Robosoldiers

In this exciting new anthology from Baen, we are examining the non biological soldiers of the future. This isn't as crazy as one might imagine. Older than we think, the first UAV was the "Aerial Target" flown in 1917, while a robot for antitank purposes was deployed by the Wehrmacht in 1942. Drones and robots are becoming more common on the battlefield every year. From little bomb disposal bots, to enormous fixed winged unmanned aerial vehicles. What might the future of autonomous warfare hold? These authors intend to stretch our imaginations and find out! Real thanks to Sean Korsgaard for tipping me off on the release date so I could snag it!

It's a collection of thirteen stories that I'm looking at, so here's a brief primer on each and my own thoughts. There's some gems in here and ones which expanded my own thinking about the way we might see robots in future wars. Here are the Robosoldiers, thank you for your servos!

Higher Ground (M. T. Reiten): In the sequel to Afghan War I the US is back, but this time with mobile autonomous Guardian soldiers. Clever, but not especially bright in some cases. It's a really well contained story that sets up a tactical problem, the limits of a system, and how even mundane robots could be used to deadly effect in the future.

Today I Go Home (Martin L. Shoemaker): A mechanical warrior has been found deep in the jungles of Central America along the border of Belize and Guatemala. An expat technician is called home so he can help end the threat of a now rampaging machine which kills anyone who comes near. Can he overcome old grudges and find a way to save his country from chaos? 

I enjoyed this one because it was a fairly close knit story of a technician and not a soldier. Some clever use of machine learning and programs as well, which added to an overall mystery element in a way which built some very well plotted tension.

All Is One (Doug Beason): A clever take on the future of Space Force and the potential for space based satellite surveillance. It's a bit of an "AI doesn't understand humans and that's dangerous" story which is always good to counter the 'uber AI' narrative it's proponents tell. It has a clever conclusion, but might have been on the weaker side, if only because it was constrained by the short story aspect which didn't give it enough room to make the story really eerie. I loved the subtext around the dangers of constant surveillance however, and it's something too few people think about.

Edge Case (Richard Fox): With the advent of telemetry and better sensors, a bomb-disposable bot is now the best way to save lives when an explosive is involved. This was a very clever story with an interesting twist on a bomb disposal plot with an extremely clever ending that had me yelping with surprise! Genuinely good writing and an impressive grasp of the mystery genre as well. Cannot praise this one highly enough for how it really used tropes well and did an amazing job challenging my own ideas on how one could write a story like this!

Manchurian (Sean Patrick Hazlett): A very fun story about special forces operators, a resurgent and depraved series of human experiments, and a title with a play on words which left me rather shocked by it's ending. A special forces soldier uses the terrifying weapons at his disposal to fight off a Chinese encroachment, only to realize that the enemy has weapons far deadlier than he can imagine. Not my favorite story in the anthology, if only because I'm poorly disposed towards nanite swarms in fiction, but it was a good story to subvert my expectations!

Resilience (Monalisa Foster): Honestly, this was one of the cleverest and most beautiful stories in the whole anthology. PTSD is a very poorly represented aspect of a soldier's life in fiction, often only portrayed in the negative and destructive sense, but one which is real and hard hitting. Sergeant Karlie Engel has survived a traumatic event and is running through a course of therapy with a neural implant which is supposed to help calm her racing thoughts and dampen her triggers, but what happens when that course of therapy isn't working? 

Really emotional and quite exciting in how it manages to tie things up at the end.

The Rules of the Game (Phillip E. Pournelle): The two global superpowers are once again facing off over Taiwan, and the US and China are both using advanced AI and computer learning models to predict, preempt, and overcome their opponents strategies. On one side, an advanced battle computer trying to predict and map all American moves, on the other a series of plans and machines designed to frustrate those predictions. It's a really good examination of the issues within AI learning and the weaknesses of depending on such a system can have. Interesting run at overcoming the potential advantages another side might have in using this system, while also making a poignant point about the problems in rigid ideology.

My Dog Skipper 2.0 (Weston Ochse): Can you really bring back your best friend? When a military experiment between a man and his dog, unknowingly, goes wrong, a Frankenstein's monster style situation erupts. It was an interesting take on the 'man and his dog' story, but was almost one better relegated to a horror anthology than a military anthology!

Uncovered Data (David Drake): A short, but slightly confusing interrogation story. I admit I couldn't quite piece this one together other than there was an interrogator, he was interrogating someone, and there was a kind of psychic uplink? Otherwise, I don't really know how robots were involved in this one.

The Handyman (T. C. McCarthy): Jed has signed a twenty year contract as a maintenance man on a Lunar base for the United States Marine Corps, mostly automated. Easy money he thinks, until the Russians attack. Then it's up and running to make sure his goose isn't cooked by Russian combat units, and that he has enough Jim Bean to see him through this hard run across the Lunar surface. An excellent read with lots of action in a pulse pounding story. Loved how this one just ran with 'hillbilly berates robot soldier' and made it laugh out loud fun.

The Pinocchio Gambit (Brad R. Torgersen): In a secret war over robotic systems, a system man must become an interrogator must try and feel out whether a Chinese defector is an ally or an enemy. Extremely well written look at shifting allegiances, spy games, and the potential for spy games to get very lethal very fast. 

Nightingale (Stephen Lawson): This was a real winner. When an engineer is kidnapped by a nefarious agent for personal gain, a rogue rescue team has to used its many robotic assets to get him out. I loved this one because it was a James Bond style story tied up with really cool robots that fight little battles of their own. There was a very cleverly integrated human element too, with a little love triangle that made you, somewhat, doubt the good intentions of everyone involved. Fast paced action all the way through and it wired years of backstory and forefront action into a very small package.

Operation Meltwater (Philip Kramer): What happens when an experimental probe for NASA's exploration of Enceladus gets checked out by some snoopy Russians? An action packed comedy of errors and discovery where a scientist finds himself in way over his head. 

This was one of my favorite stories in the anthology because it took a regular scientist and put him in a few amusing 'fish out of water' situations. From his confronting of a few irregular personnel assigned to the project, to his own ingenious grasp of his own project to make a third option, it was a rather heartwarming, and exciting, conclusion to the anthology. I definitely enjoyed his hard bitten pessimism coupled with a lot of weird stuff happening around him.

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Like any anthology, it won't work for everyone, and some stories are hit or miss depending on your preferences. I thoroughly enjoyed the work though and a lot of good authors have some fantastic short work on display here. Genuinely loved the combination of heart, artificial soul, technological know how and gunplay which covered this anthology. Great read for anyone who loves science fiction and robots!

Halo: The Fall of Reach

We all know the story of Halo: Combat Evolved, but did you know the story of the Spartans? Their rise to super soldiers and their history from a black ops organization to the most feared of humanities warriors? In 2001 Eric Nylund took on this task and wrote the story of the early days of the Spartan program, the origins of the Human-Covenant War and most importantly, the Fall of Reach.

As a note, I am reviewing the original 2001 publication of The Fall of Reach, not the 2012 reprint which fixed some continuity errors and expanded some of the story.

After an action packed prologue, the story begins in 2517 with Lt. Jacob Keyes escorting a UNSC specialist Dr. Kathleen Halsey to a planet in the Outer Colonies. Curiously, they tour a school looking for a 'subject' that is being examined for some obscure program that the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is undertaking. The young boy, John, is a rough, adventurous, and courageous child who, ultimately, also has a lot of luck on his side. He is considered a perfect candidate.

Fast forward some months later, and John has been kidnapped and placed in a training facility under the care of Chief Petty Officer Mendez, and he will be trained in the ways of war, strategy and tactics. He will become the ultimate soldier for the UNSC and help quell the maelstrom that is coming. Little do any of them know, humanity's first contact with a hostile alien species is just around the corner.

I've been interested in the concept of supersoldiers for a while. My own novella Reintegration, deals with the idea, and it was partially inspired by this story. The Spartans are supersoldiers made to be the last line of defence against a civil inssurection which could tear humanity apart, and how they are formed is quite a fascinating tale. Nylund captures it with a lot of discussion on why the government feels it's necessary, the extreme lengths gone to in order to make the perfect soldiers, and how it changes them over time. It also explores how, in some small ways, these children turned soldiers lose their humanity, but become it's ultimate guardians in the end.

Nothing in the novel fails to deliver, and it fleshes out the history and character of Halo protagonist John 117, who is the lens through which the player/reader sees much of Halo's world. It also exposes us to other Spartans like Linda, Fred and Kelly who are John's teammates and friends for much of the later games and novelizations who add depth to the world and the Spartans overall. Alongside stellar characters like the brilliant tactician Captain Keyes, the enigmatic Dr. Halsey, and of course Cortana, it gives a lot more to each of the characters it explores.

Of course it also has some amazing action scenes.

From Spartan infiltration missions to duking it out with Covenant ships with superior weaponry, it does a lot to give us some amazing action sequences. 

My favorite part is the whole Sigma Octanus campaign, which has some simply awesome space battle action and some very memorable moments with the Spartans on the ground. It has a particularly memorable sequence which has ignited a love affair with space battles that continues to this day in what I read and write. Nylund really nails the pulse pounding action and gets me pumped up for every alien encounter. It's a perfect companion to a first person shooter.

The Fall of Reach is a fun, and very easy read. Somewhat heavy in a moral direction, it's a fun action romp that will hopefully get you thinking on the morals of supersoldiers, but also suck you into the world of Halo and the many stories it has to tell. 

A Country of Ghosts

“The steepest places have always been the asylum of liberty.” – Baron de Tott

The Boril Empire seeks to conquer the mountains. It has coal, iron, and other resources necessary for the empire to continue it's expansion. There are no nations there, or so they tell everyone. Dimos Horacki is sent to report on this war for the broader public. He believes the nation is going to war in order to give resources to the people, not just for simple conquest, but he is soon disabused of this notion and captured by the Free Company of the Mountian Heather. Now in enemy hands he finds all his assumptions challenged in this, A Country of Ghosts.

From goodreads

In Margaret Killjoy's novel we are given a little slice of utopia and war in a secondary world. The 'country' of Hron is being invaded by a colonial empire as told through the eyes of this wayward observer to war. It makes for an extremely effective analysis of the world and the premises of each side.

Killjoy writes a very believable anarchist society, in a way perhaps that Ursula K. Le Guin would not have dared for her own The Dispossessed but not quite in the sci fi spectacle of Michael Z. Williamson's Freehold where the ideological conflict and military conflict are synonymous. It makes for something of a refreshing in between.

 A Country of Ghosts is a book that is meant to showcase a society, and one that the author is exploring through this fictional lens. The people of Hron are a curious mix. Many of them are the descendants of herders and isolated mountain communities who have always governed themselves and lived as they liked. Then an influx of refugees fleeing a failed revolution who have in turn revolutionized the society into a more confederal mix of refugees and mountain communities, all living in (mostly) harmony.

Young Dimos finds this confusing, hypocritical, and is a very believable fish out of water! Looking through his eyes I also found confusion, but also appreciation for the people of Hron. The secondary characters are no less deep for all that they may have the life of a mayfly on the stage of the impending war! The ways they introduce our viewpoint character to the ideas of Hron are very organically laid out and tend to flow with the story so you are gradually introduced to this world. It makes for some very fun reading, especially as Killjoy does not skimp on details in this secondary world, from the flora, fauna, and even how these people build their homes! It's all quite entertaining.

Nor does she skimp on the horrors of war. Honestly war is occasionally portrayed as invigorating, but always with a cost. You'd be hard pressed to say anyone walks away unscathed.

Just as importantly, nothing is monolithic. The people of Hron are varied, quarrelsome, and often don't get along as well as they should. Nor is it depicted as some paradise or land of plenty, but it is plenty free. The people like how they live overall, and don't care to be told what to do. It honestly makes me flirt with the idea of anarchism.

The story has it's highs and lows, with a grimly satisfying conclusion. Killjoy establishes a beautiful world and I hope she returns to it! Definitely one to keep an eye out for!