Terms of Enlistment Frontlines Book 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Marko Kloos Luke Daniels Brilliance Audio Books
Download As PDF : Terms of Enlistment Frontlines Book 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Marko Kloos Luke Daniels Brilliance Audio Books
The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements, where you're restricted to 2,000 calories of badly flavored soy every day. You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world, or you can join the service. With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price...and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.
The debut novel from Marko Kloos, Terms of Enlistment is a new addition to the great military sci-fi tradition of Robert Heinlein, Joe Haldeman, and John Scalzi.
Terms of Enlistment Frontlines Book 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Marko Kloos Luke Daniels Brilliance Audio Books
So here’s the short version of the review for you TL;DR folks: If you like Military Space Opera, you’ll like this book. It is immersive and a page turner. I’d consider it a good heir to Starship Troopers but it lacks the humanism.Now for the slightly longer review. First the good stuff.
Terms of Enlistment does a good job of dropping you into the future and getting you to care about the main character, Andrew Grayson. The author’s military background shows so it has that nice ring of verisimilitude I look for in Miltary Sci Fi. It’s written in first person, present tense (ala Hunger Games) which is a good decision for creating sympathy. The worldbuilding is slight, which also works well, we knew just enough to build the story around. There’s no discussion of ‘how things ended up this way’, technology isn't too terribly advanced so it’s not a post-singularity novel, which makes it easier to understand the world. People remain people, with real and understandable motivations. It’s fairly PG (or PG-13) as for sex, violence and language. It’s about soldiers, not plaster saints but it’s not a Joe Abercombie or Mark Lawrence novel. It also has enough tips of the hat to the PC police to please those who want to see female soldiers as well. On the whole, I enjoyed it, I burned through the first book and bought the second immediately (Thank you, Amazon One Click) and devoured it. Only then did I start to digest the story and that’s made me pause in buying any more books in the series, but I do want to read more of what Marko Kloos has written. So, now onto the bad stuff, don’t worry it’s not really a damning list, at least for the first book.
The main character doesn't really drive this plot in the first book. He just sort of…watches things happen. That almost makes sense for a military novel, there’s always someone up higher in the chain of command telling you what to do, but the main character doesn't solve any problems…unless we count the problem of a sniper in one fight and the problem of some heavy machine guns in the second. Now that almost works, as this first novel is almost more of a travelogue to the future, but it’s imperfect storytelling, I think. It’s realistic but not satisfying but that’s just me, I prefer heroic stories with active characters.
What was strange is the trajectory of the first novel. Andrew Grayson is set up as a pretty straightforward infantryman, he shows aptitude for small unit tactics and doesn't pitch too much of a fit when he’s assigned to the Territorial Army rather than the more glamourous (and space-based) Marines. So far, we’re following the Starship Troopers playbook, even down to the romance with the pretty pilot girl…though unlike Rico, Grayson actually gets the girl. But then things go awry. Grayson ends up causing some serious civilian casualties, collateral damage from a rocket round. The character looks to be set up for a fall but ends up transferring to a different MOS and a different branch of the service, the Navy. This is a bizarre plot twist and though I followed it, in retrospect, it really bumps me. We’re set up for one story but then it goes off in a different direction for reasons I’m not clear on. So we basically have two ‘fish out of water’ stories here, one going into the Army and one going into the Navy. And then the aliens show up. Which tosses us in yet another plot trajectory.
So we have two stories going on here, maybe three. One, the ‘US’ vs the Chinese and Russians, then we have the humans vs the aliens. (We also have a civilian vs military plot but that emerges more in the second book) There’s no sign anywhere early in the book that we’re going to be dealing with aliens. Remember, with Starship Troopers, we start off in combat with aliens, so we know what to expect even if we backtrack to follow Rico’s boyhood and enlistment/training. Now, the whiplash almost works, the main character of course doesn't know anything about the aliens until they show up. But that’s one of the weaknesses of first person present tense, we the reader don’t know anything that the main character doesn't know. But we the readers should know what kind of story we’re getting into. The author makes promises in their first chapters (and pages, really) that they need to keep. Surprise aliens sorta breaks that. Not enough to ruin the novel but…it bumped me.
Still, the first book is pretty solid otherwise, so I recommend it.
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Terms of Enlistment Frontlines Book 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Marko Kloos Luke Daniels Brilliance Audio Books Reviews
I got this book because the first three chapters were included in the 2014 Campbellian Anthology and it was compelling enough that I wanted to find out what happened.
This book focuses on the training and early career of Andrew Grayson, a young man who has grown up in a welfare complex near Boston. One of the things I really enjoyed about it was the author's detailed description of weapons and tactics--he managed to explain things without bogging down in an info-dump.
I also appreciated his restraint in characterizing Grayson. There are too many novels in this genre that insist on portraying their protagonist as some sort of super-hero. Grayson is believable as a human being, which I found refreshing.
The technology used in this universe isn't that far from the technology that exists now, which lends a sense of gritty realism. The pacing is really good, and it seemed like the story ended all too soon.
There were some minor flaws--there were a couple of events that were just too convenient, and there was no real explanation given for why the world was in the state it was in, but it didn't hurt the story significantly. It's a great light read.
Military SF is a tough genre; too often, it quickly degenerates into adolescent wish-fulfillment fantasy, political treatise, or cynical farce. "Terms of Enlistment" manages to avoid those pitfalls, and should be considered alongside Haldeman's "Forever War" and Scalzi's "Old Man's War" as a contribution to the genre. In some respects, Kloos does a better job of capturing the life of a soldier than either, the book is at its best in the early chapters when the overarching plot takes a backseat to battlefield details and the interpersonal relationships of the people involved. Whether this is the result of the author's direct military experience or simply a large amount of research, the characters resonate in a way that many other authors' simply don't. Later chapters seem more rushed, and there are occasional improbabilities in the service of moving the plot along. But these are mostly minor complaints; in general the book is quite solid and worth a read.
It was a fast, action-packed read but didn't get feelings for any of the characters. The book is geared to a younger audience and perhaps those interested in the military? I hoped there would be an appendix of acronyms so I wouldn't have to interrupt my reading to focus on interpreting various initials. As I didn't find this list I've taken it upon myself to provide the meaning of several acronyms
AILS Automated Instrument Landing System
BNA Basic Nutritional Allowance
CDB Combat Drop Badge
NAC North American Commonwealth
NNC Neural Networks Center
NIFTI Navy Infrared Thermal Images
PDP Personal Data Pad
PRC Public Relations Cluster
SRA Sino-Russian Alliance
TA Territorial Army
TI Tactical Interface
UWTF Urban-Warfare Training Facility
Honestly, I purchased this 5-book Frontlines series due to the over abundance of positive reviews and the total cost of only $6.25. Prior to purchase I had only read and was pleased with this book's Sample. I haven't read beyond the first book but hope the old adage "you get what you pay for" doesn't apply to the remaining books. If so, my bad!
So here’s the short version of the review for you TL;DR folks If you like Military Space Opera, you’ll like this book. It is immersive and a page turner. I’d consider it a good heir to Starship Troopers but it lacks the humanism.
Now for the slightly longer review. First the good stuff.
Terms of Enlistment does a good job of dropping you into the future and getting you to care about the main character, Andrew Grayson. The author’s military background shows so it has that nice ring of verisimilitude I look for in Miltary Sci Fi. It’s written in first person, present tense (ala Hunger Games) which is a good decision for creating sympathy. The worldbuilding is slight, which also works well, we knew just enough to build the story around. There’s no discussion of ‘how things ended up this way’, technology isn't too terribly advanced so it’s not a post-singularity novel, which makes it easier to understand the world. People remain people, with real and understandable motivations. It’s fairly PG (or PG-13) as for sex, violence and language. It’s about soldiers, not plaster saints but it’s not a Joe Abercombie or Mark Lawrence novel. It also has enough tips of the hat to the PC police to please those who want to see female soldiers as well. On the whole, I enjoyed it, I burned through the first book and bought the second immediately (Thank you, One Click) and devoured it. Only then did I start to digest the story and that’s made me pause in buying any more books in the series, but I do want to read more of what Marko Kloos has written. So, now onto the bad stuff, don’t worry it’s not really a damning list, at least for the first book.
The main character doesn't really drive this plot in the first book. He just sort of…watches things happen. That almost makes sense for a military novel, there’s always someone up higher in the chain of command telling you what to do, but the main character doesn't solve any problems…unless we count the problem of a sniper in one fight and the problem of some heavy machine guns in the second. Now that almost works, as this first novel is almost more of a travelogue to the future, but it’s imperfect storytelling, I think. It’s realistic but not satisfying but that’s just me, I prefer heroic stories with active characters.
What was strange is the trajectory of the first novel. Andrew Grayson is set up as a pretty straightforward infantryman, he shows aptitude for small unit tactics and doesn't pitch too much of a fit when he’s assigned to the Territorial Army rather than the more glamourous (and space-based) Marines. So far, we’re following the Starship Troopers playbook, even down to the romance with the pretty pilot girl…though unlike Rico, Grayson actually gets the girl. But then things go awry. Grayson ends up causing some serious civilian casualties, collateral damage from a rocket round. The character looks to be set up for a fall but ends up transferring to a different MOS and a different branch of the service, the Navy. This is a bizarre plot twist and though I followed it, in retrospect, it really bumps me. We’re set up for one story but then it goes off in a different direction for reasons I’m not clear on. So we basically have two ‘fish out of water’ stories here, one going into the Army and one going into the Navy. And then the aliens show up. Which tosses us in yet another plot trajectory.
So we have two stories going on here, maybe three. One, the ‘US’ vs the Chinese and Russians, then we have the humans vs the aliens. (We also have a civilian vs military plot but that emerges more in the second book) There’s no sign anywhere early in the book that we’re going to be dealing with aliens. Remember, with Starship Troopers, we start off in combat with aliens, so we know what to expect even if we backtrack to follow Rico’s boyhood and enlistment/training. Now, the whiplash almost works, the main character of course doesn't know anything about the aliens until they show up. But that’s one of the weaknesses of first person present tense, we the reader don’t know anything that the main character doesn't know. But we the readers should know what kind of story we’re getting into. The author makes promises in their first chapters (and pages, really) that they need to keep. Surprise aliens sorta breaks that. Not enough to ruin the novel but…it bumped me.
Still, the first book is pretty solid otherwise, so I recommend it.
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