Babylon's Ashes

After the events of Nemesis Games have, almost literally, broken the world, the Solar System finds itself engaged in the most destructive war in history. Governments have fallen, countless are dead, and the crew of the Rocinante find themselves struggling to keep up in a world choking on Babylon's Ashes.

Going forward, there are major spoilers for the series, so below the cut will include a much richer review.

In broad strokes, Babylon's Ashes more than Nemesis Games is a war story first and foremost. More so than even Caliban's War was. Picking up in the immediate aftermath of the status quo shattering events of the last book, we're thrown right into things as our cast, the crew of the Rocinante and a legion of new and familiar faces, are attempting to adjust to how much the world has changed once again.

We're given a sweeping narrative that runs from Earth to the edge of settled space and in the slow zone we first saw in Abaddon's Gate. Taking many familiar faces, Avasarala, Prax, Bobbie Draper and Anna, there's a wide amount of latitude to explore the tragedies of a solar system at war. Economic dislocation, creeping tyranny, and tragic loss from piracy, starvation and battle. It does an amazing job at humanizing war, especially one on a scale not before seen in human history.

It also does a wonderful job of humanizing people. So many stories about war too easily devolve into "us and them" stories, but this one doesn't. It acknowledges that people, whether from Earth, Mars or the Belt are people - no matter the physiological differences. One of James Holden's best traits shines through as, in response to Free Navy propaganda, he makes videos about the lives of average Belters trying to eke out an existence in the most hostile living arrangements known to man. He tries to show that, regardless of ideology, birthplace, or distance, everyone is human. It's a truly touching moment that tries to dismantle the usual dichotomy of war.

Alongside those moments, it manages to give us a gripping story of ending a solar system wide war. It begins as the forces of Earth and Mars are trying to consolidate and defending themselves from flying rocks thrown by the Free Navy. Holden and his crew go on a daring mission to blind their opponents to finally give the beleaguered Earth some breathing room. From there, it's a series of feints, attacks, and chases to try and gain advantage.

One of the small things I will criticize with this novel is that, while it nails the human element of war very well, the specifics of the war are left very vague. Outside of some moments near the end of the story where I have a definite idea of the numbers, the stakes involved in various battles and chases are extremely vague. I never know who held the balance of power, how many ships were involved, and whether one side really had the upper hand. The book could have been made so much more tense by the breakdown of what was lost, and what assets were where so I could sense out the course of the war. 

However, since the human element is more important, I can forgive it. As one character puts it, "war isn't just torpedoes and battle lines."

Through the character of Michio Pa, a tertiary character from Abaddon's Gate, we get the divided loyalties of someone who believes they're doing the right thing in war. To some, she's a pirate, from her own perspective she's a freedom fighter trying to bring justice to the people of the Belt. The vision put forward by the Free Navy, a Belt no longer under the heel of Mars and Earth, economic justice for Belters, and true void cities, is intoxicating. However, the increasingly brutal means put forward to make that a reality, are at odds with her own morality. 

It also examines the rolls of leaders. Even the flaws with the Great Man Theory of history. It shows us the leaders we have, while great, are not necessarily infallible geniuses. One of the best moments is when Fred Johnson simply says, he's doing what he knows in the best way he can. 

The narrative climaxes in a satisfying way, trying to seek solutions to the problems which led to the war in the first place. I quite enjoyed the effort to look at humanity through a full glass, and with the major players earnestly trying to find methods to solve the problems which caused the war, but with just enough ambiguity for the future to keep you invested in what comes next.

Moreover, it has some amazing moments which will probably not be forgotten in this series, but many spoilers follow.

Game of Thrones: Retrospective

Ten years ago, Game of Thrones burst into the television scene and rammed itself into the collective psyche of millions the world over. It was common for people to talk more about the politics of Westeros than the politics of their respective countries for a while! Almost overnight, the show leapt to meteoric heights, praised as "The Sopranos in Middle Earth" and having a talented cast of dedicated actors who worked their way through some of the most intensive scenes we've seen on television.

For all that though, not many people talk about Game of Thrones today.

Unlike say, The Sopranos or The Wire, or even other big name science fiction and fantasy shows like Merlin or Stargate and Battlestar Galactica; you don't see many people sharing memes about the show, it isn't often referenced in contemporary discourse, and often times people seem to act as though it didn't even exist. Where once you couldn't scroll through reddit, Tumblr, Facebook or Twitter without seeing something related to that series, now you only find it on dedicated fan sites and amongst people who still care about the (as of 2021) unfinished series.

Why that is, is hard to explain. For one thing, the show has possibly the most divisive ending in television history. From some who praised it, to millions of fans who were so pissed off they petitioned to have the ending re-filmed. In fact, the show seems to have ended on such a bad note that people who were fans seem to be almost unwilling to talk about having ever liked it in the first place. Hyperbole sure, but I certainly don't run across many people who I know loved the show who say they're going to re-watch it any time soon.

2034

Just beyond the scope of my recent WWIII reads, we come to the not too distant future with a thriller set in the year 2034. The novel was written by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis, both had military experience and an insight into the world of the military from the top to the bottom. It made me quite curious to see their views on what a future conflict with a peer competitor might look like.

The novel is, unsurprisingly, set in early 2034, taking place in the South China Sea and Iran at first. It looks at one of the areas of heightened tensions in the world and from there tries to trace a series of events where the two global powers end up in a series of increasing miscalculations and escalations which lead to, if not all out war, then a fairly close approximation of it.

From amazon.ca

Told through the eyes of USN Captain Sarah Hunt, Marine pilot Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell, deputy security advisor Sandeep Chowdhury, Revolutionary Guards Brigadier General Qassim Farshad, and finally Peoples Liberation Navy Commander Lin Bao. Through this cast of characters, from diverse and at odds nations, we see truly horrific events unfold in ways we can only hope will never happen.

In 2034 we see the authors being just ambitious enough with the history leading up to these events to engage the reader but not bog them down with geopolitics. We have references to India fighting a brief proxy war with Pakistan, Israel losing control of the Golan Heights, Russia annexing Belarus and much of Ukraine, and Iran engaging in various client state building wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. The US political system has apparent faced so much gridlock that the president is an independent and an octogenarian Putin still rules Russia, with NATO slowly falling apart in the background. It's enough background to keep an audience engaged, but not so much that you can't hope to understand the world around you.

Looking at these events also helps explain why the United States becomes extremely concerned with face saving measures in the Pacific, rather than potentially concentrating on the broader outcome like further Russian aggression in Europe, Iranian proxy wars and other factors a US which is humiliated by a foreign power might suffer. 

The novel's main premise, and overall cautionary moral, is to chide many American commentators and planners who blithely assume the United States will remain at the top of the technological dog pile. In begins with the Wèn Rui Incident in the South China Sea where unspecified advances in Chinese cyberwarfare capabilities blackout the communications of a small USN flotilla, and swiftly lead to shots fired. Almost concurrently an F-35 is hacked by (supposedly) Iranian forces who force it to land inside Iran and take the pilot hostage. Either incident alone would be enough to trigger a harsh response, both trigger an escalation.

A United States shorn of its usual expectation of technological advantage discovers itself lacking many options it might otherwise employ beyond brute force. Miscalculations in Washington and Beijing each lead to more shots fired in anger, and horrendous consequences ensue. 

Unlike my previous reads, where combat and technological know-how was highlighted, this book was much more interested in things like exploring nightmares from someone who commanded a losing battle, an old warrior seeing too much and desiring peace, and a political man thrust into a situation he was totally unprepared for and his much more powerful boss has to save face against. That doesn't mean we don't get a look at war, but the action scenes are few and far between, with battles largely being described after the fact. It made for an interesting change of pace and an overall shorter book (300 pages vs the 400-900 of previous reads) that flowed very easily.

That's not to say this was necessarily an improvement. The story, after all, is trying to present a cautionary tale that the US may find itself too dependent on overall technological superiority and lacks any strategic deterrent outside its nuclear arsenal. This did, overall, lead to a very limited look at strategy (the US's potential allies in the Pacific are all absent, and only the potential enemies get mentioned, suggesting something has gone horrifically wrong with international alliance systems) and it did leave me with more than a few questions on that front.

While I understood that the premise of the story would be impossible without the Chinese developing an advantage on some front, it did feel a bit odd that so many of the US's other contemporaries, like India, had completely blindsided it on similar fronts. Not necessarily impossible - the year the war is set is nearly fourteen years away, plenty is possible - but just very convenient for the plot. 

It was an interesting story, but the characters did feel a little thin. Sarah Hunt in particular had some of the most moving moments, but I felt I never really got inside her head the way I did for Wedge, Chowdhury or Farshad. Chowdhury was the most globe trotting character, going between the White House and New Delhi, engaging in delicate political maneuvers and probably having the most "American" outlook by being a proud immigrant and dealing with the backlash many immigrants in similar situations would face. The other characters were fine, but Lin Bao fell almost too far in the territory of a mediocre villain at times. In complete fairness to the novel though, no nation really comes off as a "good guy" in this scenario, with everyone being guided by realpolitik rather than rational policy decisions.

2034 is a chilling piece of future history. Whether you find the scenario realistic or not, it does its best to show how a future war might not be one we're overly familiar with, but no less deadly for all that. An intriguing and cautionary tale which may be well worth your time.

Red Metal

In a world not too different from our own, Russia has lost control of a valuable piece of real estate in Kenya. Embarrassed, angry, and it's political apparatus threatening to fall into irrelevance, the Russians aim to reassert themselves in a world where they have been beaten down since the Cold War ended. Their only option is to unleash a tide of Red Metal.

The authors Mark Greaney and Rip Rawlings IV collaborated on this project and brought quite a bit of experience to it. Greaney is perhaps best known as being the last and most connected collaborator with the late Tom Clancy, and having a quite successful career of his own with his Gray Man series. Rawlings is a former Marine Corps infantry and reconnaissance officer who has begun writing his own fiction as well. From their diverse backgrounds, they've come together to do quite a lot of research and put it into one very exciting package!

Another piece of alternate history with the Russians thundering across the European plains! This one just edges in as it was written in 2019 and set in 2020, so something like the War in 2020 but very different! I'll admit I was attracted to this one because it was set in a contemporary setting, and trying to keep up with recent technologies. It made for some intriguing military analysis, and many, many tense action sequences.

Unlike my last two reads, which contained lots of older history with the Cold War in full swing, we find ourselves in the 21st century, the Soviet Union dismantled, NATO hovering over Europe, and the Russians quite upset with how their fortunes have turned out. We're in the internet age, Facebook and satellite communications are more prominent than even in the fantastic works done by Clancy or Peters. Though one might ask themselves, how does war come about in such an age? To their credit, the two authors go to lengths to convince you why the war happens and how these plans are concocted. It's all rather believable and makes for an interesting set up, similar to Red Storm Rising. It was immensely enjoyable, and I found it quite interesting to see a deep effort by the Russians to carry out a maskirovka in line with modern expectations. The pages spent establishing it were vital to seeing how the conflict breaks out.

The Russian plan, codenamed Red Metal, is one of calculation and sweeping depth. It involves a raid into Europe to blind NATO, using armored columns, suped up war trains with artillery and anti-air assets, and the insertion of Spetznaz forces to distract and blind the NATO alliance. Like the Russian generals, I too was shocked by it's depth and audacity. The way it ends up being carried out is quite bombastic, clever, and really worthy of a Bond Villain in its cunning and menace.

The authors have done a very good job in describing modern war. There's hackers knocking out the web, drones scouting artillery positions, and satellites being blinded or destroyed by ASAT missiles. From the internet to special forces teams, they don't overlook anything that might need to go boom to get the ball rolling in the early 21st century. One of the coolest things though are the Red Lighting trains, primed for deception and military support. Being rolling command posts, armored support columns and anti-air batteries all in one, it made for a very exciting aspect no one might have considered before!

Red Metal also includes a large and diverse cast of characters. From the ground, to the skies, to below the seas, it's a diverse group for a large war. I never found myself bored by the characters or their stories, and besides one painfully shoehorned in romance sub plot, the characters were all deeply interesting in their interactions. 

On the American/NATO side we have Lt. Colonel Dan Connelly, a former field commander who is now behind a desk and working with his army counterpart Major Griggs who is intelligent, but a chronic underachiever. Lt. Colonel Tom Grant, a tank logistics and maintenance officer and interim commander of his regiment while his commander goes home on Christmas leave. We also have Captain Raymond "Shank" Vance who pilots at A-10, Lt. Sandra "Glitter" Glisson an Apache pilot, and a Polish militia soldier Paulina Tobiazs. Finally, prominent among others still, is Pascal Arc-Blanchette, an old French spy who willingly stays in Africa and his son Captain Apollo Arc-Blanchette, French special forces operator.

Then on the Russian side we have Yuri Borbikov, the mastermind of Red Metal. Humilated after being forced to withdraw from a rare earth mind in Kenya in 2017, he has masterminded the plot to humiliate NATO in return. The two generals who will carry out the plan are Eduard Sabaneyev and Boris Lazar. Sabaneyev is an up and coming officer in the military while Lazar, the Lion of Dagestan, is one of the finest soldiers in Russia. This trio are our main viewpoint at the Russian side of the war, other than occasional one off characters who flesh out the action. Unfortunately, the Russians generally turn into Bond villains, complete with war crimes and supervillain trains, quite quickly. With one notable exception there's not a lot of humanizing the enemy, and we get into some nationalistic chest beating early on.

The action though, is just spectacular. These authors have clearly spent time in warzones, and the detail they put into the weapons, their uses, and it's effects on humans is intense. Whether being shredded by an A-10's cannons, blown apart by tank main guns, or incinerated by a fuel air bomb, the authors don't spare you the horrors of modern war. It was engrossing reading about everything from an undermanned militia unit fighting a Russian advance column, to a full regiment of US Marines fighting off Russian armor and artillery from a well fortified position. With all that, characters die, and the happy endings are few and far between.

I will confess that the presence of one of my favorite modern war machines, the ugly but beautiful A-10 Warthog did inspire much of my praise for this book. It is used to well and the character who drives his 'hog to the bitter end, was fun to watch. From the awesome of blowing through massed Russian armor to the almost absurd of a trio of Warthogs fighting off a pair of Su-57 fighter jets I was hooked.

If I can make one major criticism, the story by the rough half way point did begin seeing the lucky breaks start falling almost one sided towards the US/NATO. The tone shifts from one of well plotted and established action to one of enormous convenience for NATO forces. Russia still gets its licks in, but by the last two hundred pages I could accurately predict the general outcome, somewhat disappointingly. Too many things swing just the right way for the NATO forces which robbed the final moments of much of their dramatic tension. Even had there been some slight tweaks to this formula it might have raised the bar that much higher for me.

However, as a contemporary war thriller, with espionage and action, I was pleasantly surprised at how detailed and exciting Red Metal turned out to be. I'm sincerely hoping these authors produce another war thriller together because they collaborated extremely well on this one. The ending hints at another potential conflict on the horizon, and - in the world of fiction at least - one can hope! A definite recommend.