SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Orders of Battle by Marko Kloos

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Orders of Battle by Marko Kloos: https://t.co/vfPnjsDZO2

Short Review: 7.5 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) October 30, 2020

Short Review (cont): The Frontlines MilSci series heads into the home stretch, with this its 7th novel, which features a very awkwardly done time jump, but otherwise begins a new arc as Andrew joins a force taking the fight back to the Lankies.

2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) October 30, 2020

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 December 8, 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.

Orders of Battle is the 7th book in Marko Kloos' Frontlines series, a series of Military Science Fiction novels (MilSci) published under Amazon's own 47North publishing imprint.  As I say every so often on this blog, MilSci is not really my thing, so I usually don't seek it out unless the books are doing something unusual with the format.  But I've been hooked on this series by Kloos ever since it came to my attention during the Puppy uproar at the Hugos a few years back.  Nothing about the series is unusual or deep, but it features an enjoyable main character and deals with some serious issues with war and human nature, so I've always looked forward to the next installment. 

Orders of Battle is.....an interesting next installment, reminding me quite a bit of book 2 in the series (Lines of Departure).  Once again we have our main character - this time without his wife - being sent on a deep space mission on a new battlecruiser in the continuing fight against the Lankies.  The book does not contain any old side characters but instead introduces a new side cast for this mission, which as usual works well from beginning to ending - an ending that ends on a cliffhanger (again like Book 2).  On the other hand the book begins with a time skip that is kind of awkward, and the PTSD issue our hero Andrew has dealt with for a few books just seems to have disappeared, which just felt weird.  Overall though, I really will look forward to book 8, which hopefully will come out in 2021 without another break. 


------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
A few years of peace and a cushy posting have made Major Andrew Grayson of the North American Commonwealth relax.  But after his mother's death at age 53, he begins to wonder again what is left for him and Halley anymore.  He certainly doesn't want to go back into combat....but what else is there?

So when now Brigadier General Masoud - the higher-up Andrew hates the most - comes to Andrew with an offer of a new confidential field deployment, Andrew can't bring himself to say no (Masoud's insinuated blackmail notwithstanding).  And so he packs his bags and says goodbye to Halley one more time for a few months and gets ready for the worst.

But what Andrew could not have anticipated is that the mission will take him back to the very beginning of the war - the place where Andrew became one of the first to encounter the terrifying alien force known as the Lankies.  Humanity seems to now finally have the weapons to deal with the Lankies, so it shouldn't be a repeat of that nightmare....except Andrew knows full well that when it comes to the Lankies, nothing is ever easy, and the unexpected is only a moment away.....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As with the last book in the series, this book begins with a bit of a time jump, during which humanity has basically had no serious conflicts with the Lankies and there have been no sightings of them in Earth controlled space.  Unlike that last book, it feels kind of a bit jarring since it just happens without any acknowledgement of it happening, and the last book ended with a major conflict on a human colony, which led me to believe there'd be more such conflicts to come.  And humanity essentially lost that conflict really, even if some of that loss was due to human reinforcements coming too late rather than actually being undermanned.  But here we are, with the book assuming that that was the last such incident for a while as part of the status quo.

That aside, as usual the plot works here.  I compared this book above the jump to book 2, Lines of Departure, and it really does remind me quite a bit like that book - the plot sends Andrew on a journey without Halley on a brand new ship with a new cast of characters (that book included one old cast member in Sergeant Fallon, who sadly is missing for the 3rd straight book), a journey that may or may not be concluded by the end of this book.  Readers of this series will of course expect things to go to shit at some point since the mission seems too well thought out and of course it does, and Kloos does his excellent job with the battle scenes as Andrew fights on the ground and his ship fights in the stars. 

But again, even as the plot mostly hits all the expected beats for the first 75%, it works because Kroos is excellent at his craft.  Our newly introduced side character cast - a technician with ties to the last book, an overly inquisitive scientist who in a surprise twist does NOT have a death wish, an Executive Officer who seems to dislike Andrew from the start, etc. - is all well done and helps build the story, and we learn new things about the Lankies and the setting in this plot to keep a reader interested.  And then there is that final 25% when shit really hits the fan, and we find ourselves in a situation that is both old and very new, with intriguing potential.  One thing I've really hoped for in this series is to find out more about the Lankies, who have basically been an unstoppable alien menace that humanity knows nothing about - having no way to communicate with them or to observe them in their natural habitat, and this book shows signs of changing that. 

It's not a perfect story - besides the awkward time jump, Andrew's PTSD from the last few books kind of disappears, with it replaced by Andrew's other personal issue of him having no idea what type of life is left for him and Halley other than continued fighting until they're dead.  Which is interestingly done mind you, but it's kind of weird that the PTSD just disappears - there's one moment where it seems likely to be retriggered by a connection to book 4, but it never occurs here. 

But other than those blips, this is still a solid installment in an excellent series, and I look forward to book 8, which hopefully will come out early enough in 2021 even as Kloos continues his other epic space opera series.