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timinbc's review against another edition
3.0
I may come back to give this a fourth star after reading the next one.
As I write this, I am reminded of Anne Leckie's "Ancillary" series - also a military SF story with moral overtones.
Nagata can take that as praise, not an accusation of being influenced. Because a military SF story without moral issues, or at least some non-military issues, is just gun porn in disguise. Think of two other good ones: Haldeman's Forever War and Scalzi's Old Man's War. Or the less good: Hammer's Slammers and all that stuff - which to be fair never claimed to be anything more than what they are. Or in between: Is Heinlein's Starship Troopers about exterminating bugs, or is it a satire? Or both?
Anyway, the military part is interesting enough, and the intervention of an outside force is very gently used, where anything more overt would have spoiled the story. In the second half, we meet a female villain who really should have been male so she could have had a mustache to twirl while cackling, "Nyah-ha-hah!"
Really it all sort of fell apart after they headed north. But there's a chance it will come back on volume 2 when we see how the cliffhanger is resolved. And it's nice to have a powerful force that we can't figure out as one of the players.
As I write this, I am reminded of Anne Leckie's "Ancillary" series - also a military SF story with moral overtones.
Nagata can take that as praise, not an accusation of being influenced. Because a military SF story without moral issues, or at least some non-military issues, is just gun porn in disguise. Think of two other good ones: Haldeman's Forever War and Scalzi's Old Man's War. Or the less good: Hammer's Slammers and all that stuff - which to be fair never claimed to be anything more than what they are. Or in between: Is Heinlein's Starship Troopers about exterminating bugs, or is it a satire? Or both?
Anyway, the military part is interesting enough, and the intervention of an outside force is very gently used, where anything more overt would have spoiled the story. In the second half, we meet a female villain who really should have been male so she could have had a mustache to twirl while cackling, "Nyah-ha-hah!"
Really it all sort of fell apart after they headed north. But there's a chance it will come back on volume 2 when we see how the cliffhanger is resolved. And it's nice to have a powerful force that we can't figure out as one of the players.
surfybridge's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
svrvh's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
sreeves's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
jmoses's review against another edition
3.0
This was fairly interesting. Intriguing premise, future (but not too far or implausible) tech, interesting first level characters. If you like mil-scifi you'll most likely like this. If you don't, or aren't sure? You might give it a try. It's a pretty quick read, so there's not much "lost investment" if you don't like it. I'll be looking for the next one.
zare_i's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent thriller placed in not so far future where dominance of big corporations is such that they control the behavior of states and use them as puppets to earn as much money as possible while discarding human lives as collateral damage. In this future everything is linked through the computer network (aka Cloud) and when balance is endangered it endangers the whole structure of society.
In such a world band of soldiers tries to do a right thing and bring criminals to justice - even at the cost of their own freedom and even lives. And in the background lurks an AI whose motives nobody understands but he moves people around like chess pieces. Some try to control it, some try to destroy it and almost everyone is afraid they are already under control of this mysterious entity but not aware of it.
Highly recommended. Cannot wait to move to 2nd and 3rd part of the trilogy.
In such a world band of soldiers tries to do a right thing and bring criminals to justice - even at the cost of their own freedom and even lives. And in the background lurks an AI whose motives nobody understands but he moves people around like chess pieces. Some try to control it, some try to destroy it and almost everyone is afraid they are already under control of this mysterious entity but not aware of it.
Highly recommended. Cannot wait to move to 2nd and 3rd part of the trilogy.
hank's review against another edition
3.0
Not bad but I got kind of bored towards the end. Probalby won't pick up the second one.
mnyberg's review against another edition
5.0
Great read. Smart and creative. Really good dialog. Plot revealed at perfect pace. I liked ending which sets up book two very well.
starryeyedreamer's review against another edition
5.0
I found this by searching 'female science fiction writers' on Google and then checking them out online to see if I liked the look of their stuff. (This was after falling in love with Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga). Winner! Also kind of ironic. Turns out the other thing The Red series has in common with the Vorkosigan saga is that it's classified as 'military sci-fi'. This could potentially be a label that puts some people off, especially if they are of the gender the author and I share. Yes, there are a lot of battle descriptions in these books, and a lot of futuristic tech. And yes, it's all first person present tense, and the first person is definitely a man, so if that bothers you, consider yourself warned. I've rarely had a problem identifying with a narrator because of their gender, but I know there are those who do.
How good the battle descriptions are in terms of accuracy I'll leave to someone who knows something about battle to describe, but they get the blood pumping, and despite, or perhaps sometimes because of the tech, the people, the hero James Shelley and his squad, their thoughts and feelings, are always at the heart of it. This series is near-future, which means the Earth it is set in looks enough like our own to have the reader constantly asking themselves whether these events could happen. It also plays out the old-fashioned hero's journey, but doesn't ever try to tie up the loose ends neatly, leaving it feeling a lot more like real life. Meanwhile it shines a light on important questions about who really holds the power on our little blue-green planet (and why), the ways in which we both empower ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable by our increasing interactions with AI, the way our nations use up young men and women in our military forces and what their service does to them, and the dilemmas involved in making decisions about the good of the individual versus the good of humanity.
I don't think I need to tell you how much I loved it (chewed up the series in 3 days, because yeah, I have an addictive personality). But it also interested me as a Lit student how well this series ties in to modern literary themes of postmodernism (with the hero unwittingly becoming the star of his own reality TV series) and posthumanism (with AI interacting continuously with his biology so that he and his fellow soldiers are quite literally part of a network).
If the first paragraph doesn't put you off, definitely give it a crack. I will be giving Linda Nagata's other work a nudge after this for sure.
How good the battle descriptions are in terms of accuracy I'll leave to someone who knows something about battle to describe, but they get the blood pumping, and despite, or perhaps sometimes because of the tech, the people, the hero James Shelley and his squad, their thoughts and feelings, are always at the heart of it. This series is near-future, which means the Earth it is set in looks enough like our own to have the reader constantly asking themselves whether these events could happen. It also plays out the old-fashioned hero's journey, but doesn't ever try to tie up the loose ends neatly, leaving it feeling a lot more like real life. Meanwhile it shines a light on important questions about who really holds the power on our little blue-green planet (and why), the ways in which we both empower ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable by our increasing interactions with AI, the way our nations use up young men and women in our military forces and what their service does to them, and the dilemmas involved in making decisions about the good of the individual versus the good of humanity.
I don't think I need to tell you how much I loved it (chewed up the series in 3 days, because yeah, I have an addictive personality). But it also interested me as a Lit student how well this series ties in to modern literary themes of postmodernism (with the hero unwittingly becoming the star of his own reality TV series) and posthumanism (with AI interacting continuously with his biology so that he and his fellow soldiers are quite literally part of a network).
If the first paragraph doesn't put you off, definitely give it a crack. I will be giving Linda Nagata's other work a nudge after this for sure.