Monday, February 24, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ballistic by Marko Kloos


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on May 26, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.


Ballistic is the second book in Marko Kloos' space opera series, The Palladium Wars, following up from the series opener, "Aftershocks" (Reviewed Here).  Kloos' "Frontlines" MilSci series is one of my favorite ongoing series at the moment - and I'm not a particularly big fan of MilSci, so that's saying something - so I was excited before Aftershocks to see what he would do with a genre I liked a bit more.  But while Aftershocks had a number of really interesting characters, and a solid setup, it felt way too much like a prologue than a complete book for my tastes, with none of the characters' arcs having any satisfying resolution for me to grab hold of.  So I was hoping the sequel, this book, would move forward a bit more quickly and give me more meat to hold onto.

Ballistic is better about this than Aftershock....but still suffers from the same problems.  If combined with Afttershocks into a single book, it'd probably be a far more satisfying novel, but as book 2, it continues to be disappointingly slow.  The character buildup remains mostly excellent, and most of the characters' arcs feature some major events happening, but Kloos continues to slowplay the overall plot developments of the series - even plot developments that Kloos has clearly been hinting at for two entire books now.  Even as a reader who prefers books high on character to being high on plot, there just isn't enough here to grab me, so unless you have Kindle Unlimited and or can get in on this series while its on sale (rather likely), I can't wholeheartedly recommend it, despite the solid writing.


---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
The Gaia system remains on edge five years after Gretia's surrender to the Alliance of the other planets, with unseen actors taking steps to bring war back on the horizon.

On Gretia itself, Pallas Colour Sergeant Idina remains on patrol with her Gretian cop partner, trying to track down the mysterious insurgents who destroyed her unit and later set off a pair of bombs, killing Alliance troopers, Gretian Cops, and innocent civilians alike....but her search may lead her to discover a more formidable enemy than she realizes.

In space, Lieutenant Commander Dunstan Park and his Rhodian Navy Frigate, the RNS Minotaur, continues to search for whoever was behind the scuttling of the Gretian fleet, as well as the possible theft of the Gretian cruiser.  But in the process, the Minotaur will find an enemy beginning to step out of the shadows....and who might just outgun the Minotaur in the process, requiring his crew to pull out all the stops in order to survive.

Also on Gretia, Solveig Ragnar has begun to settle in in her executive position, when she finds herself for the first time on an off-planet mission to renegotiate a major contract.  But as she begins to take more acts for her own personal self, and not for the good of her father and the company, she begins to wonder to what lengths her father will go, and whether it is possible for her to slip his control.

Meanwhile, Aden has found himself a new home on the merchant ship (and sometimes smuggling ship) Zephyr, although only the captain knows of his true background.  But when Zephyr picks up a new illegal smuggling job, Aden finds himself once again in the midst a situation that threatens to send the whole Gaia system into crisis, and only his choices can possibly save those he cares about from destruction.....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aftershocks spent its length introducing to the reader the Gaia system, our four protagonists, and sowing the seeds for the conflict that will presumably set the plot into action: the acts of unknown conspirators - with seemingly impossible resources/technology - trying to reignite the war that devastated the system up until 5 years prior.  Each chapter was told from one of the protagonists' points of view, although Aden clearly got the most page time.  But the book, which spent its entire length hinting at these mysterious antagonists, right from the very beginning, never revealed them to the reader, leaving the situation mostly where it was at the beginning.

Ballistic again splits the plot into the same four points of view, although the distribution of viewpoints is more equally distributed this time.  And again, all four of our main characters are interestingly written, with different facets of their personalities which come out over the course of the plot.  Aden remains the uncertain man, trying to figure out his new life despite events which keep bringing his past back to him, and learning to become part of the crew of Zephyr.  Idina continues her journey with her Gretian partner, struggling with her hate of this place and her feeling that she needs to do more since the job isn't done.  Dunstan provides for the space opera fun of the series, as he tries to figure out what's going on in space with the mysterious disappearing cruisers and gets into the series' first real space battle, which is excellently done.

And then there's Solveig.  You'll notice that in the above plot summary, Solveig's section is the only one which is described without her being tied into a bigger conflict, which is because she's not - her only conflict is her personal one with her father and brother, as she tries to grow up.  It's like she's part of another book entirely, and while this reader probably suspects she'll tie in more to the conflict as things go on - the odds Solveig's and Aden's father isn't involved in the conspiracy seems low, even if there's no in-book evidence of such - there's nothing there yet.  And I mean she's likable and enjoyable as a character, but her chapters just constantly make you wonder "when will something happen" and well, nothing ever does in them.

That was of course the issue for Aftershocks, where after the entire book very little happened to majorly change the status quo.  Ballistic is better in that regard for the other three characters, and a major event does occur at the book's end which clearly will shake up the status quo in a major direction.  And if that event had occurred in book 1 of this series, it'd be a satisfying climax, even with the lack of Solveig significance.  But as the climax to book 2, it feels underwhelming, like by now we should have at least some inkling of who our antagonists are, and well...we still don't, and they're still utterly in the shadows.  A lot more happens in this book mind you, and only one of our four protagonists remains wholly separate from the others, but again it just feels like things are moving way too slowly for my taste, and we still don't spend enough time with a single set of interacting characters long enough for character development to be sufficient to overcome the lack of plot movement - for instance, it's very easy to several of Aden's crew members confused, since their individual traits aren't really that important for the plot and we keep switching away from them.

In short, if you could get Aftershocks and Ballistic as a single book - and for Kindle Unlimited, you basically can - this would be a solid intro novel to a series with some strong potential.  But as a whole second book, it just again feels too slow, which is a disappointment. 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)