A first person foray into a future war through the eyes of an increasingly strung-out failed journalist
In her review for Bull Spec #6, C.D. Covington called Germline "equal parts The Forever War and Hammer's Slammers" and that's pretty high praise. The book doesn't have the star-spanning scope of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, and it doesn't have the attention to detail of Hammer's Slammers. But neither of these is the point. This novel is a first person foray into a future war through the eyes of an increasingly strung-out failed journalist. There is no lengthy exposition of how the battle suits work, what the weapons or countryside look like, or, in fact, lengthy exposition at all. There are missteps (particularly in some of the major transitions) and the book doesn't achieve perfection, but there's just something to it: something which vaguely recalls Vonnegut, or even Kerouac, in its bouncing, drug-blurred narrative. Publishers Weekly name-checks "Remarque, Willi Heinrich, and especially Michael Herr" but these names don't mean much to me (though a quick trip to Wikipedia was quite informative). At a brisk 9 hours, very well-cast with Corren's narration, it was exactly the summer change-up I needed from the 40-50 hour epics of George R.R. Martin. (Which I enjoyed immensely in that mode, but there's a certain discount factor when comparing books of 9 and 50 hours!)