Fullmetal Jacket with Aliens 3/5
Set in the future where Earth is at war with a powerful insectoid alien species that is more advanced and just plain meaner than us. Half the worlds population has gone, destroyed but the remnants learnt fast and struck back and it has become a war of attrition.
I really enjoyed this book. The writing is clean and the characters written are very engaging. The story moved along at a good pace.
So why only 3 (which is good in my book). Well for me the story was pretty 2-dimensional and hit pretty much every trope I imagined for this genre – which is not a bad thing if you like that sort of thing, especially since it was executed so well. The story revolves around Marco an newly drafted 18 year old Canadian recruit going through the rigours of boot camp. I found this more a tale about people and emotion than action and it was well done. The action I was craving took time coming but when it arrived I was left a little disappointed by it and for me at least it was the least engaging part of the story. If this had been handled as well as the character interaction this would have been a solid 3.5 for me. If it had a bit more technical/scifi stuff underpinning it then maybe a 4.
Will I read more. Yep I think so. It is an easy and importantly an enjoyable read and lets face it – they’re just out of boot camp and ready for the real stuff now!
A D Green 