the quintessential crusty, taciturn, but experienced NCO. Another stereotype...good officers know they should trust their experienced NCO even if he is crusty and has a chip on his shoulder!

While Lt. Harris, Ensign Carlisle and Engineering Tech Hawkins were having their battles with unknown forces their commanding officer and others on a space station are trying to figure out what force has taken over the space station and why. The book moves back and forth between the two locations as each battle for their lives and to try to figure out why the attacks happened.

I especially like that the military stayed true to being military. There is attraction between Lt. Harris and Ensign Carlisle, but during their fight in the Scrapyard he is her commander and he's aware that it's against regulations for them to become romantically involved. Also they were in the middle of life and death battles. It's much more realistic that the attraction was there, but they were too busy fighting for their lives. There is a slight romance by the end of the book (after the battles are over and Lt. Harris is no longer her commander), but they go their separate ways. This is the first book in a series so perhaps they meet again in the next book. I hope so! 

As I stated above I think the book would have benefited from more editing, but I do plan to buy the next book in this series and hope it comes out soon!