Ninefox Gambit By Yoon Ha Lee

Ninefox Gambit

By Yoon Ha Lee 

Yoon Ha Lee was born in Houston, Texas on January 1979. His family moved back and forth between the United States and the Republic of Korea while he was growing up, and he attended high school at Seoul Foreign School, an English international school. He graduated from Cornell and earned a Master's degree in secondary math education at Stanford. In 1999 he published his first story in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and additional works in Clarkesworld and Lightspeed magazine, and has since then published over forty. Mr. Lee also designs and writes games, such as the browser-based game Winterstrike. Mr. Lee, who is openly trans, currently lives in Louisiana with his husband and young daughter. Ninefox Gambit is his first full-length novel, published by Solaris books (for more information on them please see the last review) in 2016. It made quite an impression, being nominated for a Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke award, and winning the Locus Award for best novel. So let's take a look at the book, shall we?

The book takes place in what I can only assume is a far future. The government known as the Hexarchate (oh I love that name) rules a large swath of space. It is a government at first split into seven factions but now six (Well duh. Otherwise it would be the Heptarchate {Yeah, it was… I mean it would be, wouldn’t it?}) with each faction adopting different duties to maintain and organize an intensely ordered society. Society is arranged to support what is called the High Calendar, a system of timekeeping that if enough people observe it allows certain technologies to work (Yas! Techno-sorcery! YAS!). Like the Hexarchate's current FTL called the Moth Drive (Is the destination called a lamp?) which is faster and has greater range then FTL technology that doesn't depend on the calendar. On top of that their communications technology is dependent on the calendar as well, so without it, the nation is at real risk of simply falling apart and being conquered by foreign powers. There are other technologies that depend on this, most of them called exotic technologies. Technology that doesn't depend on the calendar is called an “invariant” (presumably because they do not vary with population levels of calendar observance…). Most of the exotic tech we see in the novel is weapons technology, which is fair since this is a war story. A government at war against its own people. You see, because the technology that supports the Hexarchate depends on observing the High Calendar, not observing the calendar is considered a direct attack on society and is called Heresy. Being a Heretic is bad, but no worries, there's a spot for Heretics in the Calendar. That spot is as the victim in a ceremony called Remembrance where Heretics are publicly tortured to death to reinforce belief in the High Calendar. Which gives the Hexarchate a nice theocratic gloss, on top of the rest of the horror show.

This is the society that our main character Captain Kel Cheris has been born into. The member of a tolerated but suspected minority culture, Cheris had joined the Hexarchate military and for the most part, abandoned her birth culture. She didn't just join the military but the front line portion of it, which is made up entirely of the Kel faction. The Kel faction provides the combat troops and officers of the military for both ground and space operations (there is also a Kel wet water navy but it's irrelevant all things considered) with the Shuos providing intelligence officers and the Nirai providing engineers and other specialists as needed. So if you ever think the modern division into branches of service are silly and pointless take a look at a system where you need three branches just to run one damn ship! (Kafka would love this) Before I get to Cheris I should explain the Kel, because they're the faction taking center stage here and we need to understand them to really understand Cheris. The Kel often have to fight in areas where the High Calendar doesn't hold sway so they have developed formations that allow them to deploy their weapons by overwriting the calendar of a local area with their own through applied math and geometry (Ok, that’s pretty cool). The first wave of formations discovered were suicide formations because they burnt up the men and women in the formation to create the needed effect (Wait, discovered? Not devised? Did they like, experiment with this over a long period of time to optimize the solution through attrition? Like, create a best first estimate and then *iterate* it through a machine learning algorithm that used mass casualties as training data?). I'm speaking literally when I say burnt up. The Kel celebrate this, calling themselves ash hawks or suicide hawks and holding up examples of people who destroy themselves for the group good or follow orders to the death as the ideal (Oh my god they’re a geomantic death cult). Like most militaries, the Kel are very conservative and prize strong group loyalty and self-sacrifice. To the point that Kel High Command has merged itself into a single hive mind that is not so slowly losing its sanity and for the lower ranks they created a technology called formation instinct. How it is applied is kinda vague but here's what I can tell you, it creates a powerful urge to obedience to higher authorities and creates a subconscious need to conform with what is expected of the soldier by the group (Oh this is… awesome. It’s existentially horrifying, but I love the places Mr. Lee’s mind goes. That is so delightfully dark.). To say I am horrified by this is too mild, I know I keep bringing it up but I am a military veteran myself and I served in Iraq. So this isn't abstract for me, I've already seen plenty of firsthand evidence that a lot of politicians and civilians just don't value our lives or rights as fellow human beings and are perfectly happy to get us killed to prove an ideological point or ensure they can maintain a good opinion of themselves. The idea of applying such a thing to fellow Marines and Soldiers makes me physically ill (Note: my giggling above is not a contradiction of this. I just have a different horror threshold than Frigid does, and find this sort of thing fascinating in a very Nietzschean kind of way.{I’m pretty sure that if we talking about doing something like to scientists it would be immediate for you} Oh, I totally get it. I’m just a sick weirdo whose reactions to this sort of thing differ so long as it’s fictional.). You can't have loyalty under these conditions only compelled obedience and it turns thinking soldiers into pawns who cannot choose their loyalties or evaluate their orders on their own, only follow them (Thing is, this is a society that holds its entire citizenry to the observance of a system of timekeeping on pain of horrible death, so I think valuing the lives of soldiers is… well it went out the window a long bloody time ago. Like, that’s just a natural consequence of how fucked up this whole culture is). The only saving grace here is that the formation instinct doesn't impact everyone at the same strength or the same way so there are always those who can subvert it within themselves or resist it but that doesn't reduce the terror here. The Kel don't come across as a military so much as a terrifying perversion of what a good military is supposed to be, it doesn't help that I'm pretty sure that a great many governments, even liberal democratic ones would eagerly embrace such technology and its use (Probably).

Cheris is not the average Kel officer, for one thing, she's very good at math to the point that the Nirai wanted her to join up. Cheris, however, wanted to serve something bigger than herself and wanted to do it on the front lines. So she joined the Kel and beyond that became an infantry officer. However, she can't avoid the fact that she is creative and able to think outside of the box. A good example of this is her treatment of the robotic servitors, AI machines who do a lot of the grunt work in Hexarchate society (Because *of course* there are oppressed AI servitors.{The Servitors are the least oppressed group in the book actually, the human government ignores them as long as the work gets done so the servitors basically do what they want} Huh. Alright then...). Most humans simply ignore them but Cheris is polite to them and even reaches out to them. I like this trait honestly as it helps humanize her and gives us a look into who she is when not dealing with... Well, the events of this book.  Either way, her creativity and willingness to grapple with unorthodox solutions are not encouraged by Kel society (Uh Oh). When she comes up with a bold new formation to subvert an enemy's calendar and destroy their exotic weapons, she's not celebrated because her formations linger too close to the border of heresy (Wait, but… if she subverts an enemy calendar and imposes her own, how can that mathematically even get close to Heresy? {Because she exercised creative problem solving and made new formations without approval} Ah! Now the world makes sense!). However, victory covers a great many sins and it seems that the Hexarchate has better use for her then using her as a showpiece for a Remembrance. They're going to give her a command to retake a fortress (a massive deep space station that was placed to enforce and extend the effects of the High Calendar) that has gone Heretic. Not just any fortress, but the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a powerful fortress with its own fleet and a shield that has never been broken. A fortress that as often proclaimed to be immune from outside assault. A fortress she needs to take despite having never led anything bigger than an infantry company and not having enough forces under her command to just overwhelm it (Well, they do love suicide missions…). If such a place can even be overwhelmed. Cheris is afraid that she's being set up for failure (because she most definitely is) and aware that she has no margin for error decides to be creative again and grabs Shuos Jedao. Let me talk about the Shuos faction first before we talk about him specifically.

The Shuos faction are the assassins, intelligence officers, spies, and such of the Hexarchate. They're led by whoever can assassinate the current leader of their faction (as a result a faction leader is considered lucky if they last a decade [Ah, I see they operate on Necromonger Rules]). They're also known for an intense fascination with games and being rather unstable, since murdering your superior is a lauded way of asking for a promotion you can see why (Unstable institutionally, mentally, or both?{Yes.}). Jedao started out as a Shuos and was trained as an assassin but decided to switch over to the Kel, becoming one of their greatest generals. In his last campaign, he won a great battle with almost no casualties despite being outnumbered 8 to 1 (this was based somewhat on Admiral Yi Su-Shin's victory but Admiral Yi faced greater odds) and followed it up by completely destroying two armies. One of them his own, as he went mad and was found as the only survivor. His punishment wasn't death, but instead to be rendered into what I would basically have to call an undead spirit. Imprisoned in something called the Black Cradle that keeps him a state of undeath, he became a weapon for the Kel (I… I got nothin’). A weapon they only dare pull out when the stakes are high but one that always wins. However there's a problem with deploying him, he needs a physical anchor to function, a living person. So Cheris has to direct a military campaign on a much greater scale then she's ever directed before while carrying the mind of an undead general who may or may not be insane but definitely has his own hidden agenda (Weeee! Fun for the whole family!). While she's also unsure if Kel High Command actually wants her to succeed or not. She has few if any allies and an embarrassment of riches when it comes to enemies.

Mr. Lee gives us a tense story filled with intrigue and battle. It's also a story of a deeply unhealthy society being held up by an increasingly high blood price of both loyal members and rebels. I know it's easy for me to declare the Hexarchate unhealthy. That said if your society is constantly wracked with rebellions to the point that your troops spend more of their time fighting their own people then foreign forces... There is something wrong with the way your society is set up, especially when the penalty for rebellion is being tortured to death. People don't take risks like that unless they have a very compelling reason, after all. Mr. Lee, however, doesn't shy away from the implications of the system he has set up and shows us in spades that this system is deeply unhealthy and needs to change  This is also part of the story as Mr. Lee has made the consideration of military ethics a part of this story and does this without making this a black and white discussion. This mostly done through the interactions of Jadeo and Cheris but there are parts where we are given the views of troops on the front line and Mr. Lee even finds a clever way to give us the viewpoint of the people rebelling in the fortress. Honestly, I can see why Ninefox Gambit is so highly praised and was given the considerations it was. It was honestly hard for me to put the book down despite my intense distaste for the Kel. I do feel I need to put a warning on this book however. Like I said Mr. Lee doesn't try to shy away from the implications of what he's built here. So a number of dark things show up in this book, from war crimes to crimes like sexual assault. This stuff isn't ladled in for titillation but does serve as part of the character's motivations and experience. That said if this is something that is going to bother you, you might want to skip this book. That said I found the book masterfully done and compelling to read. To that end, I am giving Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee an A.

So if you enjoyed this review and would like to see more, please consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where a 1$ a month lets you vote for what books will be reviewed, 3$ allows you sneak peeks at the unedited reviews and the unrestrained version of our editor.   Next week we start World War II month with Code Name: Lise by Larry Loftis.  Until then, Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen.
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders.

Champion of Mars by Guy Haley

Champion of Mars 

by Guy Haley 

Guy Haley was born in 1973 in Halifax, United Kingdom. Before becoming an author, he was the editor for a number of science-fiction and fantasy magazines such as White Dwarf, SFX, and Death Ray. He’s written over twenty novels and short stories; and is a prolific writer for the Black Library, the printing arm of Games Workshop, who makes among other things the Warhammer 40K universe and all the associated games. Within that setting he is known for writing a number of books from the point of view of non-humans like goblins and orcs (Good, because we really do need to see more of this universe from a perspective other than blinkered theo-fascists; even if that perspective is that of insane sapient fungi. I would *love* to see some stories about the Tau {I just want to note that the editor’s opinions are his own and not reflective of the review series… Thank you}). Currently, he lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son. Champion of Mars was published in 2012 by Solaris books. Solaris was founded in 2007 as an imprint by BL publishing (aka the Black Library) as a way to publish and support mid-tier writers. In 2009 Solaris was bought by Rebel Developments, a video game development company based in the United Kingdom. Now let's head over to the book.

In the far future, Mars - the last outpost of humanity in the Solar system - is dying. Divided between the lands of men and spirits; and the Stone Lands, parts of the planet unfit for life due to the corruption of the Stone kin. The Stone kin are upper dimensional creatures attempting to push into our universe from outside, due to the limiting realities of our universe, they can only push part of themselves in at a time. Imagine trying to push yourself into a 2-dimensional world and you might get an idea of the issue (So… when they corrupt things, are they doing stuff like extending their N-dimensional pseudopods into the 4th spatial dimension and drawing boxes around areas to prevent nutrient flow, or something?). This is actually where their name comes from because no one can see them move, instead, they in one position one moment and in another the next without actually crossing the space between the two points. A good way to visualize this would be to think of the Weeping Angels from the British television show Dr. Who, only they do this even if you're looking right at them and kill you even with you looking them right in the eye. Assuming they have eyes (Given they’re in a reality foreign to their own, perhaps they took Sam Niel’s advice from Event Horizon and concluded they didn’t need eyes where they’re going.). If that wasn't enough their very presence warps the laws of physics (and biology, chemistry and everything else) and creates changes in the structure of the universe and if they are not ejected quickly can create lingering corruption making the place worse for life then the nastiest radiation (Hm. Bringing Event Horizon to you!). How did this happen, you might be asking? You see, in the distant past humanity sacrificed its home system to lock the Stone Kin in, preventing them from leaving the Sol system but locking hundreds of millions of people in with them. Since then Earth and Venus have fallen to the Stone Kin and so has a good chunk of Mars (How did they pull that off? Did they use mass-human-sacrifice to close off the solar system in some kind of massive necromantic ritual? How do you do that when the enemy alters physics? {I’m not ruling out the necromancy, but their counter ploy seemed to involve rewriting the laws of physics on a local scale to prevent them from being able to leave, going more into depth would be spoilers}). In the face of this threat mankind and it's artificially intelligent allies (who now preferred to be called spirits) spends its time fighting itself in increasingly pointless wars over dominance and control of half a dying planet. Most men do not focus on the threat of the Stone Kin, instead, they focus their energies on securing their next lives. Let me explain (Indeed you should because this seems very counter-productive.).

Much like Altered Carbon (a book that I reviewed a while back,), humans have an implant that allows for their minds to be digitized and when they die their minds are sent to the stacks, a virtual world where you wait for rebirth. What separates this from other books like Altered Carbon is that if you die, your mind isn't just dumped into a new adult body. Instead, your genetic code is artificially mixed with a single or pair of adopted parents and you are born anew. In your new childhood, you don't have access to your prior memories, instead, when you hit puberty you have to choose to remember or not. If you chose to remember your prior life memories are gradually integrated into your mind. If not, well, you'll have that option in your next life. In a lot of ways, this seems like a healthier system and a more creative way of dealing with the problems of immortality. Through having people repeatedly experience childhood and new beginnings you keep them from becoming too set in their ways to allow for society to change and giving them the chance to refuse the memories allows for people to try for fresh starts unburdened by their pasts (Except it isn’t their past. It is an entirely different person they’re “remembering”, it isn’t correct to call this immortality of any kind.{The characters disagree} Of course they disagree, that isn’t the point! They have a very interesting definition of what it means to be the same person. This is a few steps beyond Destructive Cloning like with Star Trek transporters. This is outright reproduction. Being immortal through one’s kids is a metaphor! Think of it like this. This is techno-reincarnation.). By the time of our novel, a person could have lived for thousands of years being reborn, growing up and dying over and over again. Simple time renders the memories of your earliest lives vague and indistinct but leaves everyone with a sort of racial memory of what their history was and what they have accomplished in the past, while their new years blunt the emotional edges of such memories. By the time of the main setting, they've worked out a system where the brave and awesome get reborn first and everyone else has to wait in line. I have to admit it's an interesting system and I kinda wish we could have explored it more since it profoundly shapes human society on Mars and one of our main characters. Let's met him.

Yoechakenon is and was the Champion of the Emperor of Mars, encased in the most powerful set of armor that humanity has ever created and wielding some of it's most devastating weapons, he is also a warrior with thousands of years of training and experience fighting the Stone Kin, fellow humans, and spirits. However, Yoechakenon is a man disgraced; he rejected the position of Champion after leading an army on a siege that ended in a brutal sack (Wait. So this is a science fiction setting, yes? And the culture is so fucked up that they sack cities? Wow…{It's a science fiction setting in a dark age, this is not a new concept}). He was sentenced to fight over and over in the arena stripped of his armor and weapons, despite that he kept winning (So they have fighting pits too. What is this degenerate Bourgeois bullshit?). His reward for this is being sent on a final mission in secret by the Emperor, there's only one chance to end the ceaseless wars of humanity and find a way to throw back the Stone Kin. To find the Artificial Intelligence known as the Librarian of Mars who can bring peace to Mars and organize resistance against the Stone Kin and perhaps even win. To do that Yoechakenon has to go into the Stone Lands themselves, into dead cities haunted by abominations that sit halfway between our form of life and the Stone Kin and piece together the clues that will lead him to his objectives. Well, actually he'll have to go there and let his companion piece together the clues (Because presumably All He Knows Is Killing?). That companion the spirit Lady Kaibeli, who is Yoechakenon's constant companion and lover and our actual viewpoint character for most of the story (Well alright then…). Kaibeli is an artificial intelligence who has for thousands of years sought and found Yoechakenon in life after life and stayed with him. To the point that their relationship has become legendary within society (Given my earlier commentary regarding immortality…). You see, while humans age, die and are reborn, artificial intelligence's instead simply continue onward, although the passage of time, lack of data space and data corruption renders their earliest memories hazy and hard to access at best. So eventually most spirits move on and become distant from their biological friends and allies, but not Kaibeli, who has stayed steadfast to one person (Does she though? She actually is immortal but… he isn’t.) with frankly inhuman devotion. Kaibeli not only serves as our viewpoint character but is the central character of the entire novel. I'll explain.

See, this foolhardy quest into possible madness and death isn't the only story being told in this novel. The novel also takes us back to the earliest days of Martian settlement and the near future when Dr. Holland - fleeing the memories of tragedy and divorce - comes to Mars to work on the terraforming project in an indirect way (Not knowing what the tragedy is, damn that must have been one acrimonious divorce.). Dr. Holland is hired to study and catalog the last ecologies on Mars. As mankind arrived and spread out, eco-systems were found deep in the planet’s lava tube systems (where the hell are these cave systems getting their energy? Mars isn’t geologically active anymore, so chemosynthetic communities are right out. Are they like a sealed glass terrarium, continually recycling energy and nutrients until eventually Entropy kills them?) Now while their very existence is exciting, you should banish visions of Calots or Thoats lurking in the depths of the red planet. The ecosystems that Dr. Holland is studying are microscopic and made up mostly of bacteria and single-celled organisms feeding on chemicals in the depths (Okay, that works.). In fact, it's a plot point that the environment that these life forms inhabit is extremely acidic in nature and when visiting you have to do so from inside specially constructed hard suits. I have to admit the safety measures and the research teams obsessive following of those safety procedures is very realistic. Despite what certain rather poorly done movies would tell you, biologists and other scientists are rather careful in the lab and tend not to move forward until they figure out how to do so safely (Can confirm, this part is correct!). So you would never have a scientist licking a newly discovered life form for example, or running up for hugs until some investigation takes place (In biology, we do not lick the science. Unless you study dogs, then the science licks you!). Of course, there's a wrinkle to all of this, Dr. Holland has an intense phobia of artificial intelligences due to traumatic life-experiences, which is a problem because the rather small research station has an AI named Cybele. However, he's not going to have a lot of time to try and get over his phobia as an underground expedition goes terribly wrong and discovers something deep below the surface of Mars. Something having an odd effect on the environment around it and something that is defying any attempt to analyze it. Not to mention forcing the AI to instantly shut down whenever they get too close. Dr. Holland finds himself having to make some choices and fast to determine just what the future of humanity and Mars is going to be.

Mr. Haley does a good job interweaving the two stories together and connecting them a lot more firmly then I would have thought possible. He also takes us through short intervening chapters through the different time periods which let us take a look at the development of Martian society and how relationships between artificial intelligences and biological humans changed over time. It also lets us see the development of the Stone Kin threat and the counters humanity took to block and contain it. This is an amazing voyage through society and culture and I really enjoyed it, you see golden ages, collapses, rebuildings, wars and peace all in short first-person views sprinkled throughout the book. I found myself both amazed and appalled that Mr. Haley was able to shove so much into a single book. It's somewhat ironic that some fantasy series are stretched out beyond reason and we get a story as epic as this that is contained a single novel. That said, the book isn't without issues. I was left entirely convinced of Kaibeli's devotion and love for Yoechakenon for example but I wasn't left all that sure of how much he cared for her (Well he’s not necessarily going to, now is he?). It may be due to the lack of space since there's a lot going on and the fact that we're never really in Yoechakenon's head but for a lot of the book I wasn't really sure of his feelings towards her (Those feelings are likely pretty damn complicated. He has an actually-immortal robot stalker who seems to have taken a liking to his lineage and because everyone including himself thinks he’s the same person as all those prior iterations… yeah, complicated.). Additionally, I was frustrated at how much is hinted at and will never be explained because there are no other works in this universe. What Mr. Haley does in this book is fantastic and I only wish he had been able to devote more time and space to this story because there is enough for a trilogy here, which would have been helpful because there were points in the book that didn't feel very fleshed out, as if Mr. Haley forebears from really going into details or spending time on character interactions because he had so much ground to cover as it was. Still, this is a great display of economic use of space and time to tell not just one sweeping story but several. To that end I'll be giving Champion of Mars by Guy Haley a B. We would be lucky if future novels could make this level the new average but its lack of space keeps it from going higher.

So our next and last novel of May will be The Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, afterward, we will be embarking on World War II month in June.  If you'd like to vote on what books we would be covering there's still time to join us over at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for a 1$ a month you get a vote on what books get reviewed.

As always the red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
The black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Caine's Law By Matthew Stover

Caine's Law 

By Matthew Stover

“What if you could take back the worst thing you ever did?” 

Caine page 24 

Hey folks, our regular editor Dr. Allen couldn’t make it this week so we have special guest editor, please welcome Mr. Davis, science teacher, trained in marine biology and the wrangling of small mammals. Hey all Mr. Davis here, like Frigid said your usual editor is away on other business so I’ll be taking the reins. Don’t worry you get the same level of quality in service but with 40% less communist propaganda.

It's been years since we covered Caine Black Knife. So let me start from the top, Matthew Stover was born in 1962 in the United States. He attended Danville high school graduating in 1979 and then graduated from Drake University in 1983. He studied the Degerberg Blend, a style of combined martial arts that is based somewhat on Jeet Kune Do. His earliest novel I can find is the bronze age fantasy Iron Dawn and the first book of the Caine Series, Heroes Die were released in 1997. He would also write a large number of Star Wars novels (including the novelization of Return of the Sith) and dozens of short stories. He also wrote a Flash Gordon novel, entitled the Real Flash Gordon that was unfortunately blocked from publication by the gentlemen who holds the rights on the grounds of it being “unwholesome.” I'll just note for the record that I think we're all missing out and we could have seen a novel that brought Flash Gordon screaming into the 21st century. That's the kind of timidness that kills characters. The novel we're actually taking a look at today is Caine's Law, however. The most recent and as things stand most likely final installment of the story of Hari Michaelson aka Caine, it was published in 2012 by Del Ray Books, which is owned by Ballantine Books which is in turn owned by (say it all together) Random House.

Before we pitch in, let me do a quick recap of the worlds here. Caine (I'm just going to refer to him as Caine for simplicity's sake, although like anyone in his business he has a wealth of other names) is an Actor from a future Earth. Here the world has been unified under a world government that has created a massively restrictive caste system and enforces it by rewriting history, making political and social dissent illegal and breaking the critics of the system as cruelly and publicly as possible. It also keeps the masses distracted via massive entertainments and other diversions, Caine is part of that. See Actors in this Earth don't make movies and plays. That's too blasé and safe for this society. Actors are people fitted with cybernetic gear to record everything they sense, through all their senses, while the Actors provide a sub-vocal narrative that is picked up and recorded by those same cybernetics. These people are sent to an entirely different world, called Overworld, where magic works, there are elves, dragons and worse. There they have bloody, violent adventures which are then edited, packaged and released in everything from virtual reality experiences where you practically experience what the Actor experiences or less immediate experiences that you can watch on a screen with your friends. Of course, while this is an entertainment for you, it's real bloody life for the Actor and many of them can expect to die in the saddle. Suddenly if they're lucky, but if not... Well there's a market for Actor dies an incredibly slow painful death while you watch entertainments as well. (I understand how there is a market for SOME activities to have the full sensory experience, but I’m just imagining if you have it set on a high level of physical sensation when out of nowhere you have some monster chewing on your face. Man i’m guessing netflix and chill could have some really great “date gone wrong” stories from this.) Much like our modern day Actors have varying levels of stardom with starlets and C levels and superstars who can bring a city to a standstill just by showing up. Caine isn't just a superstar, he's basically the superstar. Like Brad Pit smashed together with a Special Forces operator. The guy whose adventures are in the top 10, with billions of followers hanging off his gestures and words but due to the Caste society he's in and the sheer level of control that the Studio maintains, he's basically a dangerous but pampered pet. At least on Earth. On Overworld, he's Caine, a famous and terrifying assassin who has killed kings and paupers with equal disdain. Of course, the people of Overworld aren't entirely ignorant of the aliens in their midst. In their society Actors are the worst type of demons and Earth a wretched hell full of suffering souls dependent on the whims of indifferent and conceited monsters. They aren't entirely wrong about Earth honestly and given the actions of some Actors it's not surprising how they view them. I should also mention that Overworld and Earth actually have a long intertwined history but since finding out the scope and length of that history is part of reading the series, all I'll say is that it's no accident that our legends and myths feature things that are native to Overworld and it's no accident that there are humans on both worlds.


Caine's Law picks up right where Caine Black Knife (the book before Caine's Law) left off so I would recommend reading them back to back. Caine Black Knife gave us a look at Caine's beginnings and how to reach the heights of popularity that he did... He committed a genocide. Maybe I'm a terrible person but it's hard for me to judge Caine to harshly on this, given the Black Knife tribe of Orgilloi (basically orcs) had essentially chased Caine and his party down and proceeded to torture them to death until Caine pulled off his win. This was also the Black Knifes standard procedure, they would raid their neighbors, kill, rape, torture and enslave and would have kept doing it until someone stopped them. However, Caine has been feeling a bit of guilt over this, because frankly his escape and revenge weren't clean ones and he ended up not only basically destroying the Black Knife nation but being the cause of death for a lot of their children. Children who hadn't killed, raped or tortured anyone. So I can understand the guilt. This is also wrapped in the relationship that Caine has with Orbek, a Black Knife survivor who adopted him and who Caine in turn adopted as a younger brother. Because of this relationship, Caine learns that the majority of the survivors have been basically enslaved by a human theocracy and that the males can only get decent jobs and lives by submitting to castration. Frankly, the Black Knives may have been dangerous and wrong but this treatment is just as bad if not worse since the Black Knives can't really fight back anymore. When Orbek decides to address this and Caine tries to save his life, Caine ends up on Earth and is forced into a bad deal. From which our entire story flows.

While Mr. Stover has often experimented with non-linear storytelling, using flashbacks for example to tell related stories set in different times, he embraces the metaphysical fully in this book. As we are sent careening across different times and places of Caine's life as he works to pull off one last trick. To try and make a good bargain from a bad one, Caine moves across time and space to try and tilt history and the universe just enough to in his own words, take back the worse thing he's ever done. With Caine, there's a lot of prior actions competing for that title. To be fair that's not the only thing he's trying to do, as always Caine is trying to maintain the safety and well being of his friends and family. It's interesting to see how this self-professed monster is mostly only moved to violence to keep the people he loves safe, isn't it? He's also quick to enlist others into this quest by offering them the same reward and to be fair it's a hell of a pitch. I don't have anything that I've done that would be considered in the same league, hell even the same sport as Caine does but if he cornered me on the street and convinced me that it could be done? I'd be willing to do quite a bit and give a lot to get it done. Take a moment to ask yourself what you would do if you could make it so that the worst thing you ever did... Just never happened. So you can imagine what Caine, someone who starts his “what I’m willing to do” list with murder and maiming is willing to do. He's going to need every ally he can find though, because not only does he have to pull off a number of wild capers against angry priests, elvish lords and worse, he might be attracting attention from the divine. If you're doing something the gods don't want done, you gotta do it fast after all. Let's talk about some of these folks.

The most pivotal is likely the Horse Witch, a woman or something that looks like one, who travels with a feral herd of horses. Now I don't mean wild, I mean feral, as every horse was an abused animal that escaped it's situation to find shelter with the herd and with the Horse Witch. This is not a human-friendly herd, not necessarily hostile but it's made real clear that these horses are done tolerating abuse from humanity or anyone else. The Horse Witch herself is an interesting character that the book takes time and effort to unwrap for the reader, and her growing and developing relationship with Caine ends up forming a pole for the story to move around. This is true in a literary and metaphorical sense, as the story only makes sense when you fully grasp who the Horse Witch is, what her relationship to Caine is and how important and life-altering that is for him. Now, this isn't a Caine redeemed by the love of a woman story, banish that idea right now. Caine already tried that with his relationship with his first wife and in a realistic fashion, it failed quite miserably. Instead, this is Caine, with the help of someone who cares for him, not their idealized version of him but him the actual person learning to come to terms with himself and forgive himself his mistakes and learn to stop punishing himself. The Horse Witch is strangely well equipped for this as forgiveness and permission are her greatest powers. If you're wondering what that means, I'm going to tell you to read the book. What I will say is that Caine's journey in this book is a reflection of his internal journey which adds another layer to a story that already has a number of them. We also get a look at a real professional assassin, a gentleman by the name of Tanner from the same organization as Caine, he serves as a foil, ally, and snarker to Caine. Tanner kinda ended up being my favorite character in the book. He's not entirely sure what's going on, but he's gonna do his job and try to have some fun along the way, usually at Caine's expense. He can also get away with it because he's at least as good at hurting people as Caine is and younger so he doesn't have the same fear of Caine most men in his position would have. We also have returning characters but going over them would be spoilers so I'll invite you to take a look for yourself.

The book isn't entirely perfect, while Caine faces a lot of obstacles and near death events. Including finding himself almost getting the whipping of his life from a high-class elvish drug dealer and whore, who also happens to be a runaway prince. There's also a scene that I will laugh at until I die, where Caine finds out that an old enemy of his has a death cult devoted to him. Caine is morally appalled of course, but he's also offended that he isn't transgressive enough for some people considering all the ultra-violence and social upheaval he's committed in his life. It's kinda humanizing in a way. As usual, the violence is bone-jarringly real and full of consequences, people are crippled and maimed, our hero takes repeated injuries that slow him down and trip him up. That said, there's not much in the way of organized opposition from the various cosmic forces that the characters keep warning about us and seeing some would have increased the stakes and tension in the books. I do have to repeat for the reader that this book isn't told in an entirely linear fashion and the story becomes an exercise in piecing together clues from Caine's remarks and actions just what he is trying to do. Odds are since I didn't read the series in a single go that I missed a clue or three but frankly if you're paying attention and willing to do the mental footwork you can work it out pretty quickly. That said this book is not for lazy readers or for readers who are looking for straightforward simple storytelling. You definitely need to have read the prior books and expend some mental effort on this one. I'm not going to penalize the book for that though, since in all honestly reading a book or three that makes you expend some effort to figure things out isn't that bad for you. In fact, it might be good for you. (yes it is good for you, active reading skills are lacking in modern society and most people experience a sharp decline in technical reading ability after they leave academic settings. Being able to read and predict outcomes as well as interpret information that is talked about but not directly handed to you is a skill that many industrial psychologists have identified as an indicator of success in almost any profession.) I suppose this is me telling you to read your bloody veggies along with your junk food but there you go. I'm giving Caine's Law an A-, it's inventive, complex and provides a satisfying ending to the Caine saga. I just think it's unfortunate that we're not likely to see more books from Mr. Stover, since this is also the most recent book of his I can find, but you can't have everything.

 If you enjoyed this week's review consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads, where for a dollar a month, you can vote on what books come up for review.  Next week, we look at Champion of Mars by Guy Haley and after that, we kick off World War II month.  Until then, Keep Reading.

Blue text is your editor Mr. Davis
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The Fell Sword By Miles Cameron

The Fell Sword 

By Miles Cameron

It was only in March that I covered The Red Knight, the first novel in The Traitor Son Cycle. So I don't think we need to retread ground on who Miles Cameron is or on the subject of Orbit books. So let me just say that The Fell Sword was published in 2013 and move on.

The Fell Sword opens with our merry company of sell-swords heading into the Empire of Morea, an ancient state that has fallen on hard times. To make things even more complicated, their employer the Emperor is taken hostage by the most powerful noblemen before they get there. Which means their new job is to rescue the guy who hired them and win a civil war against the best army the Morean Empire has to offer. As a cherry on top? The Empire is broke and most of its soldiers haven't been paid in years. So if they want any native support they'll have to pay for it out of their own pockets and hope to make good later. That said, you can't win high stakes if you don't play high stakes and Gabriel, aka the Red Knight and leader of our crew of cutthroats intends to win big. He's not without resources, after all, he is flush with coin after winning a legendary siege in the last book and has the loyalty of a crew of veteran and highly trained killers with a wide variety of skills, is himself a skilled fighter and spellcaster and has a powerful wizard riding along in the back of his head. To counter this, the Imperial Princess they're supposedly working for might be plotting against him, the loyalty of mercenaries is prone to fickleness and he has a powerful wizard riding along in the back of his head (Faust! WAAAAAH You’ve doomed every one of us! Yes that was in the tune of a certain song by Queen.). Why is that an asset and a problem? Well, imagine you have someone who lost their body in your head. They have decades of experience and skill on you and they're perfectly willing to help but they always want to be in the driver's seat. It's not that they don't trust you but they've done this so many times before so why not just get out of the way and let them do it? How long before it's their body and you're the passenger in the back of your own head? That’s something that Gabriel has to balance against the fact that his passenger is literally the most skilled wizard for hundreds of miles around and the only one who can outstrip him for sure isn't human anymore (He is so screwed).

Which leads me to story-line number two in this book, Thorn, the antagonist from the last book has survived and is rebuilding his forces. What he's rebuilding his forces for and why isn't entirely clear because Thorn isn't who he was in the last book. While his power is growing, it's coming at the cost of him coming under the influence of an unknown outside power (I need to sing the Faust song again…). What this power wants is somewhat vague but it's clear that one of its intermediate goals is the end of human civilization as we know it (Well it’s good to have goals. I mean, if that’s its mid-term goal I’d be interested to learn what its long-term goals are.), so it's likely that it's ultimate goal isn't anything good (Are you sure about that? I mean, maybe this human civilization just needs to go, or needs to change somehow? What if their magic feeds off the lifeforce of another universe?{The bad guy uses human souls to power some of his magic. I’m pretty sure he’s not doing this for sustainability reasons}Oh. Never mind. Standard Faustian Bargain then, pretty sure the demonic underworld has standard forms for the contracts...). Along the way though Thorn would like to punish the allies that deserted him which leads us to the third and fourth story-line in this book. Both of them having to do with former allies of Thorn realizing that they aren't done yet with this former man turned demi-god. The first one revolves around an escaped slave who joined a tribe of humans who live in the Wild, the Sossag. The Wild is a land outside of human civilization inhabited by various races, some monstrous and others less so but most willing to hunt and eat humans the same way we do deer. Despite that, some human clans and tribes live very well in the wild. One such example the Sossag are very similar to some tribes of American natives who lived in the Northeast. They live in fortified villages, farm and hunt; and have governing power divided between male and female assemblies. Born with the name Peter, he instead takes on a Sossag name, marries a Sossag woman and works to blend into the tribe and live in peace. However, thanks to Thorn he isn't getting his wish and may just lose his best friend and adopted brother to this new storm. Meanwhile the Jacks, a band of anti-monarchy radicals who barely escaped the end of the last book with their lives find themselves trapped in the Wild (Be strong comrades! Be strong!). With their supplies running out and surrounded by creatures that view them the same way most of us view Thanksgiving turkeys, they're forced to make their own bargains with the powers of the Wild. However, Thorn hasn't forgotten the Jacks either and is preparing to target them along with the Sossag for his revenge.

Meanwhile, back in Alba, the north of the realm struggles to rebuild, central to this is Sir John and Amicia. Sir John was an older knight who had let himself go a bit before the events of the first book but got himself back into fighting trim real fast. He's left as the ranking knight in the North and pushes himself and everyone else to try and keep the lands clear of creatures of the Wild and protect the survivors and new settlers coming in. Amicia is a nun, who is also in love with our main character the Red Knight and is loved by him but won't let herself do anything about it because of her vows. Which is a plot point I like, most modern stories would have Amicia just toss her vows out the window but Amicia means her vows and intents to keep them (Your reviewer and the editor have somewhat different ideas about such things, clearly.). It helps that she's also a sorceress of massive power and growing skill so there aren't many people who can force her to do anything she doesn't want to (You go girl!). Unfortunately, the keeping of her vows leads to one of the people that could bend her, The Red Knight's mother. The woman who wanted her eldest boy to become the bane of humanity but was such an awful person that he decided to become a somewhat heroic figure out of spite. She's also one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world, a politically powerful noblewoman and her husband is one of the greatest warlords in North Alba. I bet you thought your in-laws were tough right? Both Amicia and Sir John are going to have to walk into the heart of their power however to keep the trade lanes alive, because if they don't their town and home withers on the vine.

Further south and deeper in Alba life is still not a bed of roses. The Queen Desiderata is coming under increasing political and social attack. You see, in the last book a small army of knights from Galle - a nation across the sea on the continent where the Wild is but a fading memory - came to Alba under the leadership of Jean de Vrailly. Jean de Vrailly considers himself the greatest knight alive, something a lot of people would dispute but Jean is definitely in the top 1% of best killers alive so disagreeing with him is hazardous. While Thorn might be more dangerous, I honestly loath Jean de Vrailly a lot more. Mr. Cameron is very effective at writing him as a heavy-handed bully armored in a sense of self-righteousness that makes you just beg to have someone slam a hammer into his face (That is what a spike and a hammer are for while he sleeps. Killing someone while their back is turned or they are asleep is the safest way. Such sayeth anti-saint Elim Garak). The Gallish knights were certainly useful when the armies of the Wild were kicking in the gates but now, there's no enemy to point them at and they're ambitious. Jean believes that the crown of Alba has been promised to him by the Lord Almighty and the Queen is one of the obstacles in his path. So he spreads rumors that the Queen has been incredibly unfaithful to the King. Now historically a lot of Queens have been less than faithful to the Kings they've been wed to, but it's incredibly dangerous for that to become a public accusation. Part of this is because bearing the royal heir is a large part of her political duties. Which is an issue because most of the kingdom believes that the King was cursed to be sterile (and he deserved that curse and more bluntly) and the Queen is pregnant. The Queen isn't without friends or powers of her own though, her own magical abilities are growing stronger by the day and that strength has attracted the attention of something old and vast but at least somewhat benevolent. The King, however, instead of standing with the wife who has given him no cause to complain has sent most of the native knights who would defend her off on various missions giving the Galles a freer hand then they would have otherwise. The Queen and her ladies aren't the only ones feeling this, however, nor is Jean de Vrailly acting on his own. The common people of the realm find themselves beset by toughs who ape the Galles, which in this case means going around armed and trying to bully people into letting them do whatever they want via threats of violence. Facing off against them are the armed bands of the various Guilds and the apprentices of various trades as they find themselves under pressure to be more accommodating to the foreign knights.

Jean de Vrailly is just the tip of the wedge here. The King of Galle and his ministers see the chance to reduce Alba to a puppet state or colony and are prepared to pull out all the stops to make it happen. Whether it be through economic warfare by making counterfeit Alban coins that are made from debased metal or hiring their own mercenary army to head into the North of the Wilds and build a base from which to assault North Alba. They have a mercenary army led by a man with his own colorful nickname, the Black Knight: a man whose earned his nickname by having no level he won't stoop to win and now he's loose on the same continent as all the characters we already know and love and looking to make life harder for them. It's like we don't even need Thorn to burn down half of human civilization here. I should note that there are plenty of sympathetic characters from Galle, such as Jean's cousin who is constantly trying to restrain his worse impulses to Clarisse de Sarte, a young woman who has the misfortune to catch the eye of the King of Galle, a man whose gifts do not match his ambitions, to put it mildly. Actually I do have to note that we run into three male monarchs here, the Emperor of Morea, the King of Alba and the King of Galle and all of them are men who are not up to the task of ruling in a time of crisis, and are at the helm of nations experiencing several crises all at once (Such is the peril of hereditary monarchy). Which leaves me wondering... Just how long has whatever is using Thorn been active and just what the hell has it been up to? Because, gentle readers, once is an accident, twice is happenstance but three times is enemy action and we have a wealth of enemies here. That said there is hope in the fact that each of these monarchs has a more capable Queen or Princess around and we’ve got one hell of a bastard aiming himself at all of the enemies of man.

I enjoyed The Fell Sword a lot but was also somewhat frustrated with it. As you guessed from this review there is a lot going on in this book, to the point that 600 pages barely feels like enough and I'm left feeling that there wasn't enough space given to the Morean plot. There was a lot of intrigue and scheming that was left off panel so to speak, and the relationship between the Morean characters and the Alban characters really could have used more space and attention. Those relations aren’t badly written just feeling a bit sparse. Additionally a lot of the plots in these books feel more like set up for the next book (or the one after that) which I don't mind as Mr. Cameron does make an effort to put a good amount of pay off in this book for at least half the storylines, but when the book is this crowded I am left asking if this was the best use of pages? For example, I feel like the story-line featuring the Gallish court could have been moved to the next book and I was left unsure what the point of the story-line featuring Amicia and Sir John was; it didn't feel connected to much of anything going on in this book. Additionally, I'm not sure the story-line with the Jacks was necessary at all. Granted, Mr. Cameron is the writer and I’m just the reviewer but we’re still staring at 600 plus pages here. All the story-lines are well written and honestly, a less talented writer would have been thrilled to have just one of them to hang a good novel off of. I suppose it's telling that my biggest complaint is that it feels like Mr. Cameron is trying to cram three really good novels into a single one but there is it. I do feel that it hampered the pace and robbed space from all the story-lines. I suppose I'll just have to hope that Mr. Cameron starts merging plotlines soon because he does seem to be building up to something amazing and he certainly does have the talent and skill to pull it off in my opinion. However, this continues the problems I had with The Red Knight (although I still recommend both books). So I am giving The Fell Sword by Miles Cameron a B+. I remain hopeful that this series will break into A territory though.

Join us next week as we finally wrap up the Acts of Caine series with Caine's Law by Matthew Stover.  Keep Reading!

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Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

GI Joe: Classics Vol I By Larry Hama

GI Joe: Classics Vol I

By Larry Hama 

So imagine you're a Hasbro executive in the early 1980s and Kenner, a rival toy company just handed your company the profit beating of its life with it's Star Wars action figures. I mean the company isn't in any real danger but this is eating into your market share and the boss just told you that the bonuses are now on the line (which puts your cocaine hot tubbing weekends in serious danger [Oh man! I’ll only be able to use ONE my my private jets and snort five eightballs from the asses as eight high-end hookers instead of two trips on different private jets and double the hookers and blow! Noooo!]). You got this product line, GI Joe, it was big in the 1960s but the Vietnam War has left the market for military toys kinda small. So what do you do? Apparently what you do is call a comic book company and rebuild from the ground up, changing the size of the toys, the backstory (not that there was much before), everything (The other thing you’ll do is pressure the government to change the law so you can put unlimited adverts in children’s programming and then use that to create an entire TV show that is basically one giant advertisement.) The company they called was Marvel, who in turn called in Larry Hama.

Larry Hama was born in 1949 in New York, a third generation Asian American raised in Queens. He grew up in his own words “playing Kodokan Judo as a kid” and later studied Kyudo (Japanese Archery) and Laido, which is a Japanese form of swordsmanship focused on using smooth controlled motions to draw your sword, cut your opponent, clean the blood from the sword and return the sword to the scabbard. He was also very passionate about art and that led him to study at Manhattan's High School of Art and Design, where at the age of 16 he sold his first comic to the fantasy film magazine Castle of Frankenstein. After graduation, he worked drawing shoes (Back in the hoary days of yore when an artist could earn a living…) for a catalog until serving in the Army Corps of Engineers in 1969 to 1971, where he became a firearm and explosive expert (As you well know, demolition is an art, and a science.). Afterward, he would find himself active in New York's Asian community and moved into the comic world, where he did some work at Marvel before landing as an editor for DC. While at DC he worked on Wonder Woman, Mister Miracle, Super Friends, and the Warlord. Around 1977 or 1978 he created Bucky O Hare. In 1980 he returned to Marvel (where he met his wife Carol) and worked on the comic The 'Nam and Wolverine. He also started working up a pitch for a spin-off of the Nick Fury comics, Fury Force. Fury Force would have been a daring special mission force battling the evil forces of Hydra. Instead, he got tapped to write GI Joe, and collaborated with Archer Goodwin to come up with Cobra to play the villains to the Joe’s Heroics. Ironically Hasbro was worried about selling bad guys (those bad guys became 40% of their sales) and about selling toys based on girl joes (also had no problems selling those) (It’s almost like sexist bullshit is bullshit.) Hama and Marvel stuck to their guns however and we're all better off. Hama's introduction of female characters who were motivated, tough and not willing to be defined by their male co-troops brought in a remarkably high female readership. Under Mr. Hama's leadership, a diverse cast also made up the GI Joe team members which in a lot of ways would support its longevity and this comic had legs. It ran from 1982 to 1994 with 155 issues, 147 were written by Hama, 2 were co-written by him and one was penciled by him. By 1985 it was Marvel's top subscription title and received 1200 fan letters a week. It was also credited with bringing in legions of new comic book readers as GI Joe was their introduction to the comic medium. Now a lot of this was Mr. Hama being willing to ignore the cartoon (given it didn't start until 1985, he kinda had to) and other sources. Additionally, Hasbro was willing to give them a large degree of latitude and Mr. Hama was writing the profile for each character's toys as well. This is just as well as Mr. Hama did not shy away from confronting and tackling the issues of military life or the contradictions of being in an organization that preaches ideals of honor and duty while asking its members to do often very dark deeds. Because let me be blunt, war is full of dark deeds even if you don't break a single law of war. The laws of war aren't there to prevent horrible things from happening, just to make sure that they're horrible things everyone else can live with (Well… almost everyone…That’s kinda where the horrible things come in. Unless the war gets really bad and “almost everyone” becomes a bit more relative.). Mr. Hama's own experience in returning from Vietnam also makes an impact here. In the GI Joe comics, you'll find little glory or jingoism but you will find a considered look at what being a soldier, sailor, marine, or airmen means. Even if it's dressed up in colorful outfits and takes place between stories of punching everything from terrorist, mutants, and manic robots (Are they really Manic? I mean, that’s a psychiatric symptom. Do the robots have prolonged periods of euphoria, hyperactivity, grandiose delusions, and poor impulse control?{I don't know ask Megatron or Starscream}). What's interesting is that while GI Joe might be Mr. Hama’s most lasting contribution to the world, it's not what he was aiming for. He originally wanted to write comics featuring more anthropomorphic creatures, like ducks. He's mentioned that his greatest ambition is to write for Scoorge McDuck and I dearly hope someone gives him a shot.

The first graphic novel collects issues 1 through 10, there's not really an overarching plotline connecting the issues but the stories all interconnect and feed off of each other. The series starts off in media res, not giving us an origin for Cobra or for the Joe Team but does introduce us to characters like Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Duke, Cobra Commander, Dr. Venom, and Baroness. At this point, we really only see the basic Cobra troopers and the Baroness serving as Cobra Commander's right-hand woman (Dr. Venom staying safely in his lab [As is good and proper. We academics ought not risk ourselves on the field of battle! What are you mad? The only ones who should do that are the Applied Computational Demonologists and Combat Epistemologists who might be necessary if creatures with Too Many Tentacles And Mouths rise from the vasty deep to eat our brains]) and the GI Joe team is a very small group barely more than a squad in size. The unit's very existence is top secret with the troops posting as the motor transport element of the Chaplin's assistance school, in Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. A little fun fact, Fort Wadsworth was a real military base until 1995, it's currently part of a National Recreation Area. Their secret base the Pit is hidden underground and the Joes have to conduct their mission in secret keeping that information even from other soldiers in the base. The comics mainly focus on the Joes while on missions and show that while they are mostly operating against Cobra, they are used for a variety of other missions. That said we start to get a sense of who these Joes are, even if some of the more colorful characters haven't shown up yet. They are sent on missions such as rescuing a Doctor who was in the middle of decrying the US Military when Cobra kidnapped her, investigating the disappearance of a US science station, and even going into Afghanistan for their first confrontation with the Soviet Oktober Guard; the USSR's own top-secret special missions unit. In what might be considered a story ahead of its time, there's even a mission where the Joes have to infiltrate a militia unit that might be looking to not just survive World War III, but start it (Weirdly prescient that one…). We also see Mr. Hama's willingness to set out the not-so-glamorous side of military service, long hours doing boring work like cleaning weapons or being sent out on missions to serve as a glorified decoy without even realizing that everything you're doing is a feint (Afterall, G.I. Joe was written as a toy advertisement, not a military recruitment tool). I'd just like to point out that Stalker's reaction to that is very realistic. We do manage to get some sense of the Joes as people, Clutch is a fast driving maniac who is a womanizing pig. Breaker is a huge computer nerd. Stalker is a man who enjoys being out in the wild and will take pictures as readily as he will take headshots (I’ll be seeing you, you won’t see me; with my telephoto in the night. It’s only right. Put Cobra in the gunner’s sight, bombs in the night, Recon-Scouts foreveeeeeer). Scarlett is a driven and motivated woman willing to take on the entire planet just to make people take her seriously. As a group or individuals, the Joes will be sent all across the planet to counter threats to the United States and its allies and hopefully advance the cause of freedom and democracy... Even if it's indirectly by preventing Cobra Commander from killing those ideals. Each issue gets its own mission with the focus being on different characters and different interactions. For me, the most colorful interactions were between Stalker and the Oktober Guard or Clutch and Scarlett. Frankly, Clutch is lucky that Scarlett was under military discipline, otherwise, they would never find his body (And nothing of value would be lost? {Well, he is a really good driver, but it is a big military gotta be at least one other guy or girl who can drive that well.}). If your main exposure to the Joes and Cobra before this was the cartoon, you're gonna find this a little confusing. My best advice is to forget that the cartoon even exists (Good advice for everyone, really).

Cobra hasn't quite reached it's fully realized form here, however. Most of the Cobra cast hasn't been brought into the story yet and there are elements that feel out of place to a reader looking back from decades in the future. Such as the quasi-fascist and not-so-quasi salutes that the troops use (there's a panel of Baroness giving a full out Nazi salute in the background for example) and a semi-deification of Cobra Commander that has the rank and file willing to go to their deaths on his orders. I can't say that this Cobra is unrecognizable however, it's clearly a matter of time and experimentation for Mr. Hama to fully express the unique brand of crazy evil that Cobra is. However, it does suffer from a lack of characters on team bad guy and not much explanation of just what Cobra is trying to do beyond “We're bad guys, we wanna rule the world.” We also get a number of nonaligned characters, my favorite being Kwinn, who is called an Eskimo but is actually an Inuit mercenary (I should note that the modern-day Inuit consider Eskimo a slur and ask that term a slur and ask that we don't use it anymore, that is how he is referred to in the book, which to be fair was written in 1982. So no hate to Mr. Hama here, but this will be the last time we refer to Kwinn as anything but an Inuit) who always fulfills his contract and has his own odd but understandable morality. He's the first character to actually really pull off a win against the Joes (of course he shows up in the second issue). Which brings up the interesting fact that the Joes don't pull off a 100% win rate in their own comic, or even in their first 10 issues which aides in it feeling realistic. Kwinn has an interesting character arc in the GI Joes series, but it's only his introduction that happens here so we'll have to wait till further reviews to cover it.

The comic is also full of the military slang and jargon of the period, which had changed drastically by the time I got into uniform. That said the terms are always defined clearly in the issue when they are used and Mr. Hama avoids going too far into the weeds I think. Keeping in mind that this comic is meant to sell toys, Mr. Hama also makes a point to give the gear and vehicles that the Joes were using space to shine as well, so you do have to put up with Steeler the tanker waxing poetic about the MOBAT, the Joes tank. That said I've run into tankers who actually do that, so it's not that out of place (I mean, we both know Military Hardware Nerds who do this and some of them never served. So of course the actual tankers are gonna do it). Plus I imagine any tanker who gets inducted into a special mission team would have to be fairly obsessed with his vehicle. This comic isn't for everyone if you flatout have no interest in anything military you're going to hate it, on the flip side if you're only mildly indifferent the character interactions and arcs have a strong chance of pulling you in. The character relationships are still being worked on here but you can see the roots that are going to grow into strong trees that will bear up one of the longer lasting series in comic history. I do fully recommend that you give the comic a try unless the very idea of the subject matter turns you off completely. I'm giving GI Joe Vol I a B+, mainly due to the fact that Cobra needs more time to develop and if we're going, to be honest, I know how much better this series is gonna get. Especially once we get Destro and Roadblock rocking across this battlefield.

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In the Red Text you had your editor Dr. Ben "only plays a recon scout on tv" Allen
In the Black Text you had your reviewer Garvin Anders.