Excellent action SF novel.

While investigating very strange conflict on remote planet Lex Falk, our hero journalist, decides to take one additional step and using very complicated interface becomes one with the professional soldier engaged on [what was advertised as] a simple recon run.

Reason why Lex is given access to the hi-tech is very simple. Interplanetary corporation with a foothold on the planet feels endangered by two power blocks (reminiscent of Cold War blocks) who are very interested in the corporate owned planet but in their actions take no prisoners (imagine UN protectorate forces from Takeshi Kovacs novels investigating the planet ... not something anybody would want). Something is going on but nobody is sure what.

While first chapters are rather slow starting somewhere from the second third reader will get drawn into non-stop action, corporate plots (this is world where "I am OK" is expressed as "I am wealthy" and people tend to use corporate-centric cyber implants that can even censure bad words using registered/trade-marked expressions :)) and ruthless interplanetary governments that treats all settlers as collateral damage when higher goals are in question.

Actions seems so real and so close, and nobody is safe. I was truly at the edge of my seat never knowing what will happen to our motley crew. I have not felt this way since I read David Drake's Redliners.

Excellent SF action novel, highly recommended. ( )

El periodista Lex Falk viaja al planeta colonia 86 para cubrir un conflicto de poca importancia. De pronto descubre que lo que parece un simple enfrentamiento es en realidad una guerra en toda regla.
El alto mando militar le prohíbe el acceso a la zona en conflicto. Para conseguirlo, Falk se introduce en la mente de un soldado a cargo de una unidad y es testigo de la batalla en primera persona. Pero el mecanismo mediante el cual controla al soldado falla y debe enfrentarse con sus propias armas a una guerra para la que no ha sido entrenado. Falk usará todos sus recursos para volver a casa y destapar la oscura trama que ha descubierto.

It reminds me of scenes from a Vietnam movie. There's a group of soldiers trying to escape the jungle while dragging some child who can unlock nuclear codes with their mind away from the Viet-Cong and Soviet spies. Throw in an alien spaceship and this is close to it. I liked it but it near the end it almost falls apart. When we see why everyone is fighting that's when it makes sense. It's not something that should lead to a squeal but it can if Abnett wanted it too. ( )

Lex Falk is a reporter on a settlement planet known as Eighty-Six just looking for a story. There are murmurings of an armed conflict, but the local government insists that it is just a minor dispute with a small band of dissident citzens. After hitting a dead end as a journalist, Falk finds a way into the restricted areas - through a new process that has never been tested, he is embedded into the mind of a soldier, literally giving him a first-person perspective on what is really going on through the eyes of someone living it. Needless to say, he discovers that there is a lot more happening than what the media is being told.

I guess this was a decent read. It's certainly fast-paced and action-packed, the majority of the 430 pages take place over a few hours of near-constant combat, which I'm not generally enthusiastic about but does give it that addictive "just one more chapter...or 2" quality. I was just disappointed that the initial mystery was abandoned in favor of action and thrills, but it does pick up again towards the end of the novel. Enough so that I would probably read the sequel in the future if there ever is one.

Overall, I'm not exactly singing praise for this one, but it wasn't by any means terrible. Yeah, faint praise abound, I suppose... ( )

It was pretty good & I think if I was more of a war book fan, I would have given it another star. As it was, the jargon, both future & military, were a bit much - necessary & well done, but just too much at times. Some of the jargon had me laughing, though. Patches to make cussing turn into trademarked names. A very innovative idea. I don't think it was followed through with as well as it could have been or dropped from the story soon enough, so it turned into a distraction.

That's pretty much how the whole book felt to me - a lot of good ideas & spots of writing that just didn't quite come together as well as I would have liked. I'll have to try another book by this author because this one had a lot of promise. It could be that he's British. That's enough to make or break humor sometimes for me.
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