Jim's Reviews > Planetside

A hands on colonel at the end of his career is sent into a war zone to solve a mystery & winds up needing to clean up a much bigger mess. That's clearly going to happen from the first chapter, if you know anything about the military & it should be even if you don't. The setting is one of the US failed wars (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, leaning toward the last) that's been ported to a planet with a lot of similarities. For instance, it's a long journey away from HQ, but communications between the two are fairly quick if limited. The main base is in orbit, a few hour hop to the planet, & naval support are spaceships. It's all well done & the narrator did a fantastic job from the point of view of the main character.

One of the most popular reviews by a friend of mine only gave this 2 stars. (I HATE the new book page!!!) The reason given is that the motivations don't make sense nor does the mystery. I'm not sure how they missed either. They made perfect sense to me, especially given one of the scenes toward the end. It's not a very clean ending, but none of the wars it was modeled on were either. There are two more books in the trilogy, but they follow the main character of this book, Col. Butler. I suppose we'll never see all the bad guys rolled up with Truth & Justice prevailing, but that's just real life so I appreciated it in this novel. It was another mark of realism that raises this above the normal fare. I found it quite satisfying & am moving on to the next one.