Paying The Piper

Rating:
Summary: A young lieutenant finds himself in the middle of a hot war
Review: David Drake's Paying The Piper presents a new 'Hammer's Slammers' novel centered around mercenaries and war. A young lieutenant finds himself in the middle of a hot war on an alien world in this story of war for pay.

Rating:
Summary: If your not into military sci-fi don't bother
Review: Paying the Piper is a tale of Hammer's Slammers, a futuristic mercenary organization. In the Slammers universe human kind have settled the galaxy and due to the low population numbers on some of these worlds armed conflicts are settled by mercenary units who are hired by warring parties. Planter's World is such a colony. An economic conflict turns nasty between two factions on this planet and the Slammers are hired to go to war on behalf of one of them.

The story revolves around the adventures of one Lt. Arne Huber who leads an armored hover car platoon on Planter's World.
Drake is a military vet and it shows. he demonstrates an ability to describe the day to day activities of huber and his men with a very strong sense of realism. Despite this fact I found Drake's writing to be somewhat lacking. Drake is not very good at effectively describing a scene and as a result I found myself having to read paragraphs twice in order to understand the setting and action. I become very annoyed with a novel that forces me to do this. (makes me think twice about reading his fantasy series).

My only problem with the military tactics used in the book is the lack of combined arms. (where are all the fixed and rotary wing aircraft) ? Drake never explains why there is no true airpower used in this conflict. Other than that the combat "feels real". All in all this is a good book if your into military sci-fi, however because of Drakes literary shortcomings I don't know if I will be motivated to read any more of his novels.













Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful view of a mercenary company
Review: The planet was rich--at least before they brought in the mercenaries--and the disagreement over a puny few percentage points in loading fees at the local spaceport. But that was enough to let the locals invite in mercenary soldiers including Hammer's Slammers. And once the Slammers are in a conflict, they follow through. How they follow through may not be pretty--and may not be what the governments who invited them in intended, but they follow the money and their contracts, not some abstract ideal of good. After all, it wasn't them who started the war--they simply intend to end it.

PAYING THE PIPER follows the path of Lieutenant Arne Huber from initial landing on Plattner's World to the war's wrapup. Getting there requires Huber to fight across the planet, facing a variety of local militias (hardly worth fighting), and experienced mercenary companies. Sometimes, though, it seems like the enemy is within the nations that hired him. And sometimes, it even seems that the white mice of Hammer's police and intelligence group is the real enemy. But it's up to Huber to find a balance that leaves him loyal to contract, his men, and his unit (although not necessarily in that order).

Author David Drake doesn't delve especially deep into Huber's character, but he does give Huber enough detail to make him sympathetic and interesting to the reader. And Drake's analysis of the military is largely small unit and tactical rather than strategic. But Drake keeps the action rolling, sending Huber from one deadly firefight to the next with virtually no respite.

Although Huber and Hammer's Slammers are the heros and 'goodguys' of the story, Drake doesn't attempt to romanticize war or the military. Most of Huber's men and women are killers, pure and simple. In many cases, they kill when they really don't have to and when the killing serves no useful military purpose. Worse, Hammer command doesn't especially care whether it is supporting properly elected officials or helping those elected through voter fraud. They're there to get the job done. For me, this darker approach to the military future is interesting and timely. By the time the battle is over, everyone is a loser. And Drake doesn't even attempt to persuade the reader that all of this killing has been for a noble purpose.

If you're looking for an exciting military action SF adventure, with just a touch of cynical realism, it's hard to go wrong with PAYING THE PIPER.

Rating:
Summary: Mercenaries wreck another world
Review: This is an average shoot-em-up type adventure novel. The novel is divided into three parts, involving three actions on Plattner's World (although the last part has a fourth action). It should be noted that the novel was published before the invasion of Iraq - readers might find some parts interesting considering events related to that invasion. I had some problems with the writing style. Some sentences seem awkward (I had to go back and reread to understand what I was reading) and the author sometimes writes with an echo, repeating information previously given to the reader, i.e., how many times do we need to know about a man's injuries which caused him to be reassigned to a logistics unit? Under UNESCO standards, 49 pages qualifies as a book. The novel has 358 pages (hardbound edition), and some of the writing could qualify as excess baggage.

This novel is a case of history repeating itself. When politics and diplomacy fail, greed causes various factions to hire mercenaries and mortgage their futures for little or no gain. It makes one think of the War of 1812, where both sides lost heavily, and neither side ended up with much to show for it. In this case, a dispute over tariff fees, and neither side willing to compromise, leads to a costly war. There are the usual anti-war factions, trade being routed through third parties, outside interests becoming involved, foreign agents, and double dealing.

It should be noted that Colonel Hammer never trusts anyone, especially people he is working for, but he always honors his contracts. He may do serious damage to the countryside in the process. You most certainly do not want to get on his wrong side as he might have you shot.

Rating:
Summary: Mercenaries wreck another world
Review: This is an average shoot-em-up type adventure novel. The novel is divided into three parts, involving three actions on Plattner's World (although the last part has a fourth action). It should be noted that the novel was published before the invasion of Iraq - readers might find some parts interesting considering events related to that invasion. I had some problems with the writing style. Some sentences seem awkward (I had to go back and reread to understand what I was reading) and the author sometimes writes with an echo, repeating information previously given to the reader, i.e., how many times do we need to know about a man's injuries which caused him to be reassigned to a logistics unit? Under UNESCO standards, 49 pages qualifies as a book. The novel has 358 pages (hardbound edition), and some of the writing could qualify as excess baggage.

This novel is a case of history repeating itself. When politics and diplomacy fail, greed causes various factions to hire mercenaries and mortgage their futures for little or no gain. It makes one think of the War of 1812, where both sides lost heavily, and neither side ended up with much to show for it. In this case, a dispute over tariff fees, and neither side willing to compromise, leads to a costly war. There are the usual anti-war factions, trade being routed through third parties, outside interests becoming involved, foreign agents, and double dealing.

It should be noted that Colonel Hammer never trusts anyone, especially people he is working for, but he always honors his contracts. He may do serious damage to the countryside in the process. You most certainly do not want to get on his wrong side as he might have you shot.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, not the best
Review: This is Drake's latest Hammer's Slammers book. He does a pretty good job with it. Like many of his Slammer's books it seems to be composed of novellas. In this case it almost seems like three separate short stories that he either wrote as one larger story or wove together after the fact. He even repeats things in the second 'chapter' that seems to assume you didn't read the first. Overall it is an interesting story if not particularly deep. The focus is definitely on the action and not the politics in this one. The ending was a tad cheesy. If you like the Slammers you'll like this one as well.

Rating:
Summary: lack of excitement
Review: While I liked the book overall, I thought there was a real lack of excitement in the battle scenes simply because the Slammers armored battalions simply walk right over their enemies with almost no casualties to themselves. Virtually every battle is the same: the tanks and armored cars go in, blow everything away in their path with little to no losses of their own, then the enemy surrenders. It would have been much more exciting if the Slammers faced an actual challenge from enemies that fired back, instead of the target practice/ turkey shoot battles that pervade the novel.

Rating:
Summary: Always a pleasure to see the Slammers in action
Review: Yet another excellent addition to Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" series. The author has been in an Armored Cavalry Regiment (as have I), and he has been in combat, and it shows in the quality of the action. Personally I find the writing to be quite good, with vivid combat scenes and the occasional dark humor. Often his theme/message entails the hard decisions faced by soldiers in the field. These are decisions that those who have never been in harm's way often find difficult to understand, and which the politician's responsible for putting those soldiers there certainly did not intend, but nonetheless were inevitable.
A side note for purists: there is "combined arms", but no "air support" in his future, since powerful directed energy weapons that shoot line-straight and line-of-sight for 40km make any aircraft that doesn't absolutely hug the surface suicidally vulnerable. This is a story of small units within a Regiment (@5000 personnel) primarily containing both heavy tanks and lighter reconnaisance vehicles, as well as infantry/ artillery/ engineers/ other support