Gannon, Charles E. Caine’s Mutiny. Tales of the Terran Republic No. 4. Baen, 2017.
Charles Gannon’s Terran Republic series establishes him as the clear heir to David Weber, should Weber ever decide he needs an heir to his claim to grandmaster of military science fiction. Gannon describes military operations to a fare-thee-well, is equally at home with the points of view of officers and grunts, and has traditional and future military hardware and tactics down pat. The series also gives him plenty of opportunity to create alien species and cultures and describe their diplomatic skullduggery in enough detail to make George R. R. Martin cry, hold, enough! In this episode, Caine and his team are sent to a planet to remove some unauthorized Terran colonists, but they find the colonists are soldiers from several nations and wars ranging from World War II to Vietnam who were put in hibernation and shipped to the planet by unknown aliens. So, how can you use Vietnam-era helicopters in a war in which the other side is using future alien tech? Gannon and Caine will find a way. ( )

Whenever I read a Gannon book, I'm always struck by his command of what he intends to do in a story. It may not always be to my taste and sometimes he seems to write himself in corners that then take a lot of effort -- and talking -- to extricate himself, but in the end, I'm almost always impressed that he pulls off what he does.

It's Space-Opera. But this one is old-school Mil-SF.

Indeed, this is so old-school Mil-SF we've even got WWII and Vietnam non-coms who have been decanted 200 years after they were spirited away, finding themselves fighting a desperate battle of survival on a planet already inhabited by a proudly-idiotic alien species that always tends to find a way into fights under any excuse.

Caine, our supremely capable Commander, gets embroiled in strange alien politics, elaborate subterfuges, space battles fought for unclear purposes, and eventually, he's asked to pick up these out-of-time refugees (who have been fighting for their survival) to return them to Earth Space.

Of course, many things go wrong, but here's the main strength of this book: the military action reads like real military action, all including antique equipment and weapons terminology mixed freely with high-tech warfare and terminology. It's a real mess. And we get to spend a lot of time in the heads of several alien species with all their psychological differences, their war practices, and enough tactics and strategies to awe any fan of this particular genre.

Me? I... kinda like Mil-SF. In small doses. Some are pretty awesome. Some are a lot more realistic than others. This one is one of the realistic ones. It also fills most of the pages.

My complaint? I think it's fine if you want a novel that is filled MOSTLY with characters talking in lieu of action. We get a clear picture, regardless, but it sometimes got on my nerves.

That being said, the BIGGER scope of this novel takes us across many systems, in and out of political negotiations with aliens, be it cease-fires or species wrangling or leverage against our own government. All of this was pretty awesome, in my opinion.

I'm sure others will get more mileage out of this than I did, but by no means was it a bad book. In some ways, it's superior to most. It just didn't appeal to me in a huge way. ( )