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This is the first of Karen Traviss Star Wars books dealing with the chaps in white armour. They are all clones of the same person, grown to maturity in 12 years and trained by a Mandalorian drill sergeant, so you might expect them to be very similar to each other, but withing the first page Ms Traviss has four very individual characters on the page, Niner, Fi, Atin and Darman. This particular squad of commandos is comprised of surviving leftovers of other squads following a devastating battle (in the Clone Wars timeline), so rather than being trusted teammates, they are still getting used to each other. They have been tasked with destroying a separatist bioweapon. Darman is separated from the rest and meets a very inexperienced Jedi Padawan, Etain Tur-Mukan. A bond begins to develop (definitely a no-no as far as their bosses are concerned) and they are separated at the end. I don't usually read tie-in fiction, but I've loved Karen Traviss' other books so so reading this was a no-brainer and I was not disappointed. She gets under the skin of the squaddies and presents fully rounded characters as well a breakneck action. Highly recommended.
This is the second Nomad book, following on from 'The Best of Us'. Most of earth has been hit by die back - a virus that is killing major food crops. A few countries have isolated to avoid it, but many (America and Europe in particular) have been turned into a dead wasteland. Asia is one of the survivors (so far), as is Britain.
Ainatio, the tech/research company located in the American wilderness next to the tiny self-sufficient town of Kill Line, has managed to launch a ship full of settlers in cryo-suspension towards a far off planet, Opis, where Solomon the ethical autonomous AI and his bots have set up a basic colony fit for humans. Solomon has hitherto been able to flit (virtually) between Earth and Opis, but the FTL link has now been lost and Sol is on Earth. The initial ship has already arrived. The ship launched in the first book has 45 years to go and the third ship is being prepped to take a third batch of settlers, including the Kill Line residents, but they are a few months short of being able to launch.
The same human characters we met in the first book are upfront again. Chiefly these are three military types: Chris the rough-around-the-edges leader of a ragtag bunch of survivors who are camped close to Kill Line. Marc, tough soldier with connections to British Intelligence, and Trinder, in charge of Ainatio Security. On Opis the colony set-up crew, led by Captain Bridget Ingram, are shocked by the arrival of some crow-like aliens whose tech is amazingly advanced, as is their ability to learn English. The Ainatio folks back on Earth are hamstrung by the arrival of a Korean investigative team from the Alliance of Asian-Pacific States, led by Tim Pham, supposedly hunting the origins of another die-back strain, but in reality sniffing around for FTL tech. The Koreans would also destroy Solomon if they knew that he was sentient.
The narrative swings between Earth and Opis, where news of not-so-friendly-aliens puts the small colony on alert. There are ethical questions throughout as things develop and the fragile peace between Tim Pham and Ainatio is stretched to breaking point. There's a massive technological advance (from the aliens) which is a major game changer. Are our guys the good guys or the bad? It all depends on your point of view. I love Karen's writing, the way she manages to include a lot of logistics while making it tense and exciting. I'm so looking forward to the third book, 'Here we Stand.'
This is a shared world book, but you don't need to have ready any of the others. Karen always has her own particular style. She has oceans of respect for soldiers and she really lets it show, but she also gets under the skin of her characters, building compete characters from military types, much as she did in her Star Wars Imperial Commando books, and her Going Grey soon-to-be-trilogy (both highly recommended). Earth is partly wasteland. Biological warfare has cause die-back, a virulent engineered disease which has turned large parts of America and Europe into a wasteland and made Britain into and island sanctuary and Asia into a superpower determined to wipe out die-back at all costs, even if it means nuking infected land. There's no more United States and no more government, just a few isolated places trying to get by. The little farming town of Kill Line is an isolated enclave, growing enough to feed itself and Ainatio, the research station on its border, supposedly looking for a cure for die back. Recently arrived is a small camp of military types and the refugees they've saved from a city, led by Chris Montello, determined not to leave anyone behind. The co-exist peacefully with Kill Line and trade services for food. In these precarious times, it' about as good as it gets. But Ainatio isn't only researching die-back. They are reaching the culmination of a long term project to colonise a distant planet. Though the project is run by humans, it's masterminded by Solomon, an ethical AI, whose mission is to save the best of humanity and take them to the stars. The main problem is that, apart form a dozen department heads, the 1500 or so staff, don't know about the secret project. The ship taking 100 servicemen and women (in cryo) to Nomad base – which was reported lost 40 years ago – is almost there and Ainatio's current director intends to take all her staff there as well. The only problem is that she hasn't told them yet. Well, that's not the only problem. Solomon has his own ideas as to who the 'best' folks to save are. And those Pacific types have noticed a nasty case of die back in the area which means nukes. This is the first in the Nomad sequence. What's happening on Earth is interspersed with what's happening on Nomad Base. It looks as though there's going to be plenty to keep us interested in future books. Some great characters in here, including Solomon himself. Highly recommended.
