The more I read of good ol' Greg, the more I like. While I'm sad I didn't discover him earlier, I'm also cognizant that any earlier and I may not have appreciated him as much. ( )

As a long-time uber-fan of Greg Bear back in the day, I'm constantly mystified with myself that I have mostly avoided him since the mid-2000's. WHY? Well, let's put it this way: I expected him to throw mind-blowing fantastic SF at me on every level, messing with my head and showering me with brilliant ideas and smart stories.

So I shrugged and enjoyed it when he did a Hari Seldon prequel. I shrugged and tried to pray that a Star Wars novel was not selling out. And then I grew despondent when a novelist of his caliber started writing Halo novels and other for-market stuff. Thrillers? They were okay, but not great. Where's his out-there stuff? So I took a break.

I'm trying to do him justice. I loved his writing soooo much! So when I saw this new Mil-SF trilogy I sat back in my chair and said to myself, "So, is this more writing to the market instead of writing to his sense of great story?"

And then I saw the reviews, the ratings, and the corners of my mouth turned down.

And then I FINALLY read it.

This requires a little readjusting for our expectations.

Bear's done military stuff before but never to this degree. Don't get me wrong, it's pure mil-SF and Bear seems to go all out with making it as freaking accurate and PSTD-ridden and stacked with all the right terminology and even the claustrophobic sense of a life thrown to the wolves.

I was impressed! This is a genre I know fairly well and Bear writes for it damn well.

And then it hit me. This was designed to be popcorn fiction. Fun and smart and fast-paced military action that comes full of massive angst and battle on Mars against aliens and even better reveals about what they're even doing there.

It's not Moving Mars by a long shot. It's pure popcorn, and while there are a lot of great books similar to this, Bear is far from being simply average at it. He has the writing chops to amaze and put us in the hot seat. :)

And while there isn't quite as much groundbreaking stuff as his early stuff, it IS full of tech and is great at exploring all its uses. Terminology is hardcore, as is the stiff-upper-lip, but it's the claustrophobia that really made the novel shine. Single viewpoint, never knowing what's going on, and so much hostility everywhere. :)

I had to put away my expectations. This really wasn't a bad novel. It's a pure popcorn ride. :) ( )

Kind of one of those endings that makes me reserve judgement for after reading the rest of the series. Which I guess I’m now about to do. ( )

Greg Bear’s novels are a diverse bunch, while I like some very much (Darwin’s Radio, Moving Mars, Blood Music), others are to such extent not to my taste that I never finish them. This book comes into later category. Earlier I thought it a language thing (I’m non-native speaker after all) but now I think it is just a diversity of his prose.
The setting is interesting: some (supposedly extraterrestrial) aliens contact Earth and give a lot of shiny new toys in return asking to wage a war for them with (supposedly) another alien race, which surprisingly enough, used Mars as its base. Earth complies, because it wants to get ever more toys and the US, among other states, sends Skyrines (sky marines) to Mars, an extremely hazardous mission. What are the goal of the war, why it is waged, etc. is a mystery. Mars mission and recollections of it is the body of the book.

( )

Back in the day I would have considered a new science fiction novel by Greg Bear a genuine event and the initial premise of Humanity being culturally and technologically uplifted by another race, in exchange for fighting in a common conflict, to be attractive. The question though is whether this really our fight; considering Bear's history of plots where all is not as it seems you can draw your own conclusions. The real problem with this story is that, due to the flash-back structure of the novel, I had a hard time maintaining interest as Bear pretty much deflates all the suspense, though maybe I'll give the next book in the series a try out of respect for Bear. ( )