Friday, March 11, 2016

The Red: First Light by Linda Nagata

3.5 STARS

Red Trilogy - Book 1

I enjoy a good military techno thriller from time to time and I have to admit that at first I felt like I had not made a good choice (It was a Christmas gift from my list) with The Red:First Light. The first maybe 75 pages felt like the novelization of an action/war first person shooter video game with it's present tense, first person POV and total fascination with every minute action the main character and his teammates were going through.

Then suddenly I became invested in Lieutenant James Shelley and by extension his crew. I sense that the author wanted it that way, but I'm not versed enough in story-telling mechanics to explain exactly why and how it happened as it did except that due to what occurs with Shelley in the field, he ceased to be just a soldier and a weapon and became a person.

There's technology abounding, but it's all fairly easy to understand in this day and age of the internet and Nagata is very good about providing explanations that don't feel like infodumps (past the first 'episode'). There are of course, many acronyms too - weapons, organizations, squads, all that stuff, but they never seem to be too many or too confusing.

Anyway, the action is fierce, the plot intricate and intriguing, the atmosphere believable and the characters all work for me. I ended up quite enjoying my read and instead of regretting my purchase of the other 2 books in the series when they were on sale a couple of weeks ago, I'm looking forward to reading them. :)

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