/lit/ - Literature

>>22338542
Comrades in Arms - Kevin J. Anderson (2012)

After being nearly killed in action, Rader has been remade into a Deathguard, an elite cyborg berserker with minimal organic parts and a very limited lifespan. His Werewolf Trigger demands that he KILL! KILL! KILL! (all caps in the text as well) and so he does, more and more, until he finds someone he doesn't want to kill. Thus begins the unlikely story of finding a Comrade in Arms in the enemy. Friendship and treason bloom on the battlefield.

In terms of word count, this barely crosses the threshold to be a considered a novella. In terms of enjoyment, it straddles the borderline of being mediocre and decent. What I found most notable about it is that it's a great example of a 2.5/5 rounded up to 3 story. It doesn't satisfy at all but doesn't leave me unduly dissatisfied. It tells an adequate story of "They want us all to kill each other, but what if we didn't?" The specifics suffice, but I don't think they matter all that much. That's really all there is to it. I don't recommend for or against it. It's just something short to read if you're in the mood for Humans vs Bugs military SF, though the bugs are on a similar civilizational level, have open dialogues, and both sides are idiotic. It's definitely not pro-war as there are various attacks on the military, patriotism, following orders, and the general concept of warfare.

As per the title, it finds that the grunts and the officers both have more in common with the their counterparts on the other side than with each other. If this were longer and better written it could've potentially been a story about solidarity among the troops on both sides rebelling against their officers and the leadership in general. That could've been amusing. As it is, it's more about how insubordination among one's own ranks is to be despised far more than the enemy. For an officer, the loss of troops is impersonal and expected. The refusal to respect their authority is personal and unforgivable.

This novella went how I expected it to, which is unfortunate, but not disappointing, as that would've required having higher expectations. As a tangential note, the more and more of Anderson's short fiction I read, the less and less interested I am in ever reading the Dune novels he wrote. I'll probably avoid reading anything else from him aside from when I see him in anthologies or magazines. It doesn't feel worthwhile for me to do so, despite it being that not that bad overall.

Rating: 2.5/5