Bad Dog

Gate Walkers #1

by Ashley R. Pollard

In 2071, Sergeant Tachikoma leads a Marine combat armor squad. She knows the Corps never promised her a rose garden, only the chance to fight for her country.

Now, she faces her greatest challenge, two terrifying alien pillars that trapped her into reliving the same day again. The day she dies.

Today, she needs every ounce of courage to save her people from annihilation.

Based on cutting-edge theories on the nature of the universe, this white knuckle military SF thriller contains drama and mystery.

This story is great, with a very firm grasp of the Marine Corps lifestyle." - Sgt D. Barrow, USMC

347 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 28, 2017

About the author

Ashley Rachel Pollard is a former freelance writer for FASA Corps BattleTech game. She wrote monthly columns and reviews for game magazines, and designed tabletop miniatures game too. Since 2012 she has two military SF series published. Three novels in her Gate Walker universe, and four novelettes in her the World of Drei series.

How I use stars.

5: I have re-read the book, which is the best recommendation for me.
4: I enjoyed this book and might re-read it at some future date, but I haven't so far. Life is short and there are many books to read.
3: I enjoyed the book but I don't feel the need to re-read it.
2: Not for me, but you may like it.
1: I couldn't get into, finish, or didn't enjoy, which sometimes is a sad thing, other times not so much.

Reviews

[Donald Mclean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Military Science fiction is a weird genre because there is a tremendous variety of different approaches to what details to include, and what details to gloss over. This author has done something I have never seen before - she has gone out of her way to use literally ever last single colloquial expression, catch phrase, buzzword, abbreviation, and acronym that she could find (or create) that any member of the military, between now and then, might ever run across.

Some of you are reading that paragraph with absolute, undisguised horror. You're thinking that it's like trying to read one of the "literary" novels where the author faithfully recreates every last nuance of some hard to understand accent, such as a thick Scottish brogue. You wouldn't be wrong. I was very tempted to give up on the book at points.

And on top of that, the language is a bit more formal and wordy than strictly necessary (I'm guilty of this at times, so I recognized it immediately).

And there's time travel involved - even if it is only the Groundhog Day/Edge of Tomorrow variety. And the writer throws in some out-of-order back story to fill in some helpful details. And there are perspective changes (fortunately only at chapter boundaries). And there's a distinct lack of explanation as to why the United States is now called something else.

So now you've been warned about all the things about this book that might drive you crazy.

Edit: I have noticed that the density of military jargon does decrease both as the book goes on and as the series continues. In general, the quality of the writing improves AND the story gets more wild and intriguing.

However, the author hasn't been as careful as she could be about use of British terms versus American terms. It's jarring to be reading a novel about Americans, set in America, and traveling over a "skyway" - just one example.

I didn't give up on it, and in the end, I enjoyed the story tremendously. I found the main character especially interesting and sympathetic. And the other character's takes on things, including the resolution of the main plot, added some surprisingly satisfying dimension to the book. I also enjoyed the (two at this time) sequels and hope to see more in the future.

[Tim Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellently handled, this novel of near(ish) future mech combat starts off as a gritty military sf tale with plenty of realism and dark humor. It carries that through to the end too, but also slices it through with something completely different: the holographic multiverse and a day that won't let the main character complete. I didn't know how this was going to finish until the last pages. Recommended for fans of Cole & Anspach's Galaxy's Edge and the Four Horsemen Universe.

[Zepp Jamieson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone, including the POV character Tachikoma, compares the ensuing cycle of living out the day, fighting and dying, over and over, to Harold Ramis’ brilliant Groundhog Day, but it’s more like the extraordinary Russian Doll by Natasha Lyonne; darker, more nuanced, and utterly intriguing. As with Lyonne, Pollard’s main character is more interested in solving the cycle than Murray’s character was in manipulating it. Unlike Groundhog Day or Russian Doll, the solution lies not in modified personal behaviour but in simple ingenuity.
Pollard is meticulous in her depictions of military life. The jargon has the redeeming property of being authentic, or where of necessity invented, at least plausible. While most of the characters surrounding her take turns being red shirts, the characterizations ring true, and as the versions of the universe they are in progress, the characters deepen and the interactions change fluidly and with surprisingly complex patterns.
Going into the final 50 pages, I thought I knew how Tachikoma would break the cycle and live to see July 3rd, assuming of course that she did. About 30 pages later, she tried exactly what I expected—and it didn’t work. Then she tried something better.
I like a story where the author outwits me. Big Dog is such a story. It’s clever, it’s subtle, and at the same time engaging and suspenseful.
I’ve mentioned Groundhog Day, Russian Doll and Haldeman in this review, but in the end, Big Dog wound up reminding me of something far grander and more ambitious: The Expanse. The blurb on the cover promises that Big Dog is only the first novel in a Gate Walkers series, and if Pollard’s first novel is the metric to go by, she’ll give The Expanse a run for its money.
I look forward to the next installment.

[James Pyles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pollard has a winner with "Bad Dog," the adventures of Sgt. Lara Tachikoma and her group of Marines facing combat and death in their mech suits known as "Dogs." There's terrific military action as well as the human struggle Tachikoma faces as she repeats the same day over and over again, a day on which she always dies. She works through what she learns in one loop, taking it into the next, trying to find a way to save the lives of her Marines and solve the mystery of what's happening to her.

[Joe Nothin' · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly great. Down and dirty and feels very real to how military life is, and how hard hitting artillery is. I've read very few books that understood the power of combined arms the way this one does, and it feel very real in it's depiction of mechanized combat.

[Quinn Jeor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this book on a list of “If you liked this, you might like this”. It seemed intriguing enough. However, as I was reading this book, I was really struggling to get through it. The characters are likable, the premise was interesting, it has giant robots, and an interesting spin with a groundhog’s day effect. After I finished, I was trying to think of why I didn’t enjoy this story like I should have. After much thought, I had to mark it down to it being focused on the real too much. It’s science fiction, but just barely. I guess I want to be taken away to another world/time when I read Sci-Fi and this just didn’t do it for me.