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Starfist #2
School of Fire
Combat, betrayal, and murder at the edge of human space . . .
Deployed to assist the oligarchs of Wanderjahr in putting down a rebellion that threatens the planet's political and economic stability, the Marines must fight two wars at the same time . . . one against the resourceful, well-led guerrillas and another with the entrenched police bureaucracy.
But who is the real enemy and who can be trusted? On Wanderjahr, nothing is as it seems—not even the animal life—and everyone has his own agenda. Inexorably, the Marines of the 34th FIST are drawn deeper and deeper into the politics of a world where murder, terror, and betrayal are the accepted methods of government . . . and everyone is ripe for an old-fashioned butt-kickin'.
Deployed to assist the oligarchs of Wanderjahr in putting down a rebellion that threatens the planet's political and economic stability, the Marines must fight two wars at the same time . . . one against the resourceful, well-led guerrillas and another with the entrenched police bureaucracy.
But who is the real enemy and who can be trusted? On Wanderjahr, nothing is as it seems—not even the animal life—and everyone has his own agenda. Inexorably, the Marines of the 34th FIST are drawn deeper and deeper into the politics of a world where murder, terror, and betrayal are the accepted methods of government . . . and everyone is ripe for an old-fashioned butt-kickin'.
338 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 28, 1998
36 people are currently reading
237 people want to read
About the author
David Sherman
67 books99 followersDavid 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 14, 2022
School of Fire, StarFist 2 by David Sherman and Dan Cragg
This book stands alone just fine. It has been over a decade since I read the first one so it is good this stands alone. There was no backstory which annoys me as I think that is important but it didn’t matter. The Marines are asked by a planetary government to train their extended police force due to a rebellion’s continuing success.
The extended police force has little in common with the urban police forces. The extended police force would be considered a standing army under a different nomenclature.
Political favors determine the officers in the extended force and it is primarily used as a dumping ground for incapable sons. Fancy uniforms and spit and polish as opposed to any type of professionalism. The urban police are capable and professional.
The Marines find themselves fighting in addition to training. They also discover that things are not what they seem. The ruling oligarchy is self-destructing as its members maneuver for dominance.
The Marines must deal with treachery from all sides.
I enjoyed the book and recommend it.
This book stands alone just fine. It has been over a decade since I read the first one so it is good this stands alone. There was no backstory which annoys me as I think that is important but it didn’t matter. The Marines are asked by a planetary government to train their extended police force due to a rebellion’s continuing success.
The extended police force has little in common with the urban police forces. The extended police force would be considered a standing army under a different nomenclature.
Political favors determine the officers in the extended force and it is primarily used as a dumping ground for incapable sons. Fancy uniforms and spit and polish as opposed to any type of professionalism. The urban police are capable and professional.
The Marines find themselves fighting in addition to training. They also discover that things are not what they seem. The ruling oligarchy is self-destructing as its members maneuver for dominance.
The Marines must deal with treachery from all sides.
I enjoyed the book and recommend it.
May 4, 2018
I was a little less enamored of the second book of the Starfist series because of its setting and mission. There was less organized conflict in this entry, as the marines were brought in to train the local militia (Feldpolizei) on an oligarchical German Protestant plantation world populated by dinosaurs and guerillas (though i never quite understood why the People's Liberation Army existed).
Politically, this book offers more intrigue than the first entry, as the oligarchs are working against each other and sometimes making life difficult for the marines, but the clues to the final resolution aren't expertly laid out through the book - they just sort of materialize in the last couple of chapters.
Politically, this book offers more intrigue than the first entry, as the oligarchs are working against each other and sometimes making life difficult for the marines, but the clues to the final resolution aren't expertly laid out through the book - they just sort of materialize in the last couple of chapters.
June 27, 2018
a lot more digestible than the first book. characters becoming a little more realistic. plot still fairly jumpy though.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
October 19, 2022
Entertaining definitely picks up the pace from the last book.
February 14, 2017
It has been a while since I read the first book in the Starfist series but from what I remember both of these novels are pretty consistent in what they do well and what they can’t quite get right. Military Sci Fi typically hangs around one of two places in the spectrum of genre, either the author was a veteran and is trying to write their experiences in a semi fictional way or it’s a pulp fiction style paperback that was written for fun. Starfist hangs somewhat in the middle of these two things because both authors are veterans but it tries to reach a higher ground by talking about some serious ideals so it isn't quite the novel of the pulpy variety.
The second novel in the Starfist series takes place on a heavily Germanic planet that is currently in turmoil because of a militant citizens uprising that is attempting to remove the current leaders from power. Those same leaders call for assistance from the Marines to come down to the planet and assist in the training of its native police and military forces to try and oust the rebel military. Once the Marines arrive they quickly realize that not only do they have a large undertaking but they are also in a hotbed of hostilities that creates only questions and no answers.
The strength of this book is also the strength of its predecessor, it’s the writing, especially the writing when battle scenes eventually do happen. Both Mr. Sherman and Mr. Cragg have done an incredible job showing the reader just what a battle is like, its confusion, the noise, and the desperate attempt to obtain the upper hand. This novel, however, takes a different approach because the battle sequences are much more low key and are more akin to skirmishes than massive company sized wars. That change didn't take away from the enjoyment though because rather than focusing on the scene itself Mr. Sherman and Mr. Cragg focused on the tactics employed by both sides that lead up to the firefight, its tense and its gripping and its absolutely fascinating to see both sides of the conflict react to each other’s movements and attempt to adjust before the shooting starts to ensure their own victory.
The writing style outside of the battles is just as good, it’s an extremely quick paced and very readable style. It’s a book that you could breeze through in a couple of afternoons but it doesn't cut out on substance, the authors take the time to flesh out ideals, characters, motivations, and really do their best to make the entire thing feasible. Of course the writing may be good but that doesn't mean the content is, and it’s the content of this book that can be hard to get through and understand at some moments.
The largest problem by far with the book is the sheer number of characters that are in the story, there are so many people to keep track of that sometimes I felt the need to have some kind of flow chart just to follow the individual stories of each. There are a couple of them that are more important and take up more time in the story so they're really easy to keep track of but the sheer number of secondary and tertiary characters makes it difficult to remember who they are and what they were doing, and furthermore, takes the emotion out of the bad things that may happen to them.
The second issue with the story is the fact that the authors attempted to tell this crazy story of intrigue and political maneuvering, and for the most part it works, but there are some events that are never properly explained. There's a lot of events that happen in the book and while they're all individually interesting a lot of them go unexplained for the majority of the novel. At the end of the book I feel like the authors realized that because there are a series of scenes that are essentially just exposition, exposition to explain everything that wasn't explained earlier.
Additionally, most of the novel is spent, not in the field, but rather in the political maneuvering. We consistently hear more about the training, spend more time in the police stations, and in meeting rooms. Continually things only progress through less than interesting events, but if Mr. Sherman and Mr. Cragg had been placing context clues and sowing the seeds of truth over what was really going on the book would have been so much better. Finally, the book also has a terrible romance, one that's supposed to have so much weight it takes up the last page, but it makes no sense, feels undeserved, and carried no weight with it.
School of Fire is a competent war novel, one that deals with a lot of the confusion and shadows of trying to find the cause of a home grown military force that knows the territory. It has some amazingly tense sequences that lead to wonderfully described battles but ultimately the novel falls short with an unrealistic romance, and a poorly thought out story.
The second novel in the Starfist series takes place on a heavily Germanic planet that is currently in turmoil because of a militant citizens uprising that is attempting to remove the current leaders from power. Those same leaders call for assistance from the Marines to come down to the planet and assist in the training of its native police and military forces to try and oust the rebel military. Once the Marines arrive they quickly realize that not only do they have a large undertaking but they are also in a hotbed of hostilities that creates only questions and no answers.
The strength of this book is also the strength of its predecessor, it’s the writing, especially the writing when battle scenes eventually do happen. Both Mr. Sherman and Mr. Cragg have done an incredible job showing the reader just what a battle is like, its confusion, the noise, and the desperate attempt to obtain the upper hand. This novel, however, takes a different approach because the battle sequences are much more low key and are more akin to skirmishes than massive company sized wars. That change didn't take away from the enjoyment though because rather than focusing on the scene itself Mr. Sherman and Mr. Cragg focused on the tactics employed by both sides that lead up to the firefight, its tense and its gripping and its absolutely fascinating to see both sides of the conflict react to each other’s movements and attempt to adjust before the shooting starts to ensure their own victory.
The writing style outside of the battles is just as good, it’s an extremely quick paced and very readable style. It’s a book that you could breeze through in a couple of afternoons but it doesn't cut out on substance, the authors take the time to flesh out ideals, characters, motivations, and really do their best to make the entire thing feasible. Of course the writing may be good but that doesn't mean the content is, and it’s the content of this book that can be hard to get through and understand at some moments.
The largest problem by far with the book is the sheer number of characters that are in the story, there are so many people to keep track of that sometimes I felt the need to have some kind of flow chart just to follow the individual stories of each. There are a couple of them that are more important and take up more time in the story so they're really easy to keep track of but the sheer number of secondary and tertiary characters makes it difficult to remember who they are and what they were doing, and furthermore, takes the emotion out of the bad things that may happen to them.
The second issue with the story is the fact that the authors attempted to tell this crazy story of intrigue and political maneuvering, and for the most part it works, but there are some events that are never properly explained. There's a lot of events that happen in the book and while they're all individually interesting a lot of them go unexplained for the majority of the novel. At the end of the book I feel like the authors realized that because there are a series of scenes that are essentially just exposition, exposition to explain everything that wasn't explained earlier.
Additionally, most of the novel is spent, not in the field, but rather in the political maneuvering. We consistently hear more about the training, spend more time in the police stations, and in meeting rooms. Continually things only progress through less than interesting events, but if Mr. Sherman and Mr. Cragg had been placing context clues and sowing the seeds of truth over what was really going on the book would have been so much better. Finally, the book also has a terrible romance, one that's supposed to have so much weight it takes up the last page, but it makes no sense, feels undeserved, and carried no weight with it.
School of Fire is a competent war novel, one that deals with a lot of the confusion and shadows of trying to find the cause of a home grown military force that knows the territory. It has some amazingly tense sequences that lead to wonderfully described battles but ultimately the novel falls short with an unrealistic romance, and a poorly thought out story.
January 8, 2013
I liked it. Hence the 3 stars
I just liked it a little bit less than the first one.
I just wanted a bit more characterisation this time. A bit more fleshing out of Bass, Dean and Claypoole, Sherman's protagonists till now.
I love Charlie Bass's character and really wanted to read more of him. On the other hand i really appreciated thenew characters that Sherman introduced like Landser, Chief Long, Brigadier Sturgeon and the Ambassador and these where more fleshed out than the mains!
Also, there was need for some editing. For example, Ensign Van Den Hoyt is refered to as a Lieutenant near the end of the book and then as an Ensign again. Claypoole is refered to as a Lance Corporal before he got promoted (along with Dean) to this rank, thus revealing to me, the reader, Sherman's plans.
All the above cut the fourth star away, but as i said, and per Goodreads definition of ratings, 3 stars mean "i liked it" and i am looking forward to read the next ones, when i return to light military fiction, after finishing Martin's Steel and Snow.
This as you probably know is not the format i use in my reviews but there was no need since the above summarise my views in a more consise way.
I just liked it a little bit less than the first one.
I just wanted a bit more characterisation this time. A bit more fleshing out of Bass, Dean and Claypoole, Sherman's protagonists till now.
I love Charlie Bass's character and really wanted to read more of him. On the other hand i really appreciated thenew characters that Sherman introduced like Landser, Chief Long, Brigadier Sturgeon and the Ambassador and these where more fleshed out than the mains!
Also, there was need for some editing. For example, Ensign Van Den Hoyt is refered to as a Lieutenant near the end of the book and then as an Ensign again. Claypoole is refered to as a Lance Corporal before he got promoted (along with Dean) to this rank, thus revealing to me, the reader, Sherman's plans.
All the above cut the fourth star away, but as i said, and per Goodreads definition of ratings, 3 stars mean "i liked it" and i am looking forward to read the next ones, when i return to light military fiction, after finishing Martin's Steel and Snow.
This as you probably know is not the format i use in my reviews but there was no need since the above summarise my views in a more consise way.
October 1, 2012
In my opinion this book is not really an all out space marine story but rather a cross between a space marine and a criminal investigation story with some planetary politics mixed into it. It manages to balance the three quite well though and, as you see from my rating, I quite liked it.
I never really found the book dull even though it alternates between training the rather useless excuse for planetary forces, detective work and some real marine action. In general it’s a well written book.
Having said that, some of the German names used in the book are indeed a bit silly. I do not know if it’s intentional or not but Arschmann and Arschland wouldn’t have been the first names that came into my mind. Sounds a bit like Mr. Asshole living in Buttland or something.
However, this minor complaint is certainly not enough to detract from the enjoyment of reading this book.
I never really found the book dull even though it alternates between training the rather useless excuse for planetary forces, detective work and some real marine action. In general it’s a well written book.
Having said that, some of the German names used in the book are indeed a bit silly. I do not know if it’s intentional or not but Arschmann and Arschland wouldn’t have been the first names that came into my mind. Sounds a bit like Mr. Asshole living in Buttland or something.
However, this minor complaint is certainly not enough to detract from the enjoyment of reading this book.
September 17, 2012
In my opinion this book is not really an all out space marine story but rather a cross between a space marine and a criminal investigation story with some planetary politics mixed into it. It manages to balance the two quite well though and, as you see from my rating, I quite liked it.
I never really found the book dull even though it alternates between training the rather useless excuse for planetary forces, detective work and some real marine action. In general it’s a well written book.
Having said that, some of the German names used in the book are indeed a bit silly. I do not know if it’s intentional or not but Arschmann and Arschland wouldn’t have been the first names that came into my mind. Sounds a bit like Mr. Asshole living in Buttland or something.
However, this minor complaint is certainly not enough to detract from the enjoyment of reading this book.
I never really found the book dull even though it alternates between training the rather useless excuse for planetary forces, detective work and some real marine action. In general it’s a well written book.
Having said that, some of the German names used in the book are indeed a bit silly. I do not know if it’s intentional or not but Arschmann and Arschland wouldn’t have been the first names that came into my mind. Sounds a bit like Mr. Asshole living in Buttland or something.
However, this minor complaint is certainly not enough to detract from the enjoyment of reading this book.
September 14, 2012
School of Fire: StarFist Book II is Sherman and Cragg's second Military Science fiction outing into the StarFist Universe. In this book, the best and bravest are sent on a Cadre mission to train the police force of a member world. While it is an acceptable read for MilFic fans with some interesting world and character building, it suffers from a predictable ending and some slightly slow plotting at times. For fans of MilFic it's perfectly fine mind candy, but for others it may not appeal. You can find a more detailed review at: http://wp.me/pWa2h-pq
June 24, 2011
Sent to Wanderjahr on a peacekeeping mission, the Confederation Marines must deal with both the politicians in charge and a guerrrilla force bent on change and violence. No one can be trusted so the Men of the 34th FIST do what they do best - fight.
December 23, 2014
This is my second book in this series and it seemed to be somewhat disjointed.
March 25, 2016
Space marines helping space Germans versus space insurgents. Meh. Okay. My father swears by this series but I just never got into it. Might give it another go sometime.
September 22, 2009
not as good as the first in the series, but still a fun romp.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews