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Jul. 24th, 2015 11:40 amI just finished Marko Kloos's Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure. Lines was a Puppy nominee for Best Novel until Kloos withdrew to avoid any association between himself and Vox Day. I've been reading them now because my access to Small Favor, book 10 in the Dresden Files, has been limited lately. [Local public library doesn't have a print copy, local public library's electronic copy has a waiting list, and so I'm reduced to an hour a day of reading it at the public library near work.]
The first half of Terms of Enlistment is eminently skippable if you've read any MilSF in your life... it's just "Boring Male Protagonist Goes To Scifi Boot Camp". But after that, the books get more interesting. There are some clever tweaks of Heinlein. I think if it were still on the ballot, I'd put Lines of Departure below the non-Puppy nominees but above No Award.
Kloos's protagonist is reading Moby Dick when Terms begins, and I do think Kloos was shooting for something Moby Dick-shaped- the ending of Terms at least has clear echoes of the ending of Moby Dick. It doesn't really succeed at channeling the power of Melville, but it does show that Kloos has ambition for these stories that goes beyond describing space battles in detail (though he is plenty gun-porny if that's your thing) Lines, of course, is patterned after Melville's famous sequel to Mob... no, I'm kidding. Lines is inspired by the literary tradition of nautical mutiny stories like Mutiny on the Bounty, and though it trails far behind those books, let alone Feintuch's Midshipman's Hope, in terms of character development and depth of emotional investment, it boasts a very compelling naturalism.
There is, in general, a realism to Kloos's storytelling that is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The books don't pace themselves conventionally, so if you're looking for classically tied up endings and familiar story beats, the books will leave you a little disappointed and unsettled. It left me feeling that way. But the result is immersive, giving you a feel for the uncertainty and inconstancy of military life. I'm definitely going to check out the newly released third book in the series.
The first half of Terms of Enlistment is eminently skippable if you've read any MilSF in your life... it's just "Boring Male Protagonist Goes To Scifi Boot Camp". But after that, the books get more interesting. There are some clever tweaks of Heinlein. I think if it were still on the ballot, I'd put Lines of Departure below the non-Puppy nominees but above No Award.
Kloos's protagonist is reading Moby Dick when Terms begins, and I do think Kloos was shooting for something Moby Dick-shaped- the ending of Terms at least has clear echoes of the ending of Moby Dick. It doesn't really succeed at channeling the power of Melville, but it does show that Kloos has ambition for these stories that goes beyond describing space battles in detail (though he is plenty gun-porny if that's your thing) Lines, of course, is patterned after Melville's famous sequel to Mob... no, I'm kidding. Lines is inspired by the literary tradition of nautical mutiny stories like Mutiny on the Bounty, and though it trails far behind those books, let alone Feintuch's Midshipman's Hope, in terms of character development and depth of emotional investment, it boasts a very compelling naturalism.
There is, in general, a realism to Kloos's storytelling that is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The books don't pace themselves conventionally, so if you're looking for classically tied up endings and familiar story beats, the books will leave you a little disappointed and unsettled. It left me feeling that way. But the result is immersive, giving you a feel for the uncertainty and inconstancy of military life. I'm definitely going to check out the newly released third book in the series.