CHERUBIM'S CALL

In Manning and Rosone’s military–SF series starter set in the year 2093, three very different military recruits experience baptism by fire in a savage human-alien war on a distant world.

On late-21st-century Earth, in the Republic—a global coalition including the former United States of America—three young men decide to embark on off-world armed-forces careers. Harrison Kodiak is a burly youth with a college football scholarship and a social-climbing girlfriend who impulsively joins up when a recruiter impresses him about seeing the galaxy; Aiden Hall, a Chicago criminal arrested after an attempted robbery turned fatal, accepts soldiering as an alternative to prison; and Oliver Moore, a U.K. citizen connected to royalty, gives up his birthright to become a combat medic. The trio bond during basic training in the shadow of a looming war against other spacegoing Earth nations. However, a new threat emerges after alien contact on New Eden, an Earth-like, largely unspoiled world 12 light-years away. Like the Tharks in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ old Mars stories, the Zodarks are fearless, multiarmed, fanged giants who savor ground battles with swords, though they wield plasma artillery, grenades, and mobile platforms as well. They immediately clash with humans, and there are indications that an invasion of Earth will be on their agenda. Kodiak, Moore, and Hall are among the first reinforcement troops to arrive at New Eden for the fight. Manning and Rosone’s new series takes place in the same fictional universe as their earlier Rise of the Republic saga. This introductory installment is a lively space-traveling military-service drama that benefits from strong characterizations and robust action. The overall plot, however, feels fairly standard-issue, and the alien bad guys lack depth; they’re generic, bestial enslavers that call to mind the bosses in a video game. Descriptions of hardware and ordnance, though, derive fairly well from currently existing real-life technology. The book’s overarching themes are comradeship, duty, discipline, honor, and courage, and it comes as no surprise when the co-authors pay tribute to real-world veterans in their afterwords.

Solid, combat-ready speculative fiction with retro-feeling foes and battlegrounds.