A Dark and Dirty War.
Siobhan Dunmore, #7.
By Eric Thomson.
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars.
Life hasn’t been easy for Siobhan Dunmoore and many of her fellow veterans since the Shrehari War ended.
The Fleet’s quick return to a mundane peacetime footing left them unmoored and incapable of fully readapting after years engulfed in an existential struggle. Meanwhile, the memories of all those hard-won lessons, paid for with humanity’s dearest blood, are fading as careerists, bureaucrats, and politicians in uniform replace the leaders who brought about the war’s end.
Yet an increasing number of senior officers understand true peace is illusory. Without an external threat to unify them as a species, humans have resumed their favorite activity — fighting each other in dark and dirty wars for power, profit, or glory. And this despite the risk of eroding the Commonwealth’s delicate social and political balance and triggering violent unrest. Ironically, those best suited for stopping nasty, albeit minor conflicts before they escalate, are the very veterans on which the Fleet turned its back.
Will Siobhan Dunmoore and her comrades find a new role in halting what could become fatal to human unity, or will they fade away, unwanted, while the Commonwealth begins a long slide into civil discord?
This is another good book in the Siobhan Dunmoore series and the third great military science fiction I’ve read in a rather short period of time. I could not bring myself to give this one a five star rating though like Prince War Leader and The Burden of Command but that is really because of personal taste more than anything.
The war has ended, for now, and of course the incompetent and politically appointed asshats in the navy screws over Siobhan because she makes them look bad. This is a part of the book that I do not like.
Fortunately there are still a few competent Admirals in the navy and there is this problem with pirates and other assholes causing havoc. So via some suitably devious political manoeuvres Siobhan is put in command again. This time to uphold piece, supress disruptive elements and solve a crime with political motivations.
Siobhan is as likable and kick-ass as always in this book. The book is as well written as the rest of the books but the story is quite different. The commonwealth is not at war any more and the rules of engagement are different. There’s not really any military action in this book. Actually there not much action at all. It is more investigation, posturing, crime solving and, unfortunately, a lot of political shenanigans. It is well done though and Siobhan is really really good at posturing, or maybe I should say threatening.
However, this is why I’m not giving this book five stars but “only” four. This peacetime environment with loads and loads of political bullshit is simply not my cup of tea.
Unfortunately the author also decided to drag in CERN to make some cheap points without really knowing what he was talking about. The tunnel that was used by the LHC is apparently now used as storage by Geneva and it has apparently been moved to be under Geneva.
For Christ sake, read up on things before you throw names around to score cheap points. The LHC tunnel may be long but is also very narrow and hardly suitable to use for long term storage for anything. But more importantly the tunnel does NOT run under Geneva but mostly under France and with a small part of it running under Meyrin in Switzerland.
Yes I am nit-picking but I work at CERN after all so…
What saved the book for me was that the asshats that screwed Siobhan over gets screwed over themselves and Siobhan gets back into the command chair… with a promotion.
So it looks like we have a few more Siobhan Dunmoore books coming. Since the more competent of the navy Admirals have clearly stated their beliefs that the peace will not last so hopefully the next book or books will eventually move back to a more action filled story with less political bullshit in it.
PG's Ramblings 