Whiskey and Warfare is one of the six book that have made it to the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC4) finals, of which I am a judge. The novel just to be clear has a terrible terrible name, which makes it sound like some humorous milsci novel (it's not at all). Instead, we have the story of an older woman in a scifi universe whose alien husband just passed unexpectedly, who struggles with PTSD from her final days as a do gooder space mercenary, and winds up getting back together with her old mercenary crew as they "coincidentally" fly through a planetary system where a group has seized power and started what sure seems to be a genocide. And so, while the story is not one where the ideas of good and evil are really ever complicated, we have a story of a group of women or femme-presenting soldiers struggles to do good despite an increasingly uncaring corporate-driven universe and despite the struggles that come with age and trauma.
And honestly, this works really well. While the story features a very familiar core - the gang of do-gooder soldiers getting back together again after years apart, remembering why they work well together, and having perhaps one last mission (or well maybe not, as this is the first in a series) together against desperate odds - the use of the older (and queer) protagonists, who each struggle with issues of age, grief, disability, infirmity, and trauma, very much works to separate this one from the norm. And Hamill's writing makes each of the characters, especially but not limited to protagonist Maryn, really likable and interesting and ends the novel in a satisfying way that also promises more should one want to continue with the series.
More specifics after the jump.
Plot Summary:
For the last twenty years, Dr. Maryn Alessi had worked as professor, co-teaching exobiology with her beloved spouse, Andelek, the famous adventurer and fellow exobiologist and of course, Xyrian royal. Before that, she had been a mercenary, first working for the female-identifying combat unit known as the Artemis Corps, and then working together with 3 of her fellow comrades and survivors (Jac, Scylla, and Col) in the privateer cruiser Golden Girl as "Team Huntress". They had been a great team, helping to do good while making money, and the work had even introduced Maryn to Andelek, who hired them as bodyguards for zer adventuring science work...and had allowed Maryn and Andelek to fall in love as they made scientific discoveries together. But then, one mission went horribly wrong and Maryn almost died....and her resultant trauma-based fear of space left her afraid to leave a planet ever again, forcing her to retire as a professor with Andelek.
Now, Andelek is dead, victim to a surprise disease that has taken ze before zer time, and Maryn has nothing left on the planet (a situation not helped by the university president basically trying to give her job to the son of a major corporate sponsor). And Maryn knows she is duty bound to get Andelek's remains to zer home planet for the royal funeral rites. But that will require Maryn to take those remains through space and to fight her own fears as well as to find a ship willing to take her on that journey through space that has unexpectedly become the battleground for a "civil war". And when she can't find such a ship, her only hope is to rejoin Col, Jac, and Scylla on Golden Girl, where they intend to help Maryn get where she needs as it's not too far off of Jac and Scylla's planned....and surprisingly secretive itinerary.
Fighting off her fears of space will be difficult enough for Maryn, but when Jac and Scylla's secrets turn out to be assisting a group fighting off a corporate-aided genocide in that "civil war", she will find herself having to get back into fighting shape...because traumatized, aged, and infirm Team Huntress may be all these people have in their war to survive...
Whiskey and Warfare is told entirely from the perspective of Maryn, as she struggles with grief and what to do after and winds up back with her friends in space (reluctantly) on a journey that is far more dangerous than her friends have let on. Maryn is a struggling protagonist for a number of reasons - she's grieving terribly for the loss of the love of her life in Andrelek, her job as a professor has become somewhat untenable due to university politics essentially pushing her out in favor of an asshole nepo baby, and leaving the planet will force her to confront her PTSD about space travel (which stems from being essentially stranded alone in space after a disaster until a last minute rescue). And while she's not out of shape - she and her spouse made a regular practice to exercise every day - she's also not fully in mercenary form in her older age, a problem shared by her good friends. And so Maryn's story here isn't simply just "getting the band back together", but also her struggling with these traumas and age as she gets back into a fight that she knows is a good cause - even as she struggles with Jac and Scylla's lies in getting her into it.
Really there isn't much to say about the plot of this book itself. It's highly functional sure, with a universe largely ruled by corporate interests, most of which are corrupt and greedy if not evil. The bad guys here are some obviously evil species supremacists, working together with a mysterious corporation that has allowed them to gain power and cover as they try to enact genocide. And there are a bunch of species with different cultures and ideas, but we don't really get more than a snapshot of them, such as the small traditions of the well meaning but maybe a little isolationist Xyrian people or the "we protect our elders and children to the point of coddling" of the Kheqet people, to go along with different corporations that we largely don't get to know much about despite them being a major part of the setting. But for the most part the setting and plot ar functional and almost never feel contrived (one small bit getting Maryn out on a spacewalk not withstanding) and allows the character work to shine here.
And really that character work is excellent. This is not a book that features the group of mercenaries doing constant back and forth banter, but the dialogue and inside references of Team Huntress makes each major character feel entirely believable and real and easy to care for. And they each struggle with their own things, not just Maryn, such as Scylla and Jac struggling with Scylla coming down with a degenerative disease that affects her piloting (and Jac worrying about her wife) or even the AI of Golden Girl worrying about becoming more and more obsolete with age. I don't really have much to say about this or in explaining it, but it really works to make the characters and their problems here stand out from the many other books with similar setups and the representation from middle age to older protagonists (as well as disabled protagonists) is excellently done. And I should not forget again that the themes of grief and how we deal with that and how Maryn pushes through it are also excellently done here - I worried that the book might've dropped it at a certain point, but it never let it go that easily, just like grief really clings in real life. Just generally excellently done.
So in the end, I really liked Whiskey and Warfare, even if I hated the book's pretty unrepresentative title. Recommended, and this is probably my second favorite SPSFC book this year.
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