Angry Robot Books, SciFi, 430 pages, paperback edition.
My copy: Purchased.
Pros: Fast, tight military action, Imperial Shit-Tons of explosions.
Cons: A little hand-waving.
In a line: Investigative journalist gets embedded in body of hardcore commando, everything goes to shit.
“I spent the first few days swearing my freeking® ass off, and I can’t say freek® all except the sponsored word.”
Score: 7.5/10
Embittered journalist Lex Falk arrives on a colony planet, Eighty-Six, looking for a decent story to push him towards retirement. Rumours are growing about paramilitary conflict outside the settlements, and Falk’s military contacts stonewall him.
So he does what any self-respecting hard-nosed combat-veteran reporter would do: he gets himself embedded in the body of an elite soldier about to be dropped into the front line.
Dan Abnett is a veteran writer of military fiction, having done wonders with the Black Library‘s Warhammer 40,000 series of books. As an avid nerd and gamer for many years, Abnett’s name has never been far from my consciousness. Most of his books in the WH:40K setting are pure military thriller, with hard-assed colonels and lieutenants grimly leading their men into Hell and back.
With that strong background, I was interested to see what Abnett had done with a world of his own creation, and so we touch down on the surface of Eighty-Six. Before you go deducting points for unoriginality, in Abnett’s universe, planets get to vote on their name after the colonies have become entrenched.
The world building in Embedded is particularly strong. Abnett regularly slips information about the world, surrounding political systems, and histories of the three centuries separating our own time and Embedded‘s setting.
Humanity has spread out amongst the stars, and the Cold War is continuing unabated, apparently between the US, China and Russian influences, although the distinctions aren’t made clear. Abnett’s also changed some names and cultures around a little, whether to throw us off the scent or to further differentiate his setting is unclear. We’re living in a projected alternate history – in Embedded, it was a Russian who landed on the moon first.
The story gets going once Fel’s landed and established some early relationships with old friends and new companions. As it becomes increasingly clear that what’s been reported as minor civil unrest is actually the evidence of a larger and fiercer struggle, Falk is determined to dodge his overbearing military minders and see what’s going on. Through a mostly unexplained technology called embedding, Falk s put behind the eyes of a soldier about to enter the combat zone.
Unfortunately for both of them, the transfer doesn’t go as well as expected. Falk’s vertigo and panic in being trapped in someone else’s body without any of the controls throws the soldier off his game. Embedding is, if not spelt out as illegal, certainly something that would get the soldier into deep shit, and tension mounts effectively as they struggle to rationalise their bizarre behaviour.
The added stress of the combat zone means things soon begin to unravel. In true military fashion, a series of clusterfucks happen, and everything goes to shit. Falk’s soldier, Bloom, is shot under the eye and near-critically injured.
Falk finds himself in control of Bloom’s body, but with none of his combat expertise or training. In adition to trying to salvage a desperate situation and remain undetected by Bloom’s squad, Falk also needs to try and figure out what the hell is happening on Eighty-Six.
The combat scenes are fantastic. Abnett is a master of military combat, and both Bloom and Falk bring experience to the combat zone, each in unique ways. The combination of heart-pounding action and hyper-alertness that comes with truly dangerous situations is conveyed perfectly.
Abnett paces the combat well, with just the right amounts of action observation, and pure gut-instinct snap-decisions. What he’s honed through the Black Library books, Abnett brings to the fore in Embedded.
The main characters are strong and well developed, and there’s an interesting tension between Falk and Bloom, mostly played out at a subconscious, instinctual level as they both struggle over control of the one body. The supporting cast are fairly standard but enjoyable nonetheless, with big thumbs ups given to Bloom’s squadmates, who have all the Marine braggadocio of the combat squad from Aliens… And the reactions that are both so familiar and so frightening when they realise that their positions are more tenuous than they’d expected.
The plot is hurried along by a series of circumstances, a little hand-waving, and a whole lot of action, but this is entirely forgivable. Abnett focusses the second and third acts of his book almost entirely on action, and he keeps things moving at an admirable pace without anything become unwieldy or overwhelming. With a book of this style, I don’t need much exposition, and Abnett certainly gets away with improbable moments of fortune and coincidence in his plotting because, hey, it keeps things fun.
Embedded is a quick, fun, dirty and gritty military sci-fi romp. Kudos to Abnett for crafting a world as intriguing as any found in the WH:40K setting, and I’m eagerly looking forward to see what adventures Abnett and Falk will serve up in the future.
Oh, and big thumbs up to the soft-drink language modification brain implant: the idea of suppressing people’s swear words with a trade-mark is both brilliant and Freeking® well executed.
Embedded gets 7 and a half fragmentation grenades, and can be bought form Amazon here.
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