A sergeant is sent to the moon to take everything for the US. The US has fallen under the power of corporations, who have bought the powers that be in Washington. Who in turn micromanage the army, from the backlines. After yet another disastrous fight in which inept generals chew up a whole division following a plan that had no basis in reality, Starke mutinies and takes over. ( )

Picked this up on a whim. Military SF makes for 'trashy guilty pleasure' reading, but sometimes a guy just wants to read about stuff exploding! Actually this wasn't half as bad as the terrible cover suggested. Very often I'm put off of books in this genre by the uber-nationalism and over-glorification of war, but this manages to combine the excitement of conflict, as well as its absurdity and (at times) futility.

The story is set in a future where the US is the sole super-power which dominates the globe. At the same time it has allowed its military to decline in quality, with its officer corps heavily politicised and virtually a different caste from the grunts. The very same grunts are short-changed on defective equipment while the military higher-ups spend money on super-expensive but generally useless weapons systems. Live-feeds from the soldier's helmets in combat zones are sold to TV corporations as 'reality shows' in order to raise revenue. The story kicks off as the other nations of the world have started mining the moon, desperate for resources, and the corporations which run the U.S. decide they want these resources for themselves. The military is sent in, and we follow the doings of Stark, a sergeant who is doing his best to keep his squad alive in the face of hostility from the enemy and from his own chain of command, who keep on dreaming up ways to get the men killed. There's a fair degree of gallows humour here, while at the same time, the main character, in his quest to keep his men alive comes across as both heroic and poignant. This is definitely better than the average mil-sf fare. ( )

3.3