Unbreakable by W.C.Bauers
Unbreakable by W.C.Bauers
Unbreakable has a strong female protagonist, gritty fast paced action sequences and a killer setting for the whole shabang. It has echoes of Aliens with its intense female lead, sharp dialogue and hoo-ah marines that added the element of a fun and familiar friendly atmosphere. Plot wise Promise Paen is stuck between two empires on the brink of war and sent back to her home world as part of PR exercise to win the hearts and minds of her former people whilst also dealing with space pirates and an angry militia. It’s a personal story. Her crew and her charges and how she relates to them are given a nice weight and we see the bonds develop and change, especially as she moves up in rank. We see how their deaths affect Promise and how their failures and successes are hers as much as theirs. One of my favourite scenes involved her taking a group of militia through the basic instructions for the standard issue pulse rifles because of the attention to detail and innovations in the weaponry but also because of the reactions of the crowd and her people.
The action is visceral, the deaths, carnage and repercussions of battle are palpable and blood almost leaks through the pages, such is the atmosphere Bauer’s often achieves. The Mech suit combat is ridiculously well written and highly entertaining and shit it makes me want to tag into a giant armoured beast and let rip with some full auto. You cant just have action though.
The politics are quite complex and I did find myself re reading one or two sections but Bauers has created a detailed and realistic battlefield on land and in space, which means a few things. The battles in space, ship to ship, are bloody great. They have an old time Navy sort of feel but with more high tech weaponry which is a nice mix but does result in some short battles what with mega lasers being used to cut through entire ships in seconds. We get into the heads of the opposing captains and feel their struggles without getting caught up in the science but we also meet lots of people with military titles and full foreign names and we hear an absolute ton of acronyms which when overused can turns an otherwise cohesive paragraph into military babble. Not being overly familiar with military structure and rank, at times it was hard to know how much attention to give to these side characters as they are numerous, often appearing only for a scene or two and always in jeopardy of a quick death. With Tramper Pilot Rhaymond Garcias, Ensign X’atti Quartz, Staff Sergeant Moya Hhatan and many more all flying about it can get frenetic keeping track of who is who. I just tried to roll with the punches and not get too attached or involved with anyone who was not our Protagonist.
One thing I feel I should mention is that I think the prologue was a bit unnecessary. It does not add anything to what we already know from the back cover and seems as though it is there to draw us into the action in case we don’t have the patience to let the backstory unfold at it’s own pace. From it I got the impression he dead mother would be speaking to her constantly throughout the book which did not appeal to me, as it is she makes well times appearances and works nicely. For me the evidence is in the fact that I picked up this book and put it down three or four times because of the prologue and it was only when I was at the airport and had nothing else to do for an hour and got past the prologue that I was able to get really sucked in. So readers if you are not engaged in the prologue, skip to the first chapter. Don’t abandon the whole book as you will be doing yourself an injustice.
Anyone who likes a good mix of Science Fiction and Military will like this and if, unlike me, you have knowledge of rank and structure, I think you will really get a kick out of it. Great debut and a promising first book and a huge nod to the cover artist, as it’s definitely the sort of book I would pick up off the shelf.
Published by the amazing people at TOR you can follow W.C. @WCBauers
