They were a highly advanced, interstellar species who brought amazingly useful and sophisticated technology to the human race. There was, of course, a catch. The Gurus warned of a far more malevolent life form, beings who have hounded the Gurus from sun to sun, planet to planet, across the cosmos. Pundits have taken to calling them the Antagonists – or Antags – and they have already established a beachhead on Mars. In exchange for all they’ve done for us, the Gurus would now like our help.
Enter Master Sergeant Michael Venn, a veteran Skyrine (a Marine who is specially trained for off-world combat) who is dropped onto the Red Planet with his band of brothers on a mission to take down as many Antags as possible.
But from the moment they’re dropped through the thin Martian atmosphere, their mission goes horribly, terribly wrong. From a group of female special ops Skyrines with secret orders, to mysterious humans who’ve settled on Mars, to the overwhelming and highly-reinforced Antags themselves, Venn and his brothers will face impossible odds just to survive – let alone make it home alive.
Just in case that cover or the publisher’s synopsis doesn’t give it away, War Dogs is a military tale, told from the perspective of our ‘hero’ Sergeant Michael Venn, which, as the back of the book above says, looks at an ongoing battle on Mars between two groups of aliens (the Gurus and the Antagonists/Antags), with humans as a willing combatant. (I’m sure followers of politics may notice a similarity here between this tale and other more earthly conflict.)
Whenever a story is told from a first-person perspective, the tale sinks or swims through the strength of the telling, here given through Michael. From a writing perspective, it is impressive. Here Greg manages that difficult skill of simultaneously developing a backstory and a new language, the combat language of the military, whilst also driving along a plot. As ever, the world of the soldier is an often unappreciated one, with the war happening a world away, on Mars. Michael struggles to cope with the effects of combat as well as settling in back at home, and Greg manages to convey that extremely well. Michael becomes an outsider, detached from the world ‘here’ as well as ‘there’, with no one but his soldier friends, who are going through the same issues, to rely on.
There are lots of ideas compressed into this novel here, that only become noticeable on reflection – an unusual drop into combat that reminded me of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, the existence of a renegade troop of original settlers, before the aliens came, named Muskies (after a certain inventor of today), even a touch of Alien and Crichton’s Andromeda Strain. Greg subtly works these notions into the narrative in such a way that they seem natural at the time. It’s only when you think further that you realise how clever he has been.
The combat itself is, as expected – at times exciting, at others scary and often rather confused, as snafu after snafu on the part of command and deployment makes the soldier’s job harder. There’s a few big weapons flung around, but the book is more of a reflection on the importance of the person in this role. Greg gets the slightly-sardonic tone right, that snarky world-weariness that is created by just having to cope and get the job done, despite everything that goes wrong.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, combat on Mars is pretty tough too. It’s definitely a while away from the shiny future we were all expecting back in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Breathable air is rare and generally it is very cold, with temperatures often one hundred degrees below. Life support is given through technology called fountains, but, at best, survival is difficult and seemingly rather smelly thanks to the skintights (as the book suggests, a body suit rather like Dune’s still-suits, but they do more.) All of this Venn and his motley crew cope with, with varying degrees of success. Suicide at times seems like a possible option, though the survival rate is low – rarely do Skyrines survive more than four missions – and Venn’s on his fifth. A soldier’s life is clearly not a happy one, but one where all adversities are dealt with in a stoic manner.
Things become more complicated when Venn and his combat troop are rescued by a female Musky named Teal, referred (rather demeaningly) to as ’a ranch wife’. When they are taken to a secret underground lair by Teal, they then find themselves being hunted by a platoon of the Antags, none of whom seem to wish them well.
The book at this point seems to be heading towards one of those Alamo-type moments, with our brave band of heroes about to make a last stand against overwhelming odds. I guess it would be unfair for me to say more about the plot at this point, other than War Dogs leads to an ending that is really more complex than I expected and quite clever, which takes the book from being mere mil-SF to something more SF. It doesn’t quite hold together in its latter half, but it was a pleasant surprise to end up somewhere I didn’t think I was going to go. Readers need to be warned, though, that there is no happy ending that ties things up neatly, and I was left at the end expecting more resolution than I got.
But this is a minor quibble. Greg’s clearly been spurred on here by his recent HALO writing to write a military novel in his own imagined future. This would read very well as a HALO novel, I think, though here it is much more down-beat. War Dogs is a book that both celebrates and respects the role of the combat soldier, with all of their trials and tribulations. Think of it as The Forever War or Starship Troopers, upgraded to the 21st century, a tale that shows that even when the technology changes, the role of the soldier does not.
It is the best book I’ve read from Greg for a while, and one of the best military-SF books I’ve read in years.
Mark Yon, October 2014
War Dogs by Greg Bear
Published by Gollancz, November 2014
ISBN: 978 0 575 10099 2
292 pages
Nice review. I haven’t heard of this book, but it sounds interesting. I like Greg Bear and might pick this up at some point.
Thanks Rodney. Hope you like it.