In the distant future after the Melconians have done their thing, there is a small pocket of humans and they’re having a bad day. One of things I like about the Bolo books is that their consistent in their overall direction for future human history, and that future is reasonably plausible — its a bit…
Tag: combat
Forever Peace
This a very different book to The Forever War, and not really a sequel. It covers some similar territory, but there are no characters in common, and the overall plots are unrelated (and conflicting). However, this book is as well written as The Forever War, and I enjoyed it. Title: Forever Peace Author: Joe Haldeman…
The Forever War
I read this book mainly because multiple sites recommended it as a response to Starship Troopers. I’d actually read the start of this book already in the form of the short story “Hero”, which is included in Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow. At the time, I would have described it as an ok short story, but not…
Bolo Brigade
There seems to be a formula for bolo books — an obsolete bolo or two, and alien invader, a solitary bolo commander, and preferably a management chain which either doesn’t trust bolos, the officer, or preferably both. Its even better if the chain of command is also grossly incompetent. This book has all of those,…
The Stars Must Wait
This book is a novelization of “Night of the Trolls”, which I have already read as part of The Compleat Bolo and Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow. I’m pretty fond of the short story, and this book version didn’t start out strongly — there is a prelude to explain some background, and then the book launches into…
Bolos 6: Cold Steel
This bolo book is different from the previous ones, in that it heavily focuses on the humans side of the story, instead of the bolo’s inner monologue. I’ve seen reviews online that say this makes it a bad bolo book, but I think that’s unfair. The bolos are critical to the telling of this story,…
Bolos 5: Old Guard
This book is similar to the previous Bolo anthologies in that it is written by a number of different authors, but utilizes Laumer’s Concordiat universe. Contrary to another LibraryThing review, all of the stories on this book don’t occur on one planet. All but one of them occurs on Delas, and the final one is…
Bolos 2: The Unconquerable
This is another collection of short stories involving Laumer’s Bolo artificially intelligent super tanks. None of these stories are written by Laumer, but they are written by some very good SF authors. I enjoyed the collection, although I do think Honor of the Regiment was marginally better. Title: The Unconquerable Author: Keith Laumer Genre: Fiction…
Bio of a Space Tyrant: Mercenary
This book continues the story of a poor Hispanic immigrant made good that started with Bio of a Space Tyrant: Refugee. This book is overall much more positive than the previous one, with hardly any of Hope’s friends being killed. The book revolves around Hope’s military career, and the leadership team he builds. Its basically…
On Basilisk Station
I bought this book because it was cheap a while ago, and only just got around to reading it. Its a pretty standard science fiction story of one naval officer’s plight — incompetent seniors; inadequate equipment; and evil neighbors. The story revolves around a young naval officer named Honor Harrington, who the Internet tells me…