Steel Gauntlet

Starfist #3

by David Sherman, Dan Cragg

"Marines ain't supposed to sit. We're supposed to kill."

After the resource-rich planet Diamunde is seized by the armed forces of industrialist Marston St. Cyr, the Confederation Marines face their most desperate battles yet against the mechanized forces of the bloody usurper. Promised a walkover by military planners, instead the Marines must run a gauntlet of steel, with weaponry three hundred years out of date.

For the Confederation's invasion army to seize the planet, the Marine FISTs first have to secure a planethead against St. Cyr's much larger forces which are equipped with superior weapons. Together with their outgunned comrades, the Marines of 34th FIST must do the impossible--or die . . .

Genres: Science Fiction, Military Fiction, Fiction, Military Science Fiction, War, Space Opera, Space

352 pages, Paperback

First published December 26, 1998

About the author

David Sherman was the author or co-author of some three dozen books, most of which are about Marines in combat.
He wrote about US Marines in Vietnam (the Night Fighters series and three other novels), and the DemonTech series about Marines in a fantasy world. The 18th Race trilogy is military science fiction.
Other than military, he wrote a non-conventional vampire novel, The Hunt, and a mystery, Dead Man's Chest. He also released a collection of short fiction and non-fiction from early in his writing career, Sherman's Shorts; the Beginnings.
With Dan Cragg he wrote the popular Starfist series and its spin off series, Starfist: Force Recon—all about Marines in the Twenty-fifth Century.; and a Star Wars novel, Jedi Trial.
His books have been translated into Czech, Polish, German, and Japanese.
David passed away in November 2022.

Reviews

[Per Gunnar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another good book in the Starfist series. It continues to follow the men in the 34th FIST marine unit and, as before, does a wonderful job of doing so. The characters are interesting and the battles are well written.

The book blurb is a wee bit misleading though in stating that the marines must use “weaponry three hundred years out of date”. You might get the impression that the marines, for some bizarre reason, didn’t get the modern weapons they should have had. This is not the case. They’re using “out of date” weaponry because the enemy is using “out of date” weaponry for which modern weaponry is, ineffective. The latter, I found somewhat surprising.

This brings me to the one gripe I have about the book. It’s depiction of the history of armor (tanks) in the future is not really believable for me personally. It talks about the “last” battle tank being huge and only being able to drive on 20% of the surface of the earth (pretty much only on paved roads). I do not think anyone would actually build such a silly thing.

In the book armored vehicles became obsolete 300 years ago. I do not find that very believable either. From several of the passages and descriptions in this book I get the feeling that David Sherman’s marine background shows through with a, not so slight, negative attitude against other military branches. In this case the armored combat units.

But then, maybe I’m a wee bit biased as well since I spent quite some time driving around in those tin cans in the Swedish military (and loved every minute of it).

In any case, the book is very good and the issue with tanks is only a minor one.

[Brian Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A diamond mining planet, run by a cartel of groups finds itself the victim of a hostile takeover by a self-styled Guderian/Napoleon from one of the other groups.

In a combined Marines/Army/Navy task force, the 34th FIST (Fleet Initial Strike Team) find themselves leading the charge.

When the action gets going, this is a really engaging read ... BUT it suffers from the same problems as other books in the series.

All of the other forces hate the Marines. Politicians hate the Marines. The Diplomatic Corps hate the Marines. Every other armed service is completely incompetent, while the 34th get in and get the job done (invariably showing up the aforementioned services/politicians etc).
Those parts of the story get stale pretty quick, and the characters are fairly two dimensional.
It's OK for a bit of an escapist read on a commute, but I find it best to leave a large gap before picking up another one and reading more of the same.

[Andrew Garrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I have extremely mixed opinions of this book. On one hand, the story and character developments are improving. Pacing is still an issue but overall not bad. My major issue is the authors' complete lack of knowledge of armour. Their understanding of armoured warfare is non-existent and their understanding of armoured vehicles, even worse. Even a minimal amount of research would have given them a more believable story. As it is, I had a hard time enjoying the armoured scenes, which, as an armoured soldier, should have been my hook.

[Daniel Millard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Steel of Gauntlet is more of the same as the first couple of Starfist books, except with a slightly different setting and a moderately varied cast of characters - both dopey and capable. While the attention to detail is all right and the storytelling generally adequate for an action novel, the third entry has convinced me that this series as a whole is fairly redundant and not innovative or original enough (especially when taking its crudeness into account) to keep me interested for too long. These will probably end up on the "give away" pile sometime soon.

[Paschalis]

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[Danny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one quite a lot more than the previous book. Lots of action throughout. It was fun to see some intelligent aliens featured, which I had been hoping for. The ending was quite good too.

[T.L. Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steel Gauntlet: StarFist Book III, is Sherman and Cragg‘s third Military Science fiction outing into the StarFist Universe, and this time the focus is on the relative merits of infantry versus armored warfare. It is a fun read for MilFic fans, with a particular appeal for tech heads and a strong continuation of character building, but much of the plot relies upon technical predictions by the authors that now seem somewhat dated. I enjoyed it both when I first picked it up, and now years later, but if you don't like MilFic or Sci-Fi, however, it is not likely to appeal.

For a more indepth review, go to www.sophyanempire.wordprss.com (shortlink: http://wp.me/pWa2h-uC).

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the planet Diamunde the Marines of 34th FIST face the mechanized forces of industrialist Marston St. Cyr in a battle for the resource rich planet. They must fight a force possessing more modern and more powerful weapons than they possess.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Klasicka marinacka mlitary sci-fi.

Ako doteraz vzdy, dobre napisane, prijemne sa to cita. Marinaci tu nie su neporazitelni, obcas aj niektory z nich zomrie, takze vobec nie je iste, ci oblubena postava bude na konci knihy zit. Odporucam :)

[Keira F. Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

So Im finally giving this series another go, and I decided I like them. The actual combat portions are a little tedious after a while, but its a fairly rich universe which I enjoy.

[Shannon T.L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

i liked this one a lot. good story, good characters.