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New Model Army
From a literary master of SF comes a savage satire on our capacity for war and a celebration of our need for love A giant has brought war to the fields and towns of England's heartland. When the British army brings in air support and deploys heavy weapons he simply melts away, only to form again somewhere else and deliver another devastating blow. He is called Pantegrel, and he is a New Model Army—a giant whose thoughts flow through countless wireless connections, whose intelligence comes from the internet and real-time camera updates, whose mind is made up of thousands of minds, each deciding what he will choose to do. He has chosen the joy of the fight, and his fury is truly democratic—he is me and you. This is a terrifying vision of a near future war as new technologies allow the world's first truly democratic army to wrest control from the powers that be. Taking advances in modern communication and the new eagerness for power from the bottom upwards, Adam Roberts has produced at once an exciting war novel and a philosophical examination of war and democracy. It shows an exciting and innovative literary voices working at the height of his powers and investing SF with the literary significance that is its due.
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2010
23 people are currently reading
556 people want to read
About the author
Adam Roberts
238 books567 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
July 12, 2017
If you love a good high-concept novel, you'll love New Model Army.
Roberts is one of the most interesting writers working in Science Fiction, consistently producing work that while not always perfect is always both thoughtful and fascinating. New Model Army is as interesting and imaginative as his other works, but comes closer to perfection than many of them.
Tony Block, our narrator, is a born soldier, a man whose only home is in a fighting force. Block is a soldier in Pantegral, a ‘New Model Army’ (NMA); a new type of mercenary force engaged by governments too poor to field their own conventional military. Scotland has engaged Pantegral to fight for its independence from the U.K (New Model Army was written in 2010, but feels more recent with the developments of Brexit) and Block narrates his combat experiences and his side's progressive defeat of the British Military, to the astonishment of the English government.
Pantegral is an army like no other. There are no officers, no leaders, no hierarchy at all. Pantegral has no tanks, no artillery and no airforce. Soldiers arrange their own food, their own medical supplies, and take care of their own kit using army funds they can individually access as needed. Using wikis and arm mounted screens Pantegral soldiers fight as a democratic collective, where each soldier can present plans of action, mark enemies on shared google maps, discuss options then vote on what the army should do in mid-combat real-time. As Block puts it, Pantegral is less an Army than a ‘Polis’ a city-state of its own along the lines of ancient Athens. By fighting primarily in populated urban areas where bigger armies fear to use their heavy weapons Pantegral’s flexibility and effective use of its soldier’s skills allows it to comprehensively out-maneuver and out-fight its more traditional enemies.
Block is an interesting character. He is a born soldier, a deserter from the British Army, who loves one of his fellow soldiers in a way that the object of his affections cannot reciprocate. Block is blunt in his opinions, and openly challenges the reader, deliberately attempting to shock by criticizing contemporary democracy and modern armies, along with graphically narrating homosexual encounters from his past.
Still, despite his affinity for combat the terrors of war begin to weigh on Block, and we have a front-row seat to his disintegration as the things he sees and does begin to grind him down.
New Model Army is a thought provoking book. Roberts poses questions about whether our representative system is merely a dressed-up oligarchy, about how a more direct democratic system could empower individual citizens at the same time as such change might dangerously destabilize our current global system.
From the perspective of someone who has spent time on military bases (Thanks, Airforce Cadets!) Robert's depiction of modern armies being mired in feudal-era traditions is spot on, and his depiction of the British Army being caught completely flat-footed by a more flexible NMA is scarily convincing.
The story's end isn't amazing, and is a wee bit of an anti-climax, but the journey there is gripping, and Roberts completely envelops readers in his usual blizzard of great ideas and compelling characters.
Stone is still my favourite of Robert's works - it's one of the most interesting works of SF I've read in the last decade - but New Model Army comes a close second. Adam Roberts is a damn talented writer, and I rate New Model Army up in the same rarefied air as soldierly classics like Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Eric Frank Russell's Wasp.
Roberts is one of the most interesting writers working in Science Fiction, consistently producing work that while not always perfect is always both thoughtful and fascinating. New Model Army is as interesting and imaginative as his other works, but comes closer to perfection than many of them.
Tony Block, our narrator, is a born soldier, a man whose only home is in a fighting force. Block is a soldier in Pantegral, a ‘New Model Army’ (NMA); a new type of mercenary force engaged by governments too poor to field their own conventional military. Scotland has engaged Pantegral to fight for its independence from the U.K (New Model Army was written in 2010, but feels more recent with the developments of Brexit) and Block narrates his combat experiences and his side's progressive defeat of the British Military, to the astonishment of the English government.
Pantegral is an army like no other. There are no officers, no leaders, no hierarchy at all. Pantegral has no tanks, no artillery and no airforce. Soldiers arrange their own food, their own medical supplies, and take care of their own kit using army funds they can individually access as needed. Using wikis and arm mounted screens Pantegral soldiers fight as a democratic collective, where each soldier can present plans of action, mark enemies on shared google maps, discuss options then vote on what the army should do in mid-combat real-time. As Block puts it, Pantegral is less an Army than a ‘Polis’ a city-state of its own along the lines of ancient Athens. By fighting primarily in populated urban areas where bigger armies fear to use their heavy weapons Pantegral’s flexibility and effective use of its soldier’s skills allows it to comprehensively out-maneuver and out-fight its more traditional enemies.
Block is an interesting character. He is a born soldier, a deserter from the British Army, who loves one of his fellow soldiers in a way that the object of his affections cannot reciprocate. Block is blunt in his opinions, and openly challenges the reader, deliberately attempting to shock by criticizing contemporary democracy and modern armies, along with graphically narrating homosexual encounters from his past.
Still, despite his affinity for combat the terrors of war begin to weigh on Block, and we have a front-row seat to his disintegration as the things he sees and does begin to grind him down.
New Model Army is a thought provoking book. Roberts poses questions about whether our representative system is merely a dressed-up oligarchy, about how a more direct democratic system could empower individual citizens at the same time as such change might dangerously destabilize our current global system.
From the perspective of someone who has spent time on military bases (Thanks, Airforce Cadets!) Robert's depiction of modern armies being mired in feudal-era traditions is spot on, and his depiction of the British Army being caught completely flat-footed by a more flexible NMA is scarily convincing.
The story's end isn't amazing, and is a wee bit of an anti-climax, but the journey there is gripping, and Roberts completely envelops readers in his usual blizzard of great ideas and compelling characters.
Stone is still my favourite of Robert's works - it's one of the most interesting works of SF I've read in the last decade - but New Model Army comes a close second. Adam Roberts is a damn talented writer, and I rate New Model Army up in the same rarefied air as soldierly classics like Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Eric Frank Russell's Wasp.
November 3, 2012
I am a fan of Adam Robert's work, but found myself by turns frustrated and dazzled with the ideas and concepts he throws around in this latest book. In one sense, the book works best as a philosophical discussion of the nature of modern combat. It's when you look at the practicalities of the storyline that some problems emerge (well, for me anyway).
First off, money. Who is paying these troops and how is their equipment financed/obtained? Next, a totally democratic and decentralised chain of command doesn't fully convince me. In war, few situations lend themselves to the 'Chinese Parliament' approach - even with the instantaneous communication networks Roberts envisages. The NMA functions as one organic entity via a sort of mobile Internet based system. How is this network rendered invulnerable to hacking? Moving on, I'm not convinced that the required skills in strategy, tactics, supply, and small unit/combined operations could be effectively acquired and used by people who are effectively mercenaries/irregulars in the way Roberts suggests. Finally, the soldiers themselves will need to be:
i) capable of maintaining and repairing the equipment, particularly the sophisticated comms gear on which they rely,
ii) tacticians capable of real-time flexibility at both tactical and strategic levels.
iii) recruiters/trainers for the replacements that will be required as attrition will apply to this force just as it does to a regular army,
iv) logisticians capable of identifying, locating, covertly procuring and delivering required re-supply.
v) trained in humint and equipped with the necessary incentives to make a humint system viable,
vi)without ego as personality conflicts may work to polarize the organization making it more important to best rivals than to win the war.
That said, the story is still an interesting description of what id basically a high-tech guerilla army for the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, I like my speculative fiction/sci-fi to have a certain level of plausability which this story didn't quite meet.
First off, money. Who is paying these troops and how is their equipment financed/obtained? Next, a totally democratic and decentralised chain of command doesn't fully convince me. In war, few situations lend themselves to the 'Chinese Parliament' approach - even with the instantaneous communication networks Roberts envisages. The NMA functions as one organic entity via a sort of mobile Internet based system. How is this network rendered invulnerable to hacking? Moving on, I'm not convinced that the required skills in strategy, tactics, supply, and small unit/combined operations could be effectively acquired and used by people who are effectively mercenaries/irregulars in the way Roberts suggests. Finally, the soldiers themselves will need to be:
i) capable of maintaining and repairing the equipment, particularly the sophisticated comms gear on which they rely,
ii) tacticians capable of real-time flexibility at both tactical and strategic levels.
iii) recruiters/trainers for the replacements that will be required as attrition will apply to this force just as it does to a regular army,
iv) logisticians capable of identifying, locating, covertly procuring and delivering required re-supply.
v) trained in humint and equipped with the necessary incentives to make a humint system viable,
vi)without ego as personality conflicts may work to polarize the organization making it more important to best rivals than to win the war.
That said, the story is still an interesting description of what id basically a high-tech guerilla army for the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, I like my speculative fiction/sci-fi to have a certain level of plausability which this story didn't quite meet.
July 9, 2013
It has a Fab Concept. However it doesn't quite work. Some of it is too heavy handed and not well enough researched to be credible.
I bought this book because I liked the premise, a change in the nature of warfare brought about by better information available to the whole army through a wiki style network. It has promise for some very interesting stories, but the author instead wrote a political polemic based on very old fashioned stereotypes and without bothering to do his research.
Accepting that our narrator is probably unreliable, given he is definitely going insane, and the twist that happens at the end (no spoilers) it is clear that we cannot rely on him. However there are bits of his prior experience with the British Army that just don't work for me (having been in the TA from 1989-1992 and knowing a fair number of current and recently ex-service personnel).
The primary character is supposed to have served in the British Army for a few months before deserting because he didn't like the extreme discipline. This itself is fair enough, a few months would see a soldier through basic training and into the specialist training for their arm of service. This is the period when the most discipline is imposed. All through the book the success of the new model armies is based on the rigid inflexibility of traditional forces that cannot think for themselves. This is the bit I find most difficult to swallow, even back in the 1980s soldiers were being taught to solve problems and work through gaps in information and orders, especially regulars that were deployed to Northern Ireland. By the current period, with the huge increase in peacekeeping operations and the small insurgencies thinking is a core skill for all ranks, not just senior officers. The stereotype might have been true for the 1950s conscripts, but even then I doubt it.
This is not my only problem with the book though. While it is clear that the author can write decent prose, there is still not a whole lot of thinking going on about the consequences of how the technology changes things. There is some in there, but not enough. For example why didn't the British Army just turn on massive jammers of the wifi signal when they came up against the NMAs? Also why are the NMA better on a man for man basis when they are largely untrained volunteers up against properly trained soldiers in a veteran army? I can get local superiority allowing them to win battles, but in an exchange of fire I don't see how wiki info turns people into better shots.
Anyway, the book is riddled with holes and could have been edited into a crisper better book. Unfortunately it wasn't.
I bought this book because I liked the premise, a change in the nature of warfare brought about by better information available to the whole army through a wiki style network. It has promise for some very interesting stories, but the author instead wrote a political polemic based on very old fashioned stereotypes and without bothering to do his research.
Accepting that our narrator is probably unreliable, given he is definitely going insane, and the twist that happens at the end (no spoilers) it is clear that we cannot rely on him. However there are bits of his prior experience with the British Army that just don't work for me (having been in the TA from 1989-1992 and knowing a fair number of current and recently ex-service personnel).
The primary character is supposed to have served in the British Army for a few months before deserting because he didn't like the extreme discipline. This itself is fair enough, a few months would see a soldier through basic training and into the specialist training for their arm of service. This is the period when the most discipline is imposed. All through the book the success of the new model armies is based on the rigid inflexibility of traditional forces that cannot think for themselves. This is the bit I find most difficult to swallow, even back in the 1980s soldiers were being taught to solve problems and work through gaps in information and orders, especially regulars that were deployed to Northern Ireland. By the current period, with the huge increase in peacekeeping operations and the small insurgencies thinking is a core skill for all ranks, not just senior officers. The stereotype might have been true for the 1950s conscripts, but even then I doubt it.
This is not my only problem with the book though. While it is clear that the author can write decent prose, there is still not a whole lot of thinking going on about the consequences of how the technology changes things. There is some in there, but not enough. For example why didn't the British Army just turn on massive jammers of the wifi signal when they came up against the NMAs? Also why are the NMA better on a man for man basis when they are largely untrained volunteers up against properly trained soldiers in a veteran army? I can get local superiority allowing them to win battles, but in an exchange of fire I don't see how wiki info turns people into better shots.
Anyway, the book is riddled with holes and could have been edited into a crisper better book. Unfortunately it wasn't.
January 31, 2017
¿Es posible la existencia de un ejército basado en una estructura horizontal? Gran parte de Ejército Nuevo Modelo está orientada a responder esa pregunta, lo que la lleva a convertirse en una novela con tesis o, según se mire, una tesis levantada sobre una novela. Si no se pierde de vista, es una lectura disfrutable con una guerra de guerrillas en un paisaje urbano desplegada de manera aseada con su base plausible y algunos puntos más débiles sostenidos sobre meros actos de fe. Me agrada el narrador elegido, la verosimilitud de sus motivaciones y cómo puede representar a un soldado del siglo XXI, aunque el trato que recibe desvía la atención sobre el auténtico eje; el héroe destinado a ser revelado en el último tercio. Por mucho que el narrador repita una y otra vez que no es él, la transición final, ambiciosa, me ha dejado la sensación de no estar del todo bien resuelta.
Read
November 25, 2017An intriguing near-future read, where 'new model armies' (mercenaries, basically, connected by tech and run as democracies on an ongoing basis) are 'disrupting' the hell out of the UK. The Scottish Parliament has hired a NMA to do their fighting for independence. It's a terrific concept, with lots to say about the nature of true democracy (the armies are literally making mutual decisions about battle plans based on votes as they fight), based on Hobbes' Leviathan, with more than a dash of Wells in there, as we see the Battles for Staines and Reading and even Dorking.
The book is trying to do a lot--there's a fairly problematic MC whose first person narrative breaks down catastrophically as the book goes on--and I'm not sure there was enough story to balance the thinking bits, but it's an impressive piece of work and I found it a compelling read with some really good ideas and haunting images. File under 'flawed but fascinating', definitely worth reading.
The book is trying to do a lot--there's a fairly problematic MC whose first person narrative breaks down catastrophically as the book goes on--and I'm not sure there was enough story to balance the thinking bits, but it's an impressive piece of work and I found it a compelling read with some really good ideas and haunting images. File under 'flawed but fascinating', definitely worth reading.
September 24, 2010
New Model Army, by Adam Roberts, takes an interesting look at the function of warfare and society with the question: What if a hierarchical military, such as ones set up along the lines of the British or U.S. Armies, and pitted it against an army that was fully democratic in its organization?
The concept is an interesting one, and the book as a whole is a perfect example of something that I’ve wanted to see in the subgenre: a world in which the military itself is examined, not only in the tactical side of things, but also in its ideology. Roberts puts forth an interesting idea that blends together the changing states of technology and warfare: militaries have adopted a new organizational structure: rather than the strict chain of command that defines the military lifestyle, they have brought together a large group of people, connected them through secure wikis and use the power of the crowd to fight. Tactical decisions are voted upon, and each soldier updates the battlefield map with the needed information: where they are, where the enemy is, and so forth.
The concept is one that is already in the earliest stages of implementation in the real-world battlefield, on a couple of levels. With the advances in technology, military leaders have been able to reduce the ‘fog of war’, the so-called elements of the battlefield, where commanders can’t see what’s happening, and are forced to rely on planning extensively. As the abilities of the military to watch the battlefield increases, from cameras mounted on soldiers to drones flying overhead, major changes have been seen, both in the leadership and organizational structure of the military, but also in how tactics are put forth.
Indeed, the connection between the ability to wage war and the relative ease to which technology is available has already begun some major changes. In 2008, insurgents entered the city of Mumbai, armed with cell phones and the internet, and were able to coordinate their attacks, using Google Earth to help plan the attack. Other examples of similar uses have been used across the various conflicts around the world. As the world becomes more connected, it’s far easier to coordinate attacks with individuals across country borders and continents.
New Model Army, while it puts forward an interesting story on the military, there’s a number of things that make the story a bit more implausible, technology advances aside. Currently, the United States and her allies are into their ninth year of waging a counter-insurgency battle in the Middle East, one that will likely leave lasting impressions on the organizations of all involved, and are lessons that would not be easily forgotten. As such, the New Model Armies (NMAs) are essentially a form of insurgency warfare that seem to plague the regular British military wherever they confront them, inflicting heavy losses and forcing surrenders at several battles. For a nation that’s largely been involved with counterinsurgency warfare for longer than the US (if one can consider the problems in Ireland), it seems strange that they would be unable to counter said forces, not to mention not adopting some of the methods in and of themselves. The successes of the NMAs seem to come from the ineptitude of the British military. Political motivations or opinions notwithstanding, it are a situation that annoyed me as I read the book.
The British NMA, soldiers were instilled with a sense that a pure form of democracy, and carried such an air of superiority amongst them that I can’t help but thing that their role was satirical, at least at points. It’s not until into around two thirds of the book that the main character is confronted with any sort of counter-point to his philosophy that democracies are inherently better than any other form of self governance.
When it comes to military powers, democracy is something that really doesn’t exist, and for good reason: the style of warfare that has evolved over the course of human history ultimately relies on a large presence of soldiers, acting in concert, to achieve a goal that’s determined by someone higher up in the chain of command. The ability to work together as a unit is a key element for the battlefield, and discipline is drilled into soldiers early on. The evolution of uniforms and mass-produced weapons helped to support this. The outsider viewpoint of a the military as a close-knit group of people follow orders, are yelled at and depersonalized (The term G.I. means General Infantry), is somewhat accurate, but the full meaning and reasons behind this type of training needs to be taken into consideration. The role of the soldier is to fulfill national priorities: in this case, by force, and essentially, they are willing tools of what is determined needed to be done.
Looking at a group such as a New Model Army, it’s hard to imagine that a force composed of individuals, with a bottom-up organizational method would be as successful in the real world: individuals might be disciplined, but military actions require the coordinated efforts of a group to accomplish their goals: hence the depersonalizing training to get people to not run away from being shot at. Similarly, in the NMA, people hold no rank, nor do they carry any sort of specialization, which in and of itself causes issues. Militaries are groups of specialists, whether it be in a certain weapons system, as medics or as leaders, and I don’t believe that the simple availability of information through the cloud can replace an individual trained and specializing in something as important as lifesaving. (I know I wouldn’t want a surgeon trained from Wikipedia in heart surgery). Militaries are likewise structured (when they work properly) with individuals skilled in leadership and planning are promoted, and are able to recognize, carry out and accomplish their goals.
Furthermore, military actions recruit more than just tactical (on the battlefield) planning to accomplish their goals: there is far more long term planning when it comes to carrying out national goals, which in turn, inform the tactical requirements of a battlefield. Once again, in a crowd sourcing environment, I don’t see that this would be an effective style of fighting. People in a large group might have their own goals, methods of fighting that run counter to national goals. In the book, the NMA uses a nuclear ‘bullet’, a sized down nuclear warhead that surprises everyone. Similar actions exist in real life: groups such as Freedom Watch or the Minuteman Project, which advocates or utilize force outside of national interests and policy. Undoubtedly, said crowd groups would utilize similar behavior in their actions, especially in a war zone. A U.S. Officer who captures the story’s main character makes such a point, noting that while his British NMA is a good example of where this sort of thing works, there’s other groups that are essentially mobs.
Insurgencies around the world utilize social networking and crowd sourcing elements right now, and in all likelihood, there will be moves towards this future that Roberts has predicted. However, as they do so, their opponents will do what the militaries in this book haven’t done: adapt to the new styles of fighting, and find ways to counter them, but also understand how and why such measures are being put into place.
While there are real issues with the style of fighting in the book, Roberts has done what I’ve really yet to see another Military Science Fiction writer do with the genre: look at how people fight, and how things might work. This is a military science fiction book that goes beyond the action; it goes straight to the heart of how militaries function, speculative in and of itself. I see the fighting that occurs in the book as an afterthought, used to support the real character elements that go into the story, and as such, New Model Army is an interesting, fascinating book that annoyed me thought out, but it frequently made me stop and think about how such a thing might actually work in reality. Because of this, this book stands out from a lot of other miltiary science fiction stories.
One thing is for sure though, if there is a rise in this sort of style of fighting, it will be a very bad thing for all of us.
Originally posted to my blog: https://andrewliptak.wordpress.com/
The concept is an interesting one, and the book as a whole is a perfect example of something that I’ve wanted to see in the subgenre: a world in which the military itself is examined, not only in the tactical side of things, but also in its ideology. Roberts puts forth an interesting idea that blends together the changing states of technology and warfare: militaries have adopted a new organizational structure: rather than the strict chain of command that defines the military lifestyle, they have brought together a large group of people, connected them through secure wikis and use the power of the crowd to fight. Tactical decisions are voted upon, and each soldier updates the battlefield map with the needed information: where they are, where the enemy is, and so forth.
The concept is one that is already in the earliest stages of implementation in the real-world battlefield, on a couple of levels. With the advances in technology, military leaders have been able to reduce the ‘fog of war’, the so-called elements of the battlefield, where commanders can’t see what’s happening, and are forced to rely on planning extensively. As the abilities of the military to watch the battlefield increases, from cameras mounted on soldiers to drones flying overhead, major changes have been seen, both in the leadership and organizational structure of the military, but also in how tactics are put forth.
Indeed, the connection between the ability to wage war and the relative ease to which technology is available has already begun some major changes. In 2008, insurgents entered the city of Mumbai, armed with cell phones and the internet, and were able to coordinate their attacks, using Google Earth to help plan the attack. Other examples of similar uses have been used across the various conflicts around the world. As the world becomes more connected, it’s far easier to coordinate attacks with individuals across country borders and continents.
New Model Army, while it puts forward an interesting story on the military, there’s a number of things that make the story a bit more implausible, technology advances aside. Currently, the United States and her allies are into their ninth year of waging a counter-insurgency battle in the Middle East, one that will likely leave lasting impressions on the organizations of all involved, and are lessons that would not be easily forgotten. As such, the New Model Armies (NMAs) are essentially a form of insurgency warfare that seem to plague the regular British military wherever they confront them, inflicting heavy losses and forcing surrenders at several battles. For a nation that’s largely been involved with counterinsurgency warfare for longer than the US (if one can consider the problems in Ireland), it seems strange that they would be unable to counter said forces, not to mention not adopting some of the methods in and of themselves. The successes of the NMAs seem to come from the ineptitude of the British military. Political motivations or opinions notwithstanding, it are a situation that annoyed me as I read the book.
The British NMA, soldiers were instilled with a sense that a pure form of democracy, and carried such an air of superiority amongst them that I can’t help but thing that their role was satirical, at least at points. It’s not until into around two thirds of the book that the main character is confronted with any sort of counter-point to his philosophy that democracies are inherently better than any other form of self governance.
When it comes to military powers, democracy is something that really doesn’t exist, and for good reason: the style of warfare that has evolved over the course of human history ultimately relies on a large presence of soldiers, acting in concert, to achieve a goal that’s determined by someone higher up in the chain of command. The ability to work together as a unit is a key element for the battlefield, and discipline is drilled into soldiers early on. The evolution of uniforms and mass-produced weapons helped to support this. The outsider viewpoint of a the military as a close-knit group of people follow orders, are yelled at and depersonalized (The term G.I. means General Infantry), is somewhat accurate, but the full meaning and reasons behind this type of training needs to be taken into consideration. The role of the soldier is to fulfill national priorities: in this case, by force, and essentially, they are willing tools of what is determined needed to be done.
Looking at a group such as a New Model Army, it’s hard to imagine that a force composed of individuals, with a bottom-up organizational method would be as successful in the real world: individuals might be disciplined, but military actions require the coordinated efforts of a group to accomplish their goals: hence the depersonalizing training to get people to not run away from being shot at. Similarly, in the NMA, people hold no rank, nor do they carry any sort of specialization, which in and of itself causes issues. Militaries are groups of specialists, whether it be in a certain weapons system, as medics or as leaders, and I don’t believe that the simple availability of information through the cloud can replace an individual trained and specializing in something as important as lifesaving. (I know I wouldn’t want a surgeon trained from Wikipedia in heart surgery). Militaries are likewise structured (when they work properly) with individuals skilled in leadership and planning are promoted, and are able to recognize, carry out and accomplish their goals.
Furthermore, military actions recruit more than just tactical (on the battlefield) planning to accomplish their goals: there is far more long term planning when it comes to carrying out national goals, which in turn, inform the tactical requirements of a battlefield. Once again, in a crowd sourcing environment, I don’t see that this would be an effective style of fighting. People in a large group might have their own goals, methods of fighting that run counter to national goals. In the book, the NMA uses a nuclear ‘bullet’, a sized down nuclear warhead that surprises everyone. Similar actions exist in real life: groups such as Freedom Watch or the Minuteman Project, which advocates or utilize force outside of national interests and policy. Undoubtedly, said crowd groups would utilize similar behavior in their actions, especially in a war zone. A U.S. Officer who captures the story’s main character makes such a point, noting that while his British NMA is a good example of where this sort of thing works, there’s other groups that are essentially mobs.
Insurgencies around the world utilize social networking and crowd sourcing elements right now, and in all likelihood, there will be moves towards this future that Roberts has predicted. However, as they do so, their opponents will do what the militaries in this book haven’t done: adapt to the new styles of fighting, and find ways to counter them, but also understand how and why such measures are being put into place.
While there are real issues with the style of fighting in the book, Roberts has done what I’ve really yet to see another Military Science Fiction writer do with the genre: look at how people fight, and how things might work. This is a military science fiction book that goes beyond the action; it goes straight to the heart of how militaries function, speculative in and of itself. I see the fighting that occurs in the book as an afterthought, used to support the real character elements that go into the story, and as such, New Model Army is an interesting, fascinating book that annoyed me thought out, but it frequently made me stop and think about how such a thing might actually work in reality. Because of this, this book stands out from a lot of other miltiary science fiction stories.
One thing is for sure though, if there is a rise in this sort of style of fighting, it will be a very bad thing for all of us.
Originally posted to my blog: https://andrewliptak.wordpress.com/
March 4, 2021
Un libro al que le tenía ganas desde que leí una reseña en C de Cyberdark: Ejército Nuevo Modelo, de Adam Roberts.
El libro ha estado bien. Me costó entrar en modo "suspensión de la realidad" ya que esas redes wiki con tanta cobertura y velocidad pero sin problemas de seguridad no me la terminaba de creer. Pero vamos que eso lo superé. De las tres partes que tiene, la primera y más amplia resulta interesante como explicación con acción y que a ratos me recordó el discurso político inserto en La luna es una cruel amante de Robert A. Heinlein. La cuestión es que la segunda parte se pone interesante y parece que va a ocurrir algo gordo y en mi caso las páginas volaron. Pero ...
.
La cuestión es que por lo entretenido de su lectura le daría 4 estrellas pero por el final abrupto lo bajo a 3 estrellas ***. Lo podéis encontrar en el outlet de Gigamesh por un precio increíble que merecerá la pena.
El libro ha estado bien. Me costó entrar en modo "suspensión de la realidad" ya que esas redes wiki con tanta cobertura y velocidad pero sin problemas de seguridad no me la terminaba de creer. Pero vamos que eso lo superé. De las tres partes que tiene, la primera y más amplia resulta interesante como explicación con acción y que a ratos me recordó el discurso político inserto en La luna es una cruel amante de Robert A. Heinlein. La cuestión es que la segunda parte se pone interesante y parece que va a ocurrir algo gordo y en mi caso las páginas volaron. Pero ...
.
La cuestión es que por lo entretenido de su lectura le daría 4 estrellas pero por el final abrupto lo bajo a 3 estrellas ***. Lo podéis encontrar en el outlet de Gigamesh por un precio increíble que merecerá la pena.
February 19, 2018
Coincido con Ignacio Illárregi con que estamos delante de una "novela con tesis o, desde otra óptica, una tesis levantada sobre una novela" ( https://tinyurl.com/y9yt6s86 ) No todas las novelas de CF han de verse bajo esa óptica (ni siquiera la mayoría) pero esta parece que lo pide a gritos. Y es lo que hace de un libro que es entretenido hasta la página 200 e infumable de la 200 a la 240, una novela fallida. No es porque esté mal remata (que lo está). Es porque la idea central del libro esta tan mal planteada que se convierte en una soberana parida. Tengo la sensación de que Adam Roberts no ha dado ni una sola vez en el clavo, todos sus planteamientos son gruesisimos y propone situaciones y desarrollos inverosímiles. Creo que son escollos que podrían haberse salvado proponiendo ciertas explicaciones, pero Roberts no las da.
Read
February 1, 2022Adam Roberts is an author I love to hate. His writing ticks all my boxes for subject matter and inventiveness, but there's always something, maybe aesthetic, maybe some technical detail, a character, a plot element, that just turns into the proverbial grain of sand in my shoe. And, by the end, it always feels boulder-sized.
New Model Army is, ostensibly, about 'New Model Armies', enabled with the internet and connectivity to exist in a kind of democratic band, an Athenian style city-state on the run with guns, if you will. What it's really about, it seems, is politics, what constitutes a state, humanity, that sort of thing.
If I sound dismissive, it's because I feel like the book itself was dismissive. The ending (Which is what I'm hitting the spoiler tag for) is on the surface a complete and utter disconnect with the story so far, resolving nothing with a kind of muddily presented transcendent AI dialogue I've seen done before elsewhere, and done better elsewhere. It drives me nuts. Artificial intelligence is not going to produce some kind of poetic ur-earth-spirit-demigod which shall engage with us in lofty philosophy and love in a blizzard of transcendence. (Neuromancer's William Gibson is, infamously, said to have avoided technology as much as he could for many years. Appropriate, given the trope of AI-as-spirit he popularized with Wintermute.)
We started the story out, and coursed through its middle, with a soldier seemingly struggling to deal with what he's done and what he's seen, struggling to come to terms with it all.
I feel like there is no obvious thread to draw us from one to the other. Even if we believe the narrator's early claims that this is a story about 'Pantegral', the networked New Model Army that eventually becomes the aforementioned fairy-spirit-AI (this trope drives me insane), it isn't. It's about Tony Block, who constantly seems to have lost the men he loved, who's haunted by the image of a child killed by a key launched into the child's skull in the midst of an explosion, who was part of something bigger than he was -- his New Model Army, Pantegral -- and is seemingly lost from it because of wounds later on.
That's the story, but the ending comes across as wish-fulfilment polemic, that somehow this greater, more integrated form of democracy will slowly evolve across the spheres of civilization -- beginning with the first civic pursuit of war and, perhaps, progressing onwards. Where's Tony in all this? Somehow and somewhat mysteriously subsumed into the fairy-spirit-AI, without really having come to the decision to give up his selfhood in front of our eyes because all this has been held back as long as possible for a near last-minute reveal.
And yet this is a skilled, accomplished book. It is smart, it is slick, there are grammatical errors and typos which might actually have been intentional but it's hard to tell because Adam Roberts likes playing around with language and grammar because he's a dick. (Actually because it's one of his life passions or something I think, but whenever anything I'm reading starts jarring me out of involvement with the story and leaves me staring numbly at a page because the language has shifted beyond all recognition, whoever did that is a dick.)
There are high moments, there are low moments, there are some remarkably beautiful meditations on the nature of what it is to be human, to be male, to be aggressive, of what we value and love and why.
There's something that looks like a fundamental misunderstanding of modern infantry tactics that left me feeling like the opposing armies were the armies of the first half of the twentieth century, and the NMAs were fighting using what were essentially the small arms tactics of the 1980s facilitated by the kinds of radio networks I use every other weekend on Teamspeak and similar VOIP systems for online gaming.
This is a good book. I respect it, and I think it's skilfully done.
But it is so very, very full of sand, and the soles of my feet were worn down to bloody rags by the end of it.
New Model Army is, ostensibly, about 'New Model Armies', enabled with the internet and connectivity to exist in a kind of democratic band, an Athenian style city-state on the run with guns, if you will. What it's really about, it seems, is politics, what constitutes a state, humanity, that sort of thing.
If I sound dismissive, it's because I feel like the book itself was dismissive. The ending (Which is what I'm hitting the spoiler tag for) is on the surface a complete and utter disconnect with the story so far, resolving nothing with a kind of muddily presented transcendent AI dialogue I've seen done before elsewhere, and done better elsewhere. It drives me nuts. Artificial intelligence is not going to produce some kind of poetic ur-earth-spirit-demigod which shall engage with us in lofty philosophy and love in a blizzard of transcendence. (Neuromancer's William Gibson is, infamously, said to have avoided technology as much as he could for many years. Appropriate, given the trope of AI-as-spirit he popularized with Wintermute.)
We started the story out, and coursed through its middle, with a soldier seemingly struggling to deal with what he's done and what he's seen, struggling to come to terms with it all.
I feel like there is no obvious thread to draw us from one to the other. Even if we believe the narrator's early claims that this is a story about 'Pantegral', the networked New Model Army that eventually becomes the aforementioned fairy-spirit-AI (this trope drives me insane), it isn't. It's about Tony Block, who constantly seems to have lost the men he loved, who's haunted by the image of a child killed by a key launched into the child's skull in the midst of an explosion, who was part of something bigger than he was -- his New Model Army, Pantegral -- and is seemingly lost from it because of wounds later on.
That's the story, but the ending comes across as wish-fulfilment polemic, that somehow this greater, more integrated form of democracy will slowly evolve across the spheres of civilization -- beginning with the first civic pursuit of war and, perhaps, progressing onwards. Where's Tony in all this? Somehow and somewhat mysteriously subsumed into the fairy-spirit-AI, without really having come to the decision to give up his selfhood in front of our eyes because all this has been held back as long as possible for a near last-minute reveal.
And yet this is a skilled, accomplished book. It is smart, it is slick, there are grammatical errors and typos which might actually have been intentional but it's hard to tell because Adam Roberts likes playing around with language and grammar because he's a dick. (Actually because it's one of his life passions or something I think, but whenever anything I'm reading starts jarring me out of involvement with the story and leaves me staring numbly at a page because the language has shifted beyond all recognition, whoever did that is a dick.)
There are high moments, there are low moments, there are some remarkably beautiful meditations on the nature of what it is to be human, to be male, to be aggressive, of what we value and love and why.
There's something that looks like a fundamental misunderstanding of modern infantry tactics that left me feeling like the opposing armies were the armies of the first half of the twentieth century, and the NMAs were fighting using what were essentially the small arms tactics of the 1980s facilitated by the kinds of radio networks I use every other weekend on Teamspeak and similar VOIP systems for online gaming.
This is a good book. I respect it, and I think it's skilfully done.
But it is so very, very full of sand, and the soles of my feet were worn down to bloody rags by the end of it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2010
I can safely say that New Model Army is like no other book I’ve ever read. I know this because I have no name for the feeling I was left with after I’d finished it. That’s a recommendation, by the way.
A few decades hence, a new kind of fighting force has emerged: organised on democratic principles (Athenian democracy, that is), New Model Armies (NMAs for short) have no command structure, and no specialisms; soldiers communicate with each other in the field via private wikis, and all decisions are put to the vote. A row over the royal succession has led the now-independent Scottish government to hire a New Model Army named Pantegral to fight the English, which the NMA has been doing very successfully. The novel’s narrator (though not, he is at pains to stress, its hero) is Tony Block, a member of Pantegral. Block tells of his exploits in the battles of south-east England, and it gradually becomes clear that he has been captured by the enemy, who have their own plans for him.
Having read that description, you may now have a conception of New Model Army in your mind which is nothing like the actual text. This is a novel in which the story is mediated through the voice in which it is told, and Block is as inclined to talk about his philosophy of democracy, love and war, as he is to describe his involvement in Pantegral’s military campaigns. As a result, we see both Tony’s ideas about war, and the effect those ideas have had on him.
Block is convinced of the NMAs’ superiority (both martial and moral) over conventional ‘feudal’ armies, and, indeed, Pantegral is winning the war in south-east England. But the New Model Army is also fallible – the majority vote isn’t guaranteed to be the ‘correct’ one, and such mistakes have consequences, as Roberts shows. There is no definitive ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ side, here, which makes the novel all the stronger.
At a deeper level, we see how being in the NMA has affected Tony psychologically. His narrative voice veers from being highly learned to making daft pop-culture references (the silliest is perhaps a burning building being described as ‘a field of spiky yellow flame: a hologram of Bart’s haircut on a Brobdingnagian scale’ [71:]). This technique is presumably meant to represent the mish-mash of experiences and ideas engendered by the structure of the NMA; but another effect it has to undercut the harsh reality of what’s being described. Tony says that, in the heat of the moment, he can’t afford to think about the damage being caused by all the fighting; his pop-culture frames of reference may be another means by which he de-sensitises himself.
The effect of this on the reader can be quite suffocating, as the emotion coming from the narrative voice is inadequate for the horrors it relates. It’s made all the more suffocating by how little we learn of Block’s life before he became a soldier – there’s little true sense of a life beyond this moment, and hence of a way out of Block’s mindset. His resolve not to think too hard about certain things ebbs and flows tantalisingly throughout the novel – and then New Model Army turns in a direction that requires a different sort of imagining; the implications of the ending are chilling, but also somehow uplifting.
New Model Army is different, in the best sense of that word – it does something I haven’t come across elsewhere, and does it very well. It’s another fascinating read from the singular imagination of Adam Roberts.
A few decades hence, a new kind of fighting force has emerged: organised on democratic principles (Athenian democracy, that is), New Model Armies (NMAs for short) have no command structure, and no specialisms; soldiers communicate with each other in the field via private wikis, and all decisions are put to the vote. A row over the royal succession has led the now-independent Scottish government to hire a New Model Army named Pantegral to fight the English, which the NMA has been doing very successfully. The novel’s narrator (though not, he is at pains to stress, its hero) is Tony Block, a member of Pantegral. Block tells of his exploits in the battles of south-east England, and it gradually becomes clear that he has been captured by the enemy, who have their own plans for him.
Having read that description, you may now have a conception of New Model Army in your mind which is nothing like the actual text. This is a novel in which the story is mediated through the voice in which it is told, and Block is as inclined to talk about his philosophy of democracy, love and war, as he is to describe his involvement in Pantegral’s military campaigns. As a result, we see both Tony’s ideas about war, and the effect those ideas have had on him.
Block is convinced of the NMAs’ superiority (both martial and moral) over conventional ‘feudal’ armies, and, indeed, Pantegral is winning the war in south-east England. But the New Model Army is also fallible – the majority vote isn’t guaranteed to be the ‘correct’ one, and such mistakes have consequences, as Roberts shows. There is no definitive ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ side, here, which makes the novel all the stronger.
At a deeper level, we see how being in the NMA has affected Tony psychologically. His narrative voice veers from being highly learned to making daft pop-culture references (the silliest is perhaps a burning building being described as ‘a field of spiky yellow flame: a hologram of Bart’s haircut on a Brobdingnagian scale’ [71:]). This technique is presumably meant to represent the mish-mash of experiences and ideas engendered by the structure of the NMA; but another effect it has to undercut the harsh reality of what’s being described. Tony says that, in the heat of the moment, he can’t afford to think about the damage being caused by all the fighting; his pop-culture frames of reference may be another means by which he de-sensitises himself.
The effect of this on the reader can be quite suffocating, as the emotion coming from the narrative voice is inadequate for the horrors it relates. It’s made all the more suffocating by how little we learn of Block’s life before he became a soldier – there’s little true sense of a life beyond this moment, and hence of a way out of Block’s mindset. His resolve not to think too hard about certain things ebbs and flows tantalisingly throughout the novel – and then New Model Army turns in a direction that requires a different sort of imagining; the implications of the ending are chilling, but also somehow uplifting.
New Model Army is different, in the best sense of that word – it does something I haven’t come across elsewhere, and does it very well. It’s another fascinating read from the singular imagination of Adam Roberts.
June 13, 2014
I want to give this a 3.5/5. I was initially sceptical of the concept that an unhackable wiki could effectively train laypeople to become multifunction soldiers. Ie the soldiers referring to photos on wikipedia to treat gun-shot wounds, when it takes years of training to be a combat medic. There would be many real-world ways for traditional law enforcement and military to overcome the New Model Armies. There would need to be firearms training, finance trails, procurement of illegal weapons from overseas, all that stuff that normal criminal groups fail at every day. Secure communication systems within a group can only go so far in keeping anything covert.
Once I got past that, I thoroughly enjoyed the concept. While it starts off a bit bolshie, the book doesn't preach overly, and it becomes more about an amorphous model of military organisation versus a rigid and inflexible army structure.
While this book is a real thinker and raises some interesting points, the payoff isn't enough for me to give this any higher of a score. It's hard to say that of an actual page-turner, but the ending is definitely on the nose. Still recommended, but it's not Best Book Evah.
Once I got past that, I thoroughly enjoyed the concept. While it starts off a bit bolshie, the book doesn't preach overly, and it becomes more about an amorphous model of military organisation versus a rigid and inflexible army structure.
While this book is a real thinker and raises some interesting points, the payoff isn't enough for me to give this any higher of a score. It's hard to say that of an actual page-turner, but the ending is definitely on the nose. Still recommended, but it's not Best Book Evah.
November 6, 2012
Fantastic concepts and big ideas that at times would get bogged down by completely unreadable sections where the author attempted to write in a more poetic and metaphorical style. It's not that metaphor and abstraction can be bad, it's simply that in this case it was bad. There is an interminable segment wheeee the protagonist gets a bird's eye view of Europe and the reader is expected to slog through page after page of awkward metaphor and description.
Which is too bad, because this is a great book otherwise. I still think people should read it, I simply can't score it more than a 3 because of how awful some segments towards the end of the novel are.
Which is too bad, because this is a great book otherwise. I still think people should read it, I simply can't score it more than a 3 because of how awful some segments towards the end of the novel are.
July 20, 2015
Lo mejor, sin lugar a dudas, es el tono del narrador. Decir juguetón es quedarse corto: rítmico, musical, chispeante, mordaz (muy, muy mordaz). Después tenemos el aspecto ideológico, y sí, ahí el autor es bastante audaz. Bastante. Sin embargo, da la sensación de que la visión es más bien estrecha, que no explora más que un bando, una visión. El antagonista es meramente anecdótico.
Después tenemos la cuestión estructural. Aunque la lectura en sí es una gozada y la idea es muy actual, hay precedentes y acciones muy previsibles. Y a la resolución, por mucho que el protagonista haya estado dando pistas, le falta consistencia. Es una especie de gigante ex machina, si se me permite el chiste.
Después tenemos la cuestión estructural. Aunque la lectura en sí es una gozada y la idea es muy actual, hay precedentes y acciones muy previsibles. Y a la resolución, por mucho que el protagonista haya estado dando pistas, le falta consistencia. Es una especie de gigante ex machina, si se me permite el chiste.
October 22, 2022
Fun concept that is stretched a bit too far into a novel. Envisions a near future in which the UK (and apparently most of Europe) is embroiled in a civil war, on one side by a radically decentralized and democratized army. It leads up to an interesting twist at the end, but some of the necessary suspension of disbelief along the way becomes more difficult as the author tries to add unnecessary character development and make it a "proper" novel.
Should have been a short story instead, but recommended nonetheless.
Should have been a short story instead, but recommended nonetheless.
August 3, 2018
Adam Roberts wins my award for the most outlandish-yet-believable settings. If you haven't read Salt or On, read those and be amazed. This one though, with the interesting idea of a very modern type of mercenary army, ended in such a bizarre way that I was let down. The ideas were great, the character development was second to none, and I had to pull up my dictionary more than a few times. Yet the ending was so strange and disjointed and not customary of his quick wrap-up endings.
November 27, 2016
La primera parte me gustó mucho y la idea de la democracia me sedujo. Pero me perdí en las dos partes posteriores.
March 23, 2017
Empieza muy bien, muy interesante y muy bien contado. Con acción, reflexiones, etc. Y la última parte del libro es un galimatías. No he entendido nada. ¿Seré tonto?
December 12, 2017
Britain has been engulfed by war. The Scottish Parliament has declared independence only to find the British Army being deployed to keep control of the country. In retaliation Scotland has contracted a New Model Army, Pantegral, to fight on its behalf.
New Model Armies are paramilitary forces the likes of which the world has not seen before. They are democratic mercenary forces where every soldier is consulted - via real-time communications - over the formulation of tactics and strategy. NMAs are noted for their high morale, as unlike traditional armies their soldiers are never placed in danger through the following of orders handed down imperiously by politicians or generals safely removed from the front lines. Every NMA soldier is a general, medic, engineer and combat trooper rolled into one. They are totally self-supportive, capable of fighting en masse, engaging in guerrilla warfare or simply melting away into the countryside or urban areas and returning to civilian life at a moment's notice. They are an army that cannot be hit with bombs or WMDs, and who use advanced telecommunications technologies to stay ahead of the enemy, who are limited and slowed by their hierarchical command structures.
When Pantegral inflicts humiliating defeats upon the British Army at Basingstoke and Reading, the Brits and their American allies become obsessed with finding a way of defeating and destroying the NMAs once and for all.
Roberts' latest novel is ambitious, a treatise on the ideals of democracy and how warfare is practised. It is interesting (and a point raised in the press release) that in WWII it was the democracies that triumphed over the dictatorships (albeit the democracies aided by an extremely powerful dictatorship in the form of Stalinist Russia) when the feeling was that a democracy dependent on the will of the people, fickle and given to desiring a quiet life, could not stand up to the single will of a determined dictator. Instead the democracies triumphed decisively, adapting rapidly to changes in tactics and technology to meet the threat posed by the enemy and overcome it.
Roberts takes the same idea and applies it on a smaller scale, with an army which moves and operates as a true democracy, not having to wait for orders from high but capable of instantly reacting to changing circumstances. I suppose it's a sort of 'punk army' that does its own thing in its own way. From the outside it appears chaotic and anarchic, but the novel also depicts it as being extremely, even terrifyingly, effective. Would such an army actually work in real life? It's a debatable point (given the current fragility of computer networks, probably not, but with more resilient networks, maybe), but it also not necessarily there as a literal concept to be tackled, but as a gateway to bigger themes about democracy, republicanism, free will and personal responsibility.
Along the way there is plenty of action and impressive characterisation (the central narrator, who argues often that he is not the hero, is particularly well-drawn and his tendency to quote Omar from The Wire's catchphrase during moments of high stress is amusing), not to mention scores of blink-and-you-miss-them references to pop songs, philosophers and other writers, all of which makes for an entertaining and intriguing book.
New Model Army (****) is a thought-provoking, intelligent and occasionally funny SF novel that is well worth a look. That book is out next week in the UK and on import in the US.
New Model Armies are paramilitary forces the likes of which the world has not seen before. They are democratic mercenary forces where every soldier is consulted - via real-time communications - over the formulation of tactics and strategy. NMAs are noted for their high morale, as unlike traditional armies their soldiers are never placed in danger through the following of orders handed down imperiously by politicians or generals safely removed from the front lines. Every NMA soldier is a general, medic, engineer and combat trooper rolled into one. They are totally self-supportive, capable of fighting en masse, engaging in guerrilla warfare or simply melting away into the countryside or urban areas and returning to civilian life at a moment's notice. They are an army that cannot be hit with bombs or WMDs, and who use advanced telecommunications technologies to stay ahead of the enemy, who are limited and slowed by their hierarchical command structures.
When Pantegral inflicts humiliating defeats upon the British Army at Basingstoke and Reading, the Brits and their American allies become obsessed with finding a way of defeating and destroying the NMAs once and for all.
Roberts' latest novel is ambitious, a treatise on the ideals of democracy and how warfare is practised. It is interesting (and a point raised in the press release) that in WWII it was the democracies that triumphed over the dictatorships (albeit the democracies aided by an extremely powerful dictatorship in the form of Stalinist Russia) when the feeling was that a democracy dependent on the will of the people, fickle and given to desiring a quiet life, could not stand up to the single will of a determined dictator. Instead the democracies triumphed decisively, adapting rapidly to changes in tactics and technology to meet the threat posed by the enemy and overcome it.
Roberts takes the same idea and applies it on a smaller scale, with an army which moves and operates as a true democracy, not having to wait for orders from high but capable of instantly reacting to changing circumstances. I suppose it's a sort of 'punk army' that does its own thing in its own way. From the outside it appears chaotic and anarchic, but the novel also depicts it as being extremely, even terrifyingly, effective. Would such an army actually work in real life? It's a debatable point (given the current fragility of computer networks, probably not, but with more resilient networks, maybe), but it also not necessarily there as a literal concept to be tackled, but as a gateway to bigger themes about democracy, republicanism, free will and personal responsibility.
Along the way there is plenty of action and impressive characterisation (the central narrator, who argues often that he is not the hero, is particularly well-drawn and his tendency to quote Omar from The Wire's catchphrase during moments of high stress is amusing), not to mention scores of blink-and-you-miss-them references to pop songs, philosophers and other writers, all of which makes for an entertaining and intriguing book.
New Model Army (****) is a thought-provoking, intelligent and occasionally funny SF novel that is well worth a look. That book is out next week in the UK and on import in the US.
June 15, 2017
I was hoping to really like this one as the premise is a good one. Using closed intranet networks, mercenary armies operating as hundreds of small, temporary squads over wide areas, all the decisions made by voting after a discussion of options. This allows them to outmaneuver traditional standing armies. These are the New Model Armies of the future and, being cheaper than regular ones, they hire themselves out to groups who can't afford an army of their own - the book is largely about Pantegral (one of these NMAs) who have been hired by the Scottish to gain independence from England.
It falls apart for me largely because I simply couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accept that an army run according to the debates and votes of an online forum, completely free of hierarchy and with ever soldier an equal member, could actually work so well, or so quickly together. There's a lot of pontificating about how this approach is 'true' democracy, which is all well and good, but as a quick dip into almost any online discussion with more than a handful of people taking part shows, there is a lot of confusion, crossed wires and bickering. Given that the NMAs supposedly have thousands of soldiers I just couldn't believe it is a viable way to coordinate a battle.
The book is intended as a satire, however, so maybe I'm missing something. If so, I'm also completely missing something else in the final part of the book. In this, thanks to the Americans and some unclear double-agent type stuff, the intranet networks of the NMAs are uploaded with an AI code. making the NMAs sentient 'giants' who go striding around the world smashing things. I really like the concept but, as it is in the book, I can't see how the NMAs transfer a wireless sentience into real-world actions. Clearly, I'm supposed to understand that all the soldiers who were bickering and voting now operate under the command of the NMA mind, or that the NMA mind is simply a passive observer. The latter is just naff and the former needs some kind of explanation about how the NMA mind and the human soldiers interact. Like I said, I'm probably missing something.
Finally, and this is a pet peeve I have with other authors and frequently find myself doing, there are the constant pop culture references. Done well, such references can add a lot to a story, done as they are in this book they are just annoying. The story is set in the near future but every single reference made is to things of the 1990s or earlier and serve to do nothing other than allow the author to display his own tastes. Describing a missile's flight as a Kate Bush shriek or helicopters (or whatever it was, I can't remember) as thrumming like the opening to How Soon Is Now is just bad and the coy refusals to openly state that he's talking about Dr. Strangelove are annoying. Given how recently the book was written, why not have some slightly more contemporary references? Again, I'm probably missing something - just like I did with the sudden inclusion of pictures towards the end when the author decides he can't be bothered describing what he means.
The final gripe in this section is that, given his decision to include so many musical references to the 1980s and 1990s, particularly British artists, why is there not even a single mention of the band New Model Army? Yes, I am a fan of that band, but that aside, I still think a trick was missed.
Overall, I wouldn't bother if I were you.
It falls apart for me largely because I simply couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accept that an army run according to the debates and votes of an online forum, completely free of hierarchy and with ever soldier an equal member, could actually work so well, or so quickly together. There's a lot of pontificating about how this approach is 'true' democracy, which is all well and good, but as a quick dip into almost any online discussion with more than a handful of people taking part shows, there is a lot of confusion, crossed wires and bickering. Given that the NMAs supposedly have thousands of soldiers I just couldn't believe it is a viable way to coordinate a battle.
The book is intended as a satire, however, so maybe I'm missing something. If so, I'm also completely missing something else in the final part of the book. In this, thanks to the Americans and some unclear double-agent type stuff, the intranet networks of the NMAs are uploaded with an AI code. making the NMAs sentient 'giants' who go striding around the world smashing things. I really like the concept but, as it is in the book, I can't see how the NMAs transfer a wireless sentience into real-world actions. Clearly, I'm supposed to understand that all the soldiers who were bickering and voting now operate under the command of the NMA mind, or that the NMA mind is simply a passive observer. The latter is just naff and the former needs some kind of explanation about how the NMA mind and the human soldiers interact. Like I said, I'm probably missing something.
Finally, and this is a pet peeve I have with other authors and frequently find myself doing, there are the constant pop culture references. Done well, such references can add a lot to a story, done as they are in this book they are just annoying. The story is set in the near future but every single reference made is to things of the 1990s or earlier and serve to do nothing other than allow the author to display his own tastes. Describing a missile's flight as a Kate Bush shriek or helicopters (or whatever it was, I can't remember) as thrumming like the opening to How Soon Is Now is just bad and the coy refusals to openly state that he's talking about Dr. Strangelove are annoying. Given how recently the book was written, why not have some slightly more contemporary references? Again, I'm probably missing something - just like I did with the sudden inclusion of pictures towards the end when the author decides he can't be bothered describing what he means.
The final gripe in this section is that, given his decision to include so many musical references to the 1980s and 1990s, particularly British artists, why is there not even a single mention of the band New Model Army? Yes, I am a fan of that band, but that aside, I still think a trick was missed.
Overall, I wouldn't bother if I were you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2024
In the snobby science fiction literature circles I run in, it's often said that Adam Roberts is one of best science fiction writer(s) currently writing novels. I see the points they make - how he reinvents his own wheel every time and stays innovative without abandoning his 19th-century-lit and classic-SF roots - but I've never had the luck to run across one of his books because most (if not all) of his books have only been published by a British publisher whose books rarely make it the United States. I was lucky enough to find a copy of *New Model Army* at a cool used bookshop by Nashville, and it only took me a year to get to it (that's rather good when you consider that rate at which I acquire books). It was an interesting read that I had rather mixed feelings about; I see why people love him, but I also feel like this isn't his best work. I'll explain why after a summary that you are, as always, welcome to skim or skip.
*New Model Army* clings to the first-person perspective of a man named Anthony Bloch whose childhood was rife with trouble and whose time in the British traditional army encouraged him to leave that army and join up with the Pantegral, a "New Model" army where its soldiers are in constant mental communication during battle via "wiki's." The book opens with a skirmish in the near-future civil war between Scotland and Great Britain, and the rest of the book's structure hops between similar battles and exposition about the New Model Armies to Bloch's backstory. Highlights include Bloch's one-way infatuation with a straight man from Pantegral, the Pantegral having to decide how to treat military prisoners (set them free, kill them, or chop of some of their limbs?), him telling his own backstory, and a battle that takes place in a parking garage. The battles are quite well-written, but we'll talk about prose after a delightful run of spoilers.
So, throughout the book, Bloch is talking to someone or something, revealed to be . It's a good ending that I called towards the beginning of the book, but the road there was not exactly engaging, if you can't tell by my wishy-washy claims. That leads me to a point about this book and its hills and valleys of quality that I want to explain after we get some good praise for Roberts' skills in here.
And skilled he is. I didn't really realize it in the first half of the book, but he is a really talented writer. There's this four-page sequence near the end of the book where the main character explains what Earth and all its waterways and continents and other landmarks look like and it's beautiful and engaging. The prose is thoughtful and with a diverse vocabulary (with the exception of the strangely overused "inoculation") and fun turn of phrase. And the narrative never feels cheap because of its first-person. It can get tacky for other reasons, but never the perspective, which I hear is one of Roberts' hallmarks. The tackiness comes in part from the character's reliance on pop culture references throughout the first half of the book. While Roberts referred to works of art like *Terminator* more skillfully than most would, it still didn't feel... right. It didn't mesh with anything else we knew about Bloch and it prevented me from seeing Roberts' actual authorial poise shine through, just like Bloch's preachiness.
That preaching is in support of the kind of hyper-democracy that's informed the formation of the New Model Armies. It might admittedly be unjust to call this hyper-democracy just because it's not representative democracy (basically, this is the same one-to-one system as Athens, Greece had, only centered around what battle tactics to take). In some ways, *New Model Army* does for unvarnished democracy what *Starship Troopers* does for more authoritarian ways of waging war due to both works' philosophical rants and how they interweave with command decisions made in the narrative. The difference is that Johnny Rico wasn't tirelessly worshipping the "fascist" state of government to make the first half of *Starship Troopers* mildly annoying; I can't say the same about Anthony Bloch and the first half of *New Model Army*. That being said, it is a really interesting high-concept that, while I don't think it would work in the real world, was intriguing to seeing in fictional form. Its exploration of how untrained soldiers could come together and beat traditional "feudal" armies belongs in the military science fiction pantheon with books like *Starship Troopers*, *The Forever War*, even *The Forever Peace* - the rarely-mentioned thematic sequel to Haldeman's critical masterpiece that is rather similar to *New Model Army* and probably about just as good - and I'm glad I read it. I just think the first half of the book, between its pop culture references and preachiness, should've been pruned to provide a sharper, less distracting reading experience.
I was going to dedicate a whole paragraph to the whole "hills and valleys" thing, but it looks like I just summed up half of those thoughts up above. Instead I'll go a bit beyond the first half of the book and say that once the narrative took the front seat over those annoying authorial tendencies, I started to actually get into the book. I realized how good the prose was and found the whole narrative device of who/what Bloch was talking to quite clever. Still, after all that, the ending disappointed me. It just seemed to lose some momentum and it wasn't very memorable... I'm having trouble remembering exactly what happened just a week later, even though it was predictable. It reminded me of , which is all well and good except for that fact that I don't feel like Roberts really went beyond that and provided anything that will leave me with strong feelings about techno-democratic armies or anything of the like. I appreciated the exploration and the conclusion, but not to the level it'll stick with me.
I've spent a lot of time ripping on this book, but that's not because it's a bad book; it's still a good book, and I think it'll work a lot better for other people without the same literary qualms I have as long as they're willing to open their mind to some cool, high-concept science fiction. Its prose and undeniable skill earns a light 7.5/10 from me, and it has left me wanting to read more of Roberts' bibliography because I still think there are some gems in there, and I can't wait to find them. Till then, Darnoc Leadburger of the feudal reading tradition, is signing off.
*New Model Army* clings to the first-person perspective of a man named Anthony Bloch whose childhood was rife with trouble and whose time in the British traditional army encouraged him to leave that army and join up with the Pantegral, a "New Model" army where its soldiers are in constant mental communication during battle via "wiki's." The book opens with a skirmish in the near-future civil war between Scotland and Great Britain, and the rest of the book's structure hops between similar battles and exposition about the New Model Armies to Bloch's backstory. Highlights include Bloch's one-way infatuation with a straight man from Pantegral, the Pantegral having to decide how to treat military prisoners (set them free, kill them, or chop of some of their limbs?), him telling his own backstory, and a battle that takes place in a parking garage. The battles are quite well-written, but we'll talk about prose after a delightful run of spoilers.
So, throughout the book, Bloch is talking to someone or something, revealed to be . It's a good ending that I called towards the beginning of the book, but the road there was not exactly engaging, if you can't tell by my wishy-washy claims. That leads me to a point about this book and its hills and valleys of quality that I want to explain after we get some good praise for Roberts' skills in here.
And skilled he is. I didn't really realize it in the first half of the book, but he is a really talented writer. There's this four-page sequence near the end of the book where the main character explains what Earth and all its waterways and continents and other landmarks look like and it's beautiful and engaging. The prose is thoughtful and with a diverse vocabulary (with the exception of the strangely overused "inoculation") and fun turn of phrase. And the narrative never feels cheap because of its first-person. It can get tacky for other reasons, but never the perspective, which I hear is one of Roberts' hallmarks. The tackiness comes in part from the character's reliance on pop culture references throughout the first half of the book. While Roberts referred to works of art like *Terminator* more skillfully than most would, it still didn't feel... right. It didn't mesh with anything else we knew about Bloch and it prevented me from seeing Roberts' actual authorial poise shine through, just like Bloch's preachiness.
That preaching is in support of the kind of hyper-democracy that's informed the formation of the New Model Armies. It might admittedly be unjust to call this hyper-democracy just because it's not representative democracy (basically, this is the same one-to-one system as Athens, Greece had, only centered around what battle tactics to take). In some ways, *New Model Army* does for unvarnished democracy what *Starship Troopers* does for more authoritarian ways of waging war due to both works' philosophical rants and how they interweave with command decisions made in the narrative. The difference is that Johnny Rico wasn't tirelessly worshipping the "fascist" state of government to make the first half of *Starship Troopers* mildly annoying; I can't say the same about Anthony Bloch and the first half of *New Model Army*. That being said, it is a really interesting high-concept that, while I don't think it would work in the real world, was intriguing to seeing in fictional form. Its exploration of how untrained soldiers could come together and beat traditional "feudal" armies belongs in the military science fiction pantheon with books like *Starship Troopers*, *The Forever War*, even *The Forever Peace* - the rarely-mentioned thematic sequel to Haldeman's critical masterpiece that is rather similar to *New Model Army* and probably about just as good - and I'm glad I read it. I just think the first half of the book, between its pop culture references and preachiness, should've been pruned to provide a sharper, less distracting reading experience.
I was going to dedicate a whole paragraph to the whole "hills and valleys" thing, but it looks like I just summed up half of those thoughts up above. Instead I'll go a bit beyond the first half of the book and say that once the narrative took the front seat over those annoying authorial tendencies, I started to actually get into the book. I realized how good the prose was and found the whole narrative device of who/what Bloch was talking to quite clever. Still, after all that, the ending disappointed me. It just seemed to lose some momentum and it wasn't very memorable... I'm having trouble remembering exactly what happened just a week later, even though it was predictable. It reminded me of , which is all well and good except for that fact that I don't feel like Roberts really went beyond that and provided anything that will leave me with strong feelings about techno-democratic armies or anything of the like. I appreciated the exploration and the conclusion, but not to the level it'll stick with me.
I've spent a lot of time ripping on this book, but that's not because it's a bad book; it's still a good book, and I think it'll work a lot better for other people without the same literary qualms I have as long as they're willing to open their mind to some cool, high-concept science fiction. Its prose and undeniable skill earns a light 7.5/10 from me, and it has left me wanting to read more of Roberts' bibliography because I still think there are some gems in there, and I can't wait to find them. Till then, Darnoc Leadburger of the feudal reading tradition, is signing off.
November 25, 2018
The Scots have finally seen sense and contracted a 'new model army' to rid themselves of Westminster imperialism and colonialism. This is the now, this is Wiki-warfare. The directly democratically run Pantegral is running rings around the lumbering wreck of the clumsy 'British' army which is not cut out for this sort of highly mobile, high tech warfare of the collective. modern cities are 'delicate corals' just waiting to be tipped by just that bit too much revolt and rebellion. Meanwhile the 'archaic chamber of exclusion and privilege' that is Parliament is no more able to understand what is happening or recognise its' impending inevitable surrender as Pantegral lays waste the home counties and blasts its way into the capital.
While an imaginative piece of fictional creativity Robert Adams is dealing with many of the real issues of society, violence and who has legitimate claim to wage war. While guerilla warfare is not new the decent of societies into a state of constant war and competing warriors has become a feature certain African and Middle Eastern states as well as parts of Europe. Proxy armies have sprung up in Ukraine and Yugoslavia not so distant from what Roberts imagines (aside from the technical prowess and the steadfast militant democratic lines along which his Wiki warriors run). The question of what constitutes a legitimate army or armed force is not easily answered and the answer 'the state' is more a desperate plea than a fact or commonly held belief.
The nature and effect of war are also explored. The excitement and fear of the chase and the kill - the joy of smashing things up and killing - is contrasted with the human and moral costs. The dead live on to haunt the living and flashbacks become personal living realities. 'Peace was the fever, keeping people at home close to their fires and wrapped in blankets.War was the way people chose to dispose of their health and vigor.' Ultimately it's all about the serious business of play and how that is intricately linked to the main human preoccupations of fucking and fighting. War is fun, the 'most immersive and intense form of grown-uo play'.
And so the hero of the story plays war and love. The Wiki communications battlefield system learns to love war and the apocalypse looms. An enjoyable read that forces the reader to think and question... and perhaps shudder at the encroaching apocalypse.
While an imaginative piece of fictional creativity Robert Adams is dealing with many of the real issues of society, violence and who has legitimate claim to wage war. While guerilla warfare is not new the decent of societies into a state of constant war and competing warriors has become a feature certain African and Middle Eastern states as well as parts of Europe. Proxy armies have sprung up in Ukraine and Yugoslavia not so distant from what Roberts imagines (aside from the technical prowess and the steadfast militant democratic lines along which his Wiki warriors run). The question of what constitutes a legitimate army or armed force is not easily answered and the answer 'the state' is more a desperate plea than a fact or commonly held belief.
The nature and effect of war are also explored. The excitement and fear of the chase and the kill - the joy of smashing things up and killing - is contrasted with the human and moral costs. The dead live on to haunt the living and flashbacks become personal living realities. 'Peace was the fever, keeping people at home close to their fires and wrapped in blankets.War was the way people chose to dispose of their health and vigor.' Ultimately it's all about the serious business of play and how that is intricately linked to the main human preoccupations of fucking and fighting. War is fun, the 'most immersive and intense form of grown-uo play'.
And so the hero of the story plays war and love. The Wiki communications battlefield system learns to love war and the apocalypse looms. An enjoyable read that forces the reader to think and question... and perhaps shudder at the encroaching apocalypse.
December 19, 2024
This was a unique sci-fi perspective on warfare and its evolution, although after reading it, it seems more 'obvious' than before reading it.
The plot is not the strongest at times and reads more like an 18th century serial than a modern novel, a string of adventures and perspectives that run together a bit.
For originality in concept, I think it is worth reading. I listened to the audiobook and that helped me (an American) feel like this was set in the UK, although I cannot vouch for the accent one way or another.
The BIG thing at the end.
Don't want to give the plot away but the last chapter is almost unlistenable. I say this as someone who has listened to audiobooks for 35 years, and even studied and listened to some writing, fiction and non-fiction from computer automated voices generated in the 90's that were very mechanical then.
The timber of the voice in the last chapter sounds like a Dalek speaking. That was ok for a word or two, but was very very difficult to follow for the final chapter. Probably would have given the book 3.5 to 4 stars if I had read it visually as opposed to hearing that at the end.
The plot is not the strongest at times and reads more like an 18th century serial than a modern novel, a string of adventures and perspectives that run together a bit.
For originality in concept, I think it is worth reading. I listened to the audiobook and that helped me (an American) feel like this was set in the UK, although I cannot vouch for the accent one way or another.
The BIG thing at the end.
Don't want to give the plot away but the last chapter is almost unlistenable. I say this as someone who has listened to audiobooks for 35 years, and even studied and listened to some writing, fiction and non-fiction from computer automated voices generated in the 90's that were very mechanical then.
The timber of the voice in the last chapter sounds like a Dalek speaking. That was ok for a word or two, but was very very difficult to follow for the final chapter. Probably would have given the book 3.5 to 4 stars if I had read it visually as opposed to hearing that at the end.
July 31, 2018
I went into this book unclear on the premise and unfortunately come out barely wiser. A purely democratic approach to the military is an intriguing premise but hasn't really stuck with me.
Unfortunately I've always had this problem with Roberts' work: one worthy concept or theme that seems to have been wasted by flaws in execution. In the case of New Model Army I would say that the problem lies with how the philosophy is used. While it is very effective in certain parts of the plot, the rest of the time the musings on war and masculinity come across as filler that significantly slows down action.
Ironically this action tends to be a little too fast-paced and strategically specific for my personal tastes. Also the ending is stylistically ambitious but sudden and confusing.
It saddens me to say this but I don't think I see the appeal of Roberts anymore.
Unfortunately I've always had this problem with Roberts' work: one worthy concept or theme that seems to have been wasted by flaws in execution. In the case of New Model Army I would say that the problem lies with how the philosophy is used. While it is very effective in certain parts of the plot, the rest of the time the musings on war and masculinity come across as filler that significantly slows down action.
Ironically this action tends to be a little too fast-paced and strategically specific for my personal tastes. Also the ending is stylistically ambitious but sudden and confusing.
It saddens me to say this but I don't think I see the appeal of Roberts anymore.
April 10, 2021
Esta novela corta que se me ha hecho larga es una crítica al capitalismo y a las democracias europeas actuales. La historia nos presenta un nuevo tipo de ejercito basado en democracia pura que resulta ser más barato y eficaz que los ejércitos convencionales, y que cualquier estado puede contratar.
La primera parte del libro son historias cortas sobre el protagonista que están muy bien y sientan las bases de la critica al sistema actual. El problema es que conforme avanza la novela todo se hace bola y el autor empieza a filosofar demasiado, dejando todo a medias explicaciones y en definitiva montandote un cacao que no te enteras de que está pasando.
Le pongo baja puntuación porque se hace bola y al final me daba pereza leerme un libro de apenas 250 páginas, pero la primera parte de este libro es entretenida y divertida.
La primera parte del libro son historias cortas sobre el protagonista que están muy bien y sientan las bases de la critica al sistema actual. El problema es que conforme avanza la novela todo se hace bola y el autor empieza a filosofar demasiado, dejando todo a medias explicaciones y en definitiva montandote un cacao que no te enteras de que está pasando.
Le pongo baja puntuación porque se hace bola y al final me daba pereza leerme un libro de apenas 250 páginas, pero la primera parte de este libro es entretenida y divertida.
March 17, 2022
Lectura falta de pulso en gran parte de su recorrido y, aunque mejora bastante en su tramo final, termina resultando poco memorable.
La primera parte introduce la idea que sostiene el libro, siendo excesivamente reiterativa en su explicación de cómo la organización descentralizada supera por defecto a la jerarquizada (no parece haber opciones intermedias). La acción es un simple vehículo para deslizar la idea.
Las posibilidades que permite la comunicación múltiple en tiempo real, el acceso instantáneo a todo tipo información y la construcción de herramientas de tipo wiki apenas se esbozan.
Hacia el final la cosa mejora cuando se vuelve más abierta y contradictoria. Con cosillas de interés, tampoco es que ruede fina fina. El desenlace, que se ve venir de lejos, es bastante tópico y ramplón a pesar de que intenta quedar de original y trascendente.
Bien sin más. 6'5/10
La primera parte introduce la idea que sostiene el libro, siendo excesivamente reiterativa en su explicación de cómo la organización descentralizada supera por defecto a la jerarquizada (no parece haber opciones intermedias). La acción es un simple vehículo para deslizar la idea.
Las posibilidades que permite la comunicación múltiple en tiempo real, el acceso instantáneo a todo tipo información y la construcción de herramientas de tipo wiki apenas se esbozan.
Hacia el final la cosa mejora cuando se vuelve más abierta y contradictoria. Con cosillas de interés, tampoco es que ruede fina fina. El desenlace, que se ve venir de lejos, es bastante tópico y ramplón a pesar de que intenta quedar de original y trascendente.
Bien sin más. 6'5/10
April 13, 2019
I like the concept and how the first half of the book is told. Then the reader slowly starts noticing how chapters begin to alter, one chapter being told normally, the next one in a very strange I-say-then-you-say-then-I-say way and the words get more and more difficult to read. Near the end, I find myself unable to understand more than half of what I am reading, and that takes away from my enjoyment of the story.
I am not a Brit with a PhD in literature, that should not be needed to read and enjoy a sci-fi novel.
I truly hope this book is a one-off because I truly appreciate Adam Roberts other books, I have read almost all of them.
I am not a Brit with a PhD in literature, that should not be needed to read and enjoy a sci-fi novel.
I truly hope this book is a one-off because I truly appreciate Adam Roberts other books, I have read almost all of them.
January 20, 2023
2.7/5
What a strange book, when Adam Roberts is in the flow of describing the battles and warfare I think he enjoys it - it's definitely the easiest parts of the book to read. But my god, the exposition and frankly abstract to the point of almost giving up filler really let it down.
There's a decent story in here it's just not finished. Adam Roberts is clearly talented, some of his analogies were wonderfully original and highly evocative. I'm interested in reading the story that's purported to be Booker Prize worthy.
What a strange book, when Adam Roberts is in the flow of describing the battles and warfare I think he enjoys it - it's definitely the easiest parts of the book to read. But my god, the exposition and frankly abstract to the point of almost giving up filler really let it down.
There's a decent story in here it's just not finished. Adam Roberts is clearly talented, some of his analogies were wonderfully original and highly evocative. I'm interested in reading the story that's purported to be Booker Prize worthy.
June 23, 2024
Very well written and engaging (as with all Adam Roberts books), just suffers from a jarring lack of familiarity with modern armed forces (assumes all 'fuedal' armies are dumb, lumbering behemoths with tactics stuck in WWI) and standard ELINT capabilities (you don't need to know what someone is saying, if they are constantly transmitting you know where they are).
If you can switch off from that (which took me a few chapters), it is a very enjoyable read (though not one I will be returning to).
If you can switch off from that (which took me a few chapters), it is a very enjoyable read (though not one I will be returning to).
March 10, 2021
Una narración frenética, repleta de reflexiones sobre la democracia, la guerra y el ENM.
En la segunda parte hacemos un alto en la acción para divagar sobre gran parte de todos los temas abiertos en la anterior. Y finalmente una tercera parte donde llega el auténtico protagonista y que te deja desencajado.
En la segunda parte hacemos un alto en la acción para divagar sobre gran parte de todos los temas abiertos en la anterior. Y finalmente una tercera parte donde llega el auténtico protagonista y que te deja desencajado.
December 26, 2022
El parlamento escocés ha contratado a un grupo para defender su causa, un ejército más flexible y democrático que el tradicional. Si es capaz de conseguir su objetivo llevará la guerra a una nueva dimensión.
Interesante, entretenido y dinámico. Un punto de vista interesante sobre la democracia y el ejército.
Interesante, entretenido y dinámico. Un punto de vista interesante sobre la democracia y el ejército.
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