Enlistment was originally self - print via Amazon.com , and it did well enough for Amazon ’s own47 North Imprint to officially buy and put out the book , and its sequel , Lines of Departure . Both books are out now in paperback , with raw covers .
spoiler out front …
Terms of Enlistmentis the sorting of novel that ’s in making love with the military modus vivendi . There ’s gun for hire , acronym , hard - ass practice session sergeants , explosions and battles on alien worlds . Asthe novel opens , Greyson is enlisting in the North American Commonwealthmilitary to escape the disabling poverty that strangles the United States . People simply exist in their meager , government - provided homes on limitedrations and opportunities . Crime is rearing in the various megacities as peopleare clustered together little by little , their only hope for escape a lotteryticket to one of the colonial worlds , or an enlistment in the NAC armed forces . Greyson opt for the latter , and soon , he ’s off to canonic training , where he andthe reader are introduced to the various acronyms that make up the military machine .
It ’s a familiar taradiddle , one anyone who ’s read Starship Troopers , The Forever War , Old Man ’s War and variousothers will have already read , but it ’s nice to settle into a somewhat familiarstory . There ’s an impart bonus with Kloos , a former German NCO , which bestow aconfident airwave of expertise to the soldier and their fundamental interaction .
Terms ofEnlistment never quite sample anything far reach or unlike within thissmaller genre , but sticks to what it cognise . The Holy Scripture runs through action likecandy , cycling through Black Hawk Down , Battlestar Galactica and Halotype story before we hit the end . Greyson start off with the Territorial Army , stuck on Earth , and after a disastrous assault in Detroit , he ’s given atransfer to the Navy , where he retrain to become an IT guy for their war vessel .
There ’s quite a scrap for him to do while in outer space — the NACis at war with the SRC — the Sino - Russian Collective , which gas its ownnavies , holds its own colonies and gets into batch of battles with our hero’sside . This is a loss from most Military SF work , which typically show anEarth or man unify under a largely US - based model of governing andsociety .
It ’s a welcome , naturalistic variety that keeps his characters fussy , rightup to the compass point when they come across another , alien threat . Greyson is therequisite every - man caught in the heart of major happening outside of hiscontrol — he ’s working to stay alive , keep up with his dropship pilotgirlfriend and wait out his five years of duty tour before he can retire .
line of Departurepicks up the floor five years later , with Greyson signing his reenlistmentpapers . Things have n’t gone well for humanity in that time : the Lankies havepushed deep into human - held territory , recounting between the NAC and SRC arestill sour , and Greyson ’s become a variety of IT special ops guy . He ’s gonethrough one C of combat jump underpin front - line soldier , and soon , he’sinvolved in several functioning that hammer the NAC armed forces . It ’s not longbefore he ’s get off off to a desolate dependency along with a number of othertrouble - shaper party that he finds himself in the heart of an even moredifficult struggle .
Kloos ’ subsequence is quite a bit honorable than the first book . Rather than recycling genre figure of speech , he angles his history more as a guide , critical look at how the NAC handles the people underneath it . Early sceneshighlight the declination of the condition of Earth ’s civilian universe , with theunderlying subject matter that a government back into the nook will double up downand become very , very ineffective . It ’s soft to see evidence of this : Just lookat how the several governments of Egypt and Syria at the second .
By placingGreyson in the midst of what amounts to an tyrannical agency , Kloos is at anideal post to make a solid breaker point about the great unwashed doing the right thing when able-bodied . Greyson ’s NAC makes the incorrect decision at almost every opportunity , from caringand protecting the citizens which it governs to the military surgical procedure whichit fields .
There ’s a rebellious run in these two novel that’sundoubtedly influenced in part by Kloos ’s current place in New Hampshire , whichalso create a duo of appearances in the two stories . Their state motto is‘Live Free or Die ’ , and it might as well be a mantra for several of thecharacters towards the end of Departure , exiled when they refuse orders to openfire on civilians in a rebelling mega metropolis .
It ’s also a bit of a shift fromRobert Heinlein ’s conservative StarshipTroopers , which points to governmental armed service as a driver for its society . There ’s a unlike sort of conservatism at fun here , one that ’s far more waryof a powerful , centralised political science as it falls to pieces . The unobserved leadersof the NAC seem far more lost with give onto their power than toadmit defect , which only dish out to make things worse for everyone affect .
While neither book quite live up to its genrepredecessors , Kloos tissue a fun , exciting and action at law - packed narrative that’swell worth pick up for a twisting . There ’s barely a muted moment for thecharacters , and the Bible travel rapidly along nicely as things get progressively worsearound them . Kloos has put together a solid world here , with plenty ofbackstory , character and institutions to delve into .
Much like Scalzi ’s Old Man ’s War and its sequels , full term of Enlistment and Lines of Departure are fighting - gradeMilitary SF , and should come with an addiction monition . Hopefully , it wo n’t betoo long before we see the next volume of the serial , Angle of Attack , which Kloos is presently writing .
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