The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Labor Day Weekend Book Post

Posted on | September 6, 2020 | 1 Comment

— by Wombat-socho

Having completed my life or death struggle with the new microwave (to say nothing of the FMJRA), I greet you with some books suitable for what’s left of the long weekend. First out of the gate is Tom Kratman’s latest (and perhaps last) book in the Carreraverse, Days of Burning, Days of Wrath, in which the man formerly known as Patrick Hennessey exacts his final revenge on the people ultimately responsible for the death of his wife and children. As with Jerry Pournelle’s Mamelukes, it would be fine if Kratman stopped here, with the boot of the UN Fleet finally removed from the necks of the Terra Novan people, and revolution sweeping the Tauran Union into the dustbin of history, but the possibility of his son Hamilcar leading a fleet to liberate Earth can’t be ruled out, and would be most welcome.

After having read SPOTREPS, I went back to read Escalation, which is the first of the Maelstrom Rising series by Peter Nealen. It’s a very different book. First of all, unlike the anthology, which is full of stories about the U.S. sliding into another civil war, with the active encouragement of Red China, Escalation is more of a “20 minutes into the future” technothriller, with not much techno but plenty of thriller. A Triarii special ops unit in the Balkans to retrieve a captured American soldier runs into unexpected (and very lethal) difficulties as the European Union sucker-punches the American regular forces in Slovenia on their way to deal with the recalcitrant Slovaks. The Triarii have to nursemaid a horribly undertrained American mech platoon and the survivors of the EU attack on one of the American forward operating bases as they attempt to evade the EU forces and retreat to Poland. Very good writing in the tradition of Tom Clancy, and there were several points in Escalation that reminded me of Clancy’s Clear & Present Danger. Recommended.

Larry Correia’s Destroyer of Worlds, the third novel in his Saga of the Forgotten Warrior series, is out; I have a copy but haven’t had a chance to crack it open yet. Ditto for Peter Nealen’s Holding Action, the sequel to Escalation, and Cracked, which bills itself as an anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories. Hope it doesn’t lay an egg.  I’ll be on the road next week, traveling to the Emergency Holographic Convention in Clarksville, and may pick up more reading material there.In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to read before then, there’s a 99 cent sale going on that may have something you like.

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Category: Books

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One Response to “The Labor Day Weekend Book Post”

  1. End of Summer Reading List | 357 Magnum
    September 6th, 2020 @ 5:55 pm

    […] Wombat-socho has a reading list. The Labor Day Weekend Book Post […]