Terms of Enlistment Author: Visit Amazon's Marko Kloos Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1477809783 | Format: PDF
Terms of Enlistment Description
Review
“Military science fiction is tricky because it either intends to lampoon the military industrial complex or paints it in such a way that you must really have to love guns to enjoy the work.
Terms of Enlistment walks that fine line by showing a world where the military is one of the few viable options off a shattered Earth and intermixes it with a knowledge of military tactics and and weapons that doesn’t turn off the casual reader.” —Buzzfeed.com
“Much like Scalzi's Old Man's War and its sequels, Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure are combat-grade Military SF, and should come with an addiction warning.” —io9.com
About the Author
Marko Kloos is a novelist, freelance writer, and unpaid manservant to two small children. He is a graduate of the Viable Paradise SF/F Writers' Workshop.
Marko writes primarily science fiction and fantasy because he is a huge nerd and has been getting his genre fix at the library ever since he was old enough for his first library card. In the past, he has been a soldier, a bookseller, a freight dock worker, a tech support drone, and a corporate IT administrator.
A former native of Germany, Marko lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two children. Their compound, Castle Frostbite, is patrolled by a roving pack of dachshunds.
- Series: Frontlines
- Paperback: 346 pages
- Publisher: 47North; Revised edition (January 28, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1477809783
- ISBN-13: 978-1477809785
- Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Fine SF novel. Money well spent. Good entertainment, engrossing and real. Better than second-tier work from folks like Silverberg or whoever. Solid, visual, no-fat writing. Great technical skill at describing action, and he makes the most of his strengths. Strictly mature professional, no self-indulgence or slack, no major false moves, quite a trick for a guy with no editor. I didn't notice the prose at all, which is the highest praise there is for guys whose names don't end in Vance or Plunkett. Three or four minor "continuity errors", but nothing story-critical. I was uncomfortable with how comfortable the characters were inflicting casualties on massively outgunned opponents, but combat is ugly stuff by nature and that's a matter of taste. And they get chewed up real good soon enough (loose end there, though). It's a bit episodic, like any military fiction -- the characters have to go where they're told, though a clever enough plotter could make that work to his advantage, I'm sure. High concept: SPACE MARINES SEINFELD!!!!!
It doesn't rise to the first rank: It doesn't rattle your head -- though chapter thirteen starts off pretty intense. Characterization isn't deep. Not a whole lot of detailed interior life or conflict, or anyway not much that stuck in my head. More than the Lensman novels, though! But none of Smith's vast lunatic sweep and grandeur, either. Tight, focused, practical, concrete. With that kind of thing, I'd like a little (I said little) more interior agony b.s. in the mix, or some weirder stuff that'd grab you by the nuts more, but if the author just gives us more of the same next time out, I'll happily buy that and gobble it up. He is who he is. Maybe blow up some bigger stuff.
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