Review of “Going Dark” by Richard Fox

This short story is military SF and a finalist for the 2018 Nebula Award. It was published in the anthology Backblast Area Clear, edited by Ellen Campbell and published by Bayonet Books. This review contains spoilers.

The setting is Utica City and an air battle between Terran Union fighters and Naroosha saucers. Ground soldiers from Battle Construct Auxiliary unit 117, commanded by Sergeant Chris Hoffman make their way up through the sewer and set up a position. Although Hoffman is a human clone, his unit is made up of human-machine constructs called doughboys. Hoffman coordinates with other units as his troops make heroic efforts against the enemy. Vaccaro, one of the unit commanders is killed, and Hoffman encounters tech difficulties in reassigning his doughboys. Has something gone wrong?

On the positive side, this story provides a well-built setting and exotic future-tech weapons. It features an action and strategy packed battle that shows how members in the units have each other’s backs. As it winds down, we get into more emotional issues as Hoffman faces the loss of his unit, and especially his right hand doughboy Diamond. I expect this satisfies all the requirements for a successful military SF story.

On the not so positive side, the main problem here is flat characters with little or no background. We actually get more on the doughboys than Hoffman. I’m guessing he’s a cloned human because the narration notes that he and Vaccaro share the same face; there’s no other mention of this at all. When Hoffman pursues diagnostics on his troops, we get a brief history of the constructs and their creations, but not really enough to provide understanding of their internal processes, their loyalty, their feelings, etc. There’s also no visible theme, except that maybe everybody wears out and dies in the end.

Three stars.

Review of “What Price Humanity?” by David VanDyke

This is a Hugo finalist in the Best Novelette category. It was published in There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House.

Xiaobo Huen, Admiral of EarthFleet, is writing his memoir. An excerpt lets us know that EarthFleet is fighting aliens called the Meme, who hide their ships in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud and emerge to make periodic raids attempting to capture Earth. Huen feels that Earth is in increasing danger. The narrative then shifts to Vango Markis, Flight Lieutenant of EarthFleet, who has wakened in what he takes to be some kind of simulation. He meets other soldiers he’s known in the past, and the group takes on more and more difficult simulations against the Meme. Vango recalls that some of the people he’s working with are dead, which raises more questions about what’s going on. The scene shifts again to Missile Tech First Class Pedro Weinauer, who is loading new semi-organic control modules in preparation for battle. Huen makes the final entry about possible interstellar colonies.

I don’t want to give out too much in the way of spoilers, but it’s pretty clear from the beginning that these people aren’t real. The characters tend to be pretty flat and stiff, but I got some good images from the battle simulations. I expect the target audience here is gamers. Three stars.

Review of “Asymmetrical warfare” by S. R. Algernon

This is a Rabid Puppy recommendation for the Hugo Awards. The short story was published in Nature #519.

The commander of an alien battle fleet writes logs describing his conquest of a world called Earth. Through the logs, we follow his developing understanding of the residents. He thinks their accomplishments mean they are ready for the stars and admires their ferocity as they defend their world. However, he is disappointed to find there seems to be no ruling class and that everyone turns out to be the bipeds he took for a slave race. Worse than that, they don’t seem to regenerate when their bodies are laid out along the coastline. What could have gone wrong?

This is a sharp little story, hilarious, very original, and written in a creative format. It might be a contender, but I think it’s too short for a Hugo win. Four and a half stars.