Sixth in a series called Frontlines, this military science fiction tale
caught me up in its deathly struggle from the start, and I hadn't read
the earlier books. Intrigued, I checked on the author Marko Kloos and
found he's received a Hugo nomination. POINTS OF IMPACT feels a lot like current wars to
start, but the field of operations is Mars. This is a Mars which has been
bombed and irradiated to try to rid it of Lanky invaders; giant aliens
from beyond our solar system which have been killing human colonies
on other planets. Whew, had to catch my breath!
Crash-landed on the barren red planet, with a time limit for survival set
by his suit's capability to resist radiation, CDC officer Andrew Grayson
is already exhausted from the struggle to pick off Lankies outside their
tunnels. A veteran of the long war, he's the best hope green Lieutenant
Brassey has of reaching safety.
We also see the hardships of a military marriage, with Andrew's
Earthside leave taken to coincide with his wife Halley's leave from her
pilot base on Luna. They don't get together often, and Andrew has
been redeployed onto a brand new ship, which will soon be headed
who knows where. Top secret missions aren't likely to be safe, but at
least it's not in some metal-fatigued tin can. While we often get
memories of the previous years of war, I was pleased that they were not
given in flashback.
I was fascinated by the wealth of detail about the political, economic
and defensive situation; of course, with five previous books the author
has had time to figure it all out neatly. The combative nations of Earth
had to put differences aside to counter the new threat. By this point,
the military is starting to get real food again. Makes sense, there has to
be some incentive to make it worth the struggle. But with three
hundred billion humans... Let's read that again: three hundred billion in
the population and no safe planet to colonise! It's a sure bet that most
people eat glop.
Parallels with The Forever War must have been mentioned by others, so
I'll just confirm that if you enjoyed Joe Haldeman's classic you will find
a similar look and feel in POINTS OF
IMPACT by Marko Kloos. This tale is a testament to the necessity
of cooperation and forward planning. I will be reading more of Marko
Kloos, a German native living in New Hampshire. He writes a mean
battle.
Humankind may have won the battle, but a new threat looms larger than ever before… Earth’s armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present. Earth’s game changer? New advanced ships and weapons, designed to hunt and kill Lankies and place humanity’s militaries on equal footing with their formidable foes. Andrew and his wife, Halley, both now burdened with command responsibilities and in charge of more lives than just their own, are once again in humanity’s vanguard as they prepare for this new phase in the war. But the Lankies have their own agenda…and in war, the enemy doesn’t usually wait until you are prepared. As Andrew is once again plunged into the chaos and violence of war with an unyielding species, he is forced to confront the toll this endless conflict is taking on them all, and the high price of survival…at any cost.
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