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The Lucky 13th #1
Until Relieved
When a terrible war in which the Accord of Free Worlds has remained neutral escalates out of control, forcing them to fight or die, the 13th Spaceborne, an elite fighting force, is directed to protect their people. Reissue.
240 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 29, 2020
The 13th Spaceborne is sent to is sent to the planet Porter as a diversion for an all out assault on Devon. They are sent in with only seven days supplies and told to hold until relieved which keeping the enemy engaged to prevent the transfer of troops to Devon. Sergeant Joe Baeerclau of Special Ops has to also deal with a replacement who can't cut it in combat.
June 11, 2019
A bland military sci-fi.
Military sci-fi is hard, in that there is a line between too much character development that drags down the plot and not enough to make you care about the characters. This book falls into the latter category.
Any great military story (sci-fi or not) has to be about the people involved. Without the human element, it is little more than a game of Risk.
Knowing the people involved is what makes their struggle meaningful. It's what makes their lives matter. It's what makes a battle exciting, a win a triumph, a loss a tragedy.
This book has none of that. People are lost, but ultimately who cares, if you don't know them.
This book is also, barely sci-fi. It uses a different type of weapon, Interesting, but I don't think practical. Support aircraft that are very little support as they can't really travel long or far. Little medical advancement and only the mention of FTL. Really, replace a few nouns and you have a 20th century battle on earth.
The other oddity is, the book was written in the mid 90, and while I could be mistaken, I didn't hear of one female in the book. A reference is made about someone's wife, but in the military not 1 woman was mentioned.
I find this odd, not only from a 2019 standpoint, but from a 90s standpoint as well. Women had served for may years in the military at that point, and I refuse to believe that anyone would have sat back and thought "in the future, no woman will go into combat." I suppose, as we never really explore the characters, it's easier to see them all as faceless drones, as we're given their names and not physical descriptions. Or that maybe there was, but the author just forgot to change the "he's" to "she's". But I doubt it.
It doesn't make the book worse in any specific way, but overall makes it less complete.
Overall the book is fine, but dull. The epitome of "meh".
Military sci-fi is hard, in that there is a line between too much character development that drags down the plot and not enough to make you care about the characters. This book falls into the latter category.
Any great military story (sci-fi or not) has to be about the people involved. Without the human element, it is little more than a game of Risk.
Knowing the people involved is what makes their struggle meaningful. It's what makes their lives matter. It's what makes a battle exciting, a win a triumph, a loss a tragedy.
This book has none of that. People are lost, but ultimately who cares, if you don't know them.
This book is also, barely sci-fi. It uses a different type of weapon, Interesting, but I don't think practical. Support aircraft that are very little support as they can't really travel long or far. Little medical advancement and only the mention of FTL. Really, replace a few nouns and you have a 20th century battle on earth.
The other oddity is, the book was written in the mid 90, and while I could be mistaken, I didn't hear of one female in the book. A reference is made about someone's wife, but in the military not 1 woman was mentioned.
I find this odd, not only from a 2019 standpoint, but from a 90s standpoint as well. Women had served for may years in the military at that point, and I refuse to believe that anyone would have sat back and thought "in the future, no woman will go into combat." I suppose, as we never really explore the characters, it's easier to see them all as faceless drones, as we're given their names and not physical descriptions. Or that maybe there was, but the author just forgot to change the "he's" to "she's". But I doubt it.
It doesn't make the book worse in any specific way, but overall makes it less complete.
Overall the book is fine, but dull. The epitome of "meh".
July 11, 2015
Until Relieved (1994) 236 pages by Rick Shelley.
A combat novel. The prologue gives us an overview of the current mission. Humanity has settled many worlds, and split into two major factions The Accord and the Hegemony. The Accord are the good guys. The Hegemony is ruled by an oligarchy that severely limits human rights. There were a few planets on the border that the Heggies have occupied. The Accord is sending a massive effort to save the planet Devon, and minor efforts to the other planets such as Porter to make sure they can't send reinforcements to Devon. In order to win back Devon, they may have to take some casualties on the other planets.
The 13th Spaceborne Assault Team is assigned the harassing duties on Porter. The story primarily follows Sergeant Joe Baerclau's squad in 2nd platoon of Echo company 13th SAT. We also get to see up close a couple of wasp pilots, a HAVOC gunnery team, and a little bit with Colonel Stossen who is the commander of the 13th SAT. The original plan was to harass the Heggie forces on Porter until the 13th could be picked up in four days or so. We knew from the preface that it would probably be 10 or 12 days.
They troops land on Porter some distance from the second largest city, Maison. They immediately get away from the landing zone, so they aren't sitting ducks. There's a minor skirmish, then they move, we get to see what the Wasps and the artillery are doing, then a fight with the force in Maison. When retrieval doesn't arrive Stossen plans an attack on the capital city.
The book tried for realism, no super soldiers or super weapons just one battle after the next. The tactics they used were a given. What I mean is that there is no mention of shooting a rocket into space and destroying the ship, or lobbing a nuke onto the landing zone. Just our guys had wasp fighters and Havoc artillery, their guys had Boem fighters and Nova tanks. Reading one battle scene after another could give you the same tired and exhausted feeling those weary soldiers must be feeling.
The book was good, recommended for fans of war novels.
A combat novel. The prologue gives us an overview of the current mission. Humanity has settled many worlds, and split into two major factions The Accord and the Hegemony. The Accord are the good guys. The Hegemony is ruled by an oligarchy that severely limits human rights. There were a few planets on the border that the Heggies have occupied. The Accord is sending a massive effort to save the planet Devon, and minor efforts to the other planets such as Porter to make sure they can't send reinforcements to Devon. In order to win back Devon, they may have to take some casualties on the other planets.
The 13th Spaceborne Assault Team is assigned the harassing duties on Porter. The story primarily follows Sergeant Joe Baerclau's squad in 2nd platoon of Echo company 13th SAT. We also get to see up close a couple of wasp pilots, a HAVOC gunnery team, and a little bit with Colonel Stossen who is the commander of the 13th SAT. The original plan was to harass the Heggie forces on Porter until the 13th could be picked up in four days or so. We knew from the preface that it would probably be 10 or 12 days.
They troops land on Porter some distance from the second largest city, Maison. They immediately get away from the landing zone, so they aren't sitting ducks. There's a minor skirmish, then they move, we get to see what the Wasps and the artillery are doing, then a fight with the force in Maison. When retrieval doesn't arrive Stossen plans an attack on the capital city.
The book tried for realism, no super soldiers or super weapons just one battle after the next. The tactics they used were a given. What I mean is that there is no mention of shooting a rocket into space and destroying the ship, or lobbing a nuke onto the landing zone. Just our guys had wasp fighters and Havoc artillery, their guys had Boem fighters and Nova tanks. Reading one battle scene after another could give you the same tired and exhausted feeling those weary soldiers must be feeling.
The book was good, recommended for fans of war novels.
September 22, 2011
As the only other material of Shelley's I've read is the Dirigent Mercenary Corps series, the first thing to leap at me in this one was the shifting viewpoint. We follow wasps in the air, infantry on the ground, Havoc's (self-propelled artillery),and occasionally views from the C&C tent on the ground. the DMC books progressed us through the ranks with one focal character (we saw Lon through Officer Cadet to Colonel).
Until the latter part of the book it took me a while to get into the spirit of the shifting viewpoint. I enjoyed the military stuff per usual, but sadly the interlude by the enemy commander and the extremely rushed ending means that I doubt the other books of this series will interest me as rapidly as they might have.
Until the latter part of the book it took me a while to get into the spirit of the shifting viewpoint. I enjoyed the military stuff per usual, but sadly the interlude by the enemy commander and the extremely rushed ending means that I doubt the other books of this series will interest me as rapidly as they might have.
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June 21, 2009Science Fiction
April 1, 2013
This is a new release from Event Horizon EBooks, an e-book reprint of the original 1994 Ace paperback edition. Note that the rating is posted by the publisher.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews