Myke Cole is a writer whose work I’ve been enjoying for almost a decade now, most of what he’s published has fallen quite squarely in the fantasy side of the Speculative Fiction world, but that changes with this novel. Sixteenth Watch is Myke’s first science fiction novel and is a fairly straight-forward concept, and surprisingly, it might be the first novel with this concept – US Coast Guard in SPAAAACE! Right, that’s quite the oversimplification, but more after the brief book description.
A lifelong Search-and-Rescuewoman, Coast Guard Captain Jane Oliver is ready for a peaceful retirement. But when tragedy strikes, Oliver loses her husband and her plans for the future, and finds herself thrust into a role she’s not prepared for. Suddenly at the helm of the Coast Guard’s elite SAR-1 lunar unit, Oliver is the only woman who can prevent the first lunar war in history, a conflict that will surely consume not only the moon, but earth as well
Set in a near-ish future, Cole places Jane Oliver at the center of the novel. She is a widow, has an adult child and is at about the age where most people are eyeing retirement and not another off-planet assignment. Well, in this regard Cole and Oliver are similar because they are not willing to fit into a traditional description. Geopolitical lines have cast the United States and China at odds with each other, specifically over a portion of the Moon where Helium can be extracted. The why of that large-scale conflict is a little less important than conflict Jane Oliver is experiencing and how that international conflict affects her. The novel opens with a very riveting scene, but also sets the tone for Jane Oliver – she more or less watches her husband die in a military conflict between China and the United States. This is where another conflict parallels the international conflict – an internal conflict within the US Military. The US Coast Guard is charged with protection of US borders and to reasonable and logical extent, there’s an opportunity for the USCG to de-escalate a conflict, but the US is practically at war, which would lend credence to the US Navy being responsible for the area in which the novel takes place. Jane has spent the majority of her career being responsible for Search and Rescue Operations, which sets her in a good position to train a regiment for something similar in the midst of an international conflict that could lead to World War III. So yeah, between coping with her husband’s violent death and being at the center of an international war zone, she’s dealing with quite a bit.
Cole has proven to be a great storyteller with each book I’ve read by him, and he manages to find ways to improve with each of those books. He’s always had a great ear/eye for character and Jane Oliver could be his most well-rounded, believable, empathetic, and likeable character yet. I found myself believing in her, rooting for, and being extremely drawn to her plight and story. She feels real. I don’t have the lived-in experience of a woman, but Jane feels genuine compared to the women in my life I admire and respect.
Myke Cole, as many of his readers know, served in the US Coast Guard. That experience brings a level of authenticity to the novel that is as high as it is for any other novel I’ve read. Myke does such a wonderful job of immersing you as the reader in the novel that you feel like you’re right next to Jane Oliver for the bulk of the novel. I’ve read my fair share of Military Science Fiction, and I can’t recall seeing a story or novel with “Coast Guard in Space” as its premise, though I could be wrong. Either way, it is such a logical thematic exploration that it surprises me how I haven’t seen this military slant on a science fiction novel previously.
I’m not sure if we’ll read more about Jane Oliver, but the novel works very well as a series starter and she’s a character I’d follow for many, many novels. Sixteenth Watch is a superb novel filled with equal parts characterization, tension, plausibility and immersion. This one will stay at or near the top of my favorite list for the year.
Highly Recommended.
© 2020 Rob H. Bedford
March 2020 | Angry Robot Books
Paperback | 317 pages
https://mykecole.com/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
https://www.angryrobotbooks.com/shop/year/2020/sixteenth-watch/
