Angles of Attack by Marko Kloos

I felt almost like there was a missing short story in between the second and third novels in the Frontline series. At the beginning of my last review I mentioned how the Russians, Chinese and Ameriicans were still feuding despite the Lankies attacking all of Earth's colonies.This books jumps right into middle of a joint operation between the Eurasian forces allied with the Americans, fighting their common alien foe. Maybe I've forgotten something.

Anyway, the Earth forces out on ice planet Svalbard are soon approaching a time when they and the civilians on the planet will eat their way through all the supplies, and there has been no resupply or communication from Earth for a long time. So, a daring plan is hatched to run the Lankie blockade of the Solar System to make contact with the Earth forces and to see what can be done about relief. Our old comrades, Sergeants Grayson and Fallons, are along for the duration, and we get to live in interesting times along with them.

When they arrive, the situation is very strange. Mars has been overrun, and the forces orbiting Earth do not seem to trust the returnees, quarantining the and locking down their communications. Things come to a head when they take Andrew in for interrogation, leaving him in need of rescue by some of his bad companions - another day, another mutiny.

With the help of one of Andrew's new Russian friends, Dmitri, they escape the clutches of the powers on Earth (who turn out to be cowards fleeing the solar system) and re-run the blockade in reverse to report on the situation to the remainder of the fleet on Svalbard. After a deal of discussion, it's once more unto the breach for a second voyage back to the home system, where they make contact with the flight school on the Moon, where - Yay! - Andrew's fiancee, Hailey, is a flight instructor.

They "borrow" a bunch of fighter spacecraft and their student pilots and make tracks to attack a Lankie mothership which has made it all the way into Earth orbit. Great mayhem ensues.

I'm not so certain now that this is going to end as a trilogy. It appears Kloos has left room for a sequel or two. I look forward to finding out.

Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos

 Now that the Earth is at war with the alien "Lankies" 80 foot tall quadrupeds who are stealing our terraformed planets and remodeling them to their liking, you would think that the Russians, Chinese and the North Americans would all decide it was time to get along and fight the common enemy, but you'd be wrong, if you're reading Lines of Departure, second in Kloos' series about Andrew Grayson and his friends.

It's said that life in the military is months and months of boredom punctuated by short periods of sheer terror. At least Kloos doesn't inflict on us the long, boring stretches, he merely references them in Andrew's occasional musings, and we don't get the blow by blow description of how he made each and every rank in the service, just a snapshot of each career decision.

In a way, it seems like Kloos has a checklist of all of the possible scenarios for interesting types of battles fought in the alternate future he's created. In this book, Andrew begins with a combat drop on New Wales, where he is responsible for calling in nuclear strikes on the Lankies' terraformers and settlements. After that mission ends well, for a change, he gets some leave time and spends part of it with his mother on Earth, where we get a brief glimpse of what life outside the welfare PRCs is like, at least, then he heads to the Moon Base where his girlfriend Halley is stationed as an instructor.

His next mission, which should be a cakewalk compared to fighting the giant aliens, is to destroy a Sino-Russian force guarding one of their colony worlds, so that the North American Union can take possession, is going so well that I was really starting to worry. Justifiably, as just as he and his allies are about to wrap things up, the aliens appear on the scene and manage to destroy most of the Earth fleet. Only by disobeying a direct order is Andrew able to get most of his platoon off planet, where they are aided and abetted by a spaceship captain who puts the safety of his men ahead of all else, and manages to get them a ride back to Earth despite long odds against them.

One always knows, when James Bond falls for one of the Bond Girls in the movies, that the poor dear is going to come to a bad end, usually. And one wonders, after Halley and Andrew decide to get married in six months, whether Andrew is going to be able to fulfill his promise to return to the Moon for his nuptials on time - the storytelling conventions would seem to be against it.

And, indeed, his next assignment takes him to a metaphorical Siberia, where Andrew and other troublemakers, including his old Staff Sergeant Fallon, are supposed to take control of a civilian research facility, while Earth locks down its FTL network to keep the Lankies away from the home system. Andrew just can't seem to stay out of trouble, though, and he and his old allies from the TA get up to more mischief that is really going to land him in hot water if he ever gets the chance to return home.

More good storytelling, wondering what the conclusion to the trilogy will bring.

Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos

So, if one believes in reincarnation, when you die, your soul goes into a big waiting room in the sky, until it gets reborn into some tiny baby or small animal somewhere on the planet. If Heinlein's soul was hanging around, it could very well have been too big for ordinary people, and have ended up having been split into smaller pieces of pie, and injected into multiple rebirths. If that's the case, I think there are a couple of candidates for channeling the soul of mid-career Heinlein out there right now - Peter Grant and Marko Kloos. They are both writing brand new stuff very much in the style and spirit of the Grand Master of SF, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

Andrew Grayson has grown up in a densely populated welfare enclave on Earth. Since his parents' divorce, both his mother and father have been trapped there, living on the public dole, and his fate would seem to be more of the same, aside from the opportunity afforded him by his good test scores to join the North American armed forces. If he completes basic, and serves his five year enlistment honorably, then he will be given mustering out pay which will probably be sufficient for him to relocate to one of the suburban areas where people have jobs, businesses, and lives which are not dependent on government largess.

Earth has established dozens of colonies in far away star systems, which are divided between those controlled by the NA alliance and those which are owned by the Sino-Russians. The two factions of Earth are constantly skirmishing against one another, fighting proxy wars in the colonies. Recruit Grayson hopes to become a part of the Space Navy and to serve out among the stars.

Much of the early portions of the story are familiar to anyone who has ever experienced basic training, or had a child or spouse go through basic training, and eventually Grayson graduates, and immediately is assigned to the TA or Terran Army, responsible for keeping the peace on Earth, rather than past the outer limits. He is disappointed at first, but finds out rapidly that the job is not as boring as he thought it would be, especially when they are called on to dispel a riot in one of the welfare cities. The rioters turn out to be far better armed and organized than anyone had expected, and Grayson's platoon comes under heavy fire, taking major casualties, while trying to rescue the air crew of a downed shuttle (think Black Hawk Down) before the mob can get there.

In order to take out some of the rioter's crew-served weaponry, Andrew ends up firing a rocket into the top floors of an apartment building, presumably causing some "collateral damage". He is seriously wounded, himself, while half carrying his platoon sergeant back to friendly lines, and ends up recovering in the hospital for a while. Some of the rear echelon officers have ideas about hanging him out to dry for his war crime, but the sergeant he rescued knows about some skeletons in the brass closets and gets him reassigned to the Space Navy, instead, right where he wanted to be in the first place.

Andrew is a good kid, a hard worker, who just did what he had to do to save his buddies from near certain death, and he does just fine in his new assignment, and has a number of interesting adventures by the time the book is through, including being part of the mission that encounters a hostile alien race for the first time in history. A read that was hard to put down, even when my eyelids got heavy.

Kindle Deal

Marko Kloos recently released the second book in his Frontlines series. I never quite got around to reading the first one, but I was definitely interested, and the "buzz" was all good. However, the price for the Kindle version seemed a little steep for "entry" to a new author, so I've held off.

Today, however, I noticed that the prices of both novels in Kindle format had dropped, to $2.99 and $4.99! So I jumped out on Amazon and downloaded them. Here's the links, if you've been thinking about buying and trying. Reviews will follow in a couple of weeks, most likely, as I work my way through my virtual TBR pile.

Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines)
Lines of Departure (Frontlines)