The Wagner Incident

by Matthew Kerwin

On the isolated garden world known as Wagner, Humans and Droyne have lived in peace for generations. But now a bloody war rages across the planet. Each side claims the other started it, and each species plans to end it by exterminating its rivals.Lieutenant Walker’s platoon guards the Imperial Embassy, and her orders are Protect the ambassador and don’t get involved in the war. The Imperium is a neutral party. Marines always follow their orders.But when Walker encounters a group of Droyne outcasts and a wounded Human soldier with a wild story about a lost family and mind control, she has to decide whether to get involved. She can try to stop the war or follow her orders while the world burns around her.

241 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2021

Reviews

[Joseph Jaquinta · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Wagner Incident is a sci-fi adventure drama with military overtones. The two main point-of-view characters are both serving members, one a marine veteran of the galactic force, another a new draftee tank commander in the planetary force. The both find themselves immersed in a war on the planet of Wagner between humans and aliens. The marine is explicitly told she should keep out of it, and the tank commander is a casualty of it. However, they both interest with a family of the aliens who feel a spiritual duty to stop this war. They have to wrestle with their feelings of duty, the orders they have been given, and their feelings of humanity for the pain and suffering of the combatants, and the chance that the mystical portents are more than mumbo-jumbo, and there is something they can do about it.
I came to this novel not expecting much more than fan fiction. I’m a long-term fan of the Traveller universe in which this is set and looked forward to another fan’s loving tribute to the setting. However, Kerwin went much further than that. There are plenty of references that Traveller fans will appreciate, but none are so overt as to detract from the story. And the story itself I found quite compelling. Originally, I figured I would read a few chapters a day over a week or two, but three chapters in I was invested in the main characters, their ambitions, and the unfolding drama. I finished the whole thing in just under three days, putting off other projects to do so!
The writing and characterization are surprisingly professional for a first novel. I also was pleased to see the presentation of differently abled people as main characters, which is not something you see that often in a story of this sort. The aliens came off a little flat; for a species with six “genders” it was a little hard to keep track. It would have been interesting to see a point-of-view chapter from the alien’s perspective, but with six outlooks, I can appreciate the technical difficulty of that.
If you are a Traveller fan, you will certainly enjoy this novel. The appendices of “library data” at the end will be of particular interest if you wish to use it as inspiration for your actual game play. I also think those who enjoy action/adventure science fiction will equally find this a pleasant read. I’m a bit of a softy and it took me a chapter or two to adjust to there being on-screen deaths. But it is by no means over-the-top and Kerwin does not fall into the tired trap of killing people to just set a scene. And with the focus being on the characters finding their own humanity in an inhumane situation, it does not in any way glorify war or violence.
Overall, I found the book an excellent way to spend several hours and I think most people will too. I look forward to future works by the author!

[Megan Timperley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling story in a well-loved universe

This reads like a game of Traveller, or maybe one of the better backstories for a newly-mustered-out character.

I very much enjoyed it, and hope to see more of this sort of thing from this author in the future.