Third book in Kloos’ Expanse-like, Palladium Wars series. A series ‘Bridge’ novel in which ‘The Good Guys’ go on the offensive against the post-war insurgents. Story ends in a cliffhanger.


Palladium Wars: Running and Gunning w/ Spaceships

My ebook version was a modest 330-pages. It had a US 2021 copyright.

Marko Kloos is an American MIL-SF and fantasy fiction author. He has written more than ten novels, primarily in two series. This was the third book in his Palladium Wars series. The last book I read by him was Orders of Battle (Frontlines #7) (my review).

Its strongly recommended to read the series in order. This book would be incomprehensible if not read as part of the series.

This story was a turning-of-the-tide for the mostly Alliance characters of the story. Where previously the Gretian insurgency modeled on the German, WWII Werwolf resistance, although better: financed, organized and staffed, had the Alliance on the ropes. Through the efforts of the crew of the Zephyr (including the Byronic Hero Aden character) and an Alliance, Hack0r, stealth, Wunderwaffe (commanded by the Traditional Male Model of Masculinity in a navy uniform Duncan character) the insurgency was dealt a crushing blow in space. On the Gretian ground, the Old Soldier Idina character (modeled on Sgt. Rock) in a double Rescue Arc play; one part of which involves the Uptown Girl Solveig character, re-vamps the counterinsurgency effort. Idina's serendipitously saving Solveig's hash shall likely drive a wedge into the insurgency’s organization. The story ends in a double cliffhanger with the Aden and Solveig characters.

Oddly, this installment of the serialization contains both some of the better displays of Kloos’ talents and his greatest deficiencies as an author. The Palladium War story has ‘good bones’. When Kloos writes about, what he knows, those parts of the story contain an even balance of: dialog, description, sf, and suspense. For example, the MIL-SF ground combats, including the prelude and culmination are good. (Although, Werwolf, door kickers doing room-cleaning would have an ample supply of sf hand grenades and, like the Good Guys, have biometrically locked assault rifles.) However, there continues to be: a chronic, lack of attention to detail; unsubtle plotting, and a reluctance to take all his stock characters beyond their generic type—despite having hundreds of pages of runway.

An egregious example of this book's issues was its 10-page first chapter. In your first chapter, an author puts their best foot forward. Those first pages set the tone of the book with the reader. This book’s first chapter appeared to have been unedited. It contained: an obvious example of lampshading, grammatical errors, inconsistency, and both too much abstraction and too dense a presentation (some of which was incorrect).

For example, in the first chapter-- Lampshading. A female, civil servant recognizes Aden on the street on Oceania as a Gretian war criminal. She had a remarkably good memory, to recall: a single face, from 5+ years ago, amongst a battalion (~1000) of men, of similar ethnicity, dressed in uniform, being processed by her like cattle? Inconsistency. Later, the Aden character muses on a hydrofoil warship he observes from the 'leaf'. Over several pages, that ship was a “warship”, a “gunship” (properly a type of aircraft), and a “cruiser” (a warship with specific characteristics, typically too large to be a hydrofoil), before returning it to be a warship at the end. Dense Presentation. Aden also treats the reader to an erroneous info-dump on the salvo-operation of that ship’s Vertical Launch System (VLS) for surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles. Its a remarkable exposition by an ex-Gretian, soldier, after 5+ years out-of-uniform, of the operation of a single, weapon system aboard an Oceanian, naval vessel.

Oddly, subsequent chapters showed some evidence of editing. Yet, first impressions are most important. A story's first 10-pages can't be rubbish.

As an aside the I found the description and function of the Rhodian, Wunderwaffe, spaceship Hecate to be very imaginative. It was a Deus Ex Machina with a fusion drive! Also, I never knew you could quantify computer performance by ‘mass of metal’? (Note, space ships have mass not weight.) Finally, a ship at port (especially a secret weapon like the Hecate) would always have an alert watch kept at all times at the head of each gangway.

I’m not a fan of serial fiction. Ballistic (Palladium Wars #2) (my review) the previous book in the series ended in a cliffhanger. Almost a year and a half later this book resolved that. (It took me almost 50-pages to remember the characters providing the POVs.) How much will the Cliff-Hung reader be expected to remember, almost two years after this story has been adrift in space?

Spoiler

Will I remember anything about the deep yoghurt all the members of the traitorous Ragnar family are in?

In addition, at the rate Kloos’ has been going, Palladium Wars by its end will be: 10-books long, pay for his children’s private school tuition, and payoff a new roof for his dacha, Festung Kloos in the New Hampshire forest. I on the other hand may be too enfeebled by old age to read the last few books unassisted?

In this book, Kloos converged the story arcs of some of his characters in space and on the ground. The ground combat action was good. The space combat was OK, but still needs serious work. Kloos remains a knuckle dragger pretending to walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk of a squid (only in space). The boy/girl stuff was still YA, but at least its hinted at the folks in the Palladium-universe have non-reproductive sex. In general, there was either none or some proofreading and editing in this story. If Kloos is going to Level-up to a [a:James S.A. Corey|4192148|James S.A. Corey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573162332p2/4192148.jpg]/Expanse class author he’s going to need to get his publisher (47North ) to get him a serious editor.

Readers interested in counterinsurgency lessons may be interested in [b:Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam|55885|Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam|John A. Nagl|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1437858959l/55885._SX50_.jpg|54466].

Otherwise, if you read this, I’m certain you’ll be pleased to know that [b:Leviathan Falls|28335699|Leviathan Falls (The Expanse #9)|James S.A. Corey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600283641l/28335699._SY75_.jpg|48382891] the last book in the 10-years to complete Expanse serial fiction releases in November, 2021.

Worth it after the first two.

Quite Enjoyable

This is a smooth transition from the previous book in the series. The story moves along briskly. I find the characters broadening a little as they progress. I entirely identify with the policing actions on Gentia. Very familiar feel to it. It's not perfect, but a good deal more entertaining than some of the other rubbish out there.

Ahoy there me mateys!  This series is hopping.  This be book three (and me favorite so far!) and it's a fun fast popcorn romp where I couldn't guess what was going to happen next.  It is the strange sort of read because ye follow four POVs and I would be riveted to one person to be sad to have to switch to a new one and then be riveted all over again.  The people ye follow remain from the previous books:

Aden - a POW from the losing side of the battle who is released five years after defeat to start anew;

Idina - a soldier from the winning side who holds a grudge, she is part of the occupying military force on the defeated planet;

Dunstan - a member of the winning naval space fleet whose simple guard duty turns into a mess with epic ramifications; and

Solvieg - a civilian who was a minor during the war now has to deal with the consequences of her planet's loss and what it means for the family business.

I can't get into the plot because I don't want to spoil it.  Suffice to say that there were plot twists I was NOT expecting.  Again these books end on rather abrupt notes that still set up what's to come.  Some readers might not enjoy that type of ending.  Just like with the first two books, I ended this with a "Dang it!  I want more!"  I will avidly be waiting for the next installment and will pick it up as soon as it is released.  Arrrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you 47 North!

Sale Alert: Audible Daily Deal 13May22 $1.99

This review was originally posted on Books of My Heart

Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Citadel is the third book in the ongoing Palladium Wars series following the flare up of some nationalists trying to fight against the occupancy of their planet following the war.  Gretia lost and the rest of the universe is trying to make sure they never have that much power again.  The rebels are making that really hard though and just sent a nuke to one planet to let the universe know they are not as defeated as previously thought.

This is a fast paced series, a lot happens in really short periods of time and with the swapping four PoV style writing, we get a good sense of what is going on from various angles.  This keeps everything feeling pretty intense and sometimes we get to see a specific scene from more than one PoV since a few times characters overlapped a little.

Dunstan is in the Rhodian navy.  His planet just endured the nuclear strike and tensions are high.  After fighting a ship far above his weight class and living to tell the tale he has been given a new ship with amazing capabilities, that can never fall into enemy hands.  It's time to go hunting for the ship that got through his planets defenses to fire the Nuke.

Aiden, a Gretia soldier and former prisoner, is on a smugglers crew, who are in a lot of hot water.  After learning what their cargo was in the last book they decided to turn it in instead of making the delivery.  The people who hired them are not happy and have set some pretty high demands for recompense.  The crew has to decide how they are going to get out of this mess with their lives if possible.

Solvieg is Aiden's sister.  Her father was ousted from his position in a major company after losing the war.  Solvieg is just out of university and set up as an executive.  In her father's eyes, she is a pawn and his way to still have a foot in the company.  She has ideas of her own and wants to branch out as her own person instead of being under his thumb.  She also has noticed that her father might not be as removed as she once thought he was.

Idina, our final PoV, is a soldier stationed on Gretia.  She had been working with other Gretia cops to try and build relationships and trust between the two peoples.  After the nuke those were closed down and she is on glorified babysitting duty to dignitaries.  She is looking for Oden's wolves, the rebels on the ground but she is tied up trying to get officials to listen to her.  She ends up in the middle of multiple conflicts and gives a good view of the shock warfare on the ground.

Kloos does a great job of building tension and leaves a lot of chapters at really tense moments.  This was a really fast read for me.  I'm not sure how many books are planned for the series but it seems like the war is just getting going and starting to pick up steam.  This ended with some significant developments that will definitely impact all of our characters.

Narration:

Korey Jackson is new to narrating has this series.  He does a really good job with the multiple PoV set up and makes each come to life.  He brings a lot of tension to the high drama parts and conveys the emotion of the characters well.  I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

Listen to a clip:  HERE