Linda Nagata

Every major war inspires a science-fiction novel. Starship Troopers is a paean to World War II Marines and Paratroopers, now dropping into an atomic hell against commie bugs. Vietnam inspired The Forever War with its reluctant draftees and purposeless battles. Now, with The Red: First Light, Nagata has given us the milSF novel for the Global War on Terror.

Lt. James Shelley is the commander of a Linked Combat Squad, an American infantry unit with powered exoskeletons, HUD targeting helmets, show more drones overhead, neural implants that suppress stress, and comlinks to each other and "Guidance" back in the states that give them an uncanny ability to coordinate. The enemy is well... anybody overseas will do, as the cynical Shelley explains to his squad: War is profitable, and defense contractors manipulate the media to ensure that people like Shelley are out there somewhere, on the end of a very long supply chain that can be milked dry.

Along with all the high-tech gear, Shelley has a 6th Sense, or maybe a direct line to God, that warns him about danger. His uncanny alertness saves him multiple times on patrol, only failing when fighter jets that shouldn't have even been in the war blow the hell out his outpost. Shelley loses his legs, and becomes the test subject for an experimental program in neuroprosthetics. Meanwhile, the army and Shelley's ex are coming to terms with the fact that Shelley's 6th Sense is because something is dancing through the best military grade encryption to manipulate Shelley's mind.

The entity, an AI that antagonist and bugfuck-nuts defense contractor CEO Thelma Sheridan identifies as the Devil deems "the red stain that creeps through human affairs" and which is adapted as The Red by Shelley and his friends, seems to be manipulating thousands or millions of people via subtle chains of coincidence. As Shelley recuperates and learns to use his new cyborg legs, Sheridan launches an all out assault against The Red, using tactical nukes against key data centers in an attempt to cut The Red apart in the Cloud. Millions of people die, the country is paralyzed, The Red limps along, and Sheridan retreats to an arctic lair to plot her next step, insulated from the consequences by her immense power (remember, this is a private citizen with a nuclear arsenal). The final third of the book is a sheer rocket, as Shelley attempts to bring Sheridan to justice, with terrible terrible cost.

The Red: First Light is a great story, balancing action and Clancy-esque "tomorrow's weapons" (trust me on that one, I know the subject), with rich characters and some worrying insights about the rise of algorithmic filter bubbles, ubiquitous computing, and the power of super-elite individuals. I'm excited to see how the rest of the series plays out. show less

Linda Nagata’s second novel is many things: the second installment in her Nanotech Succession series; the story of Katie Kishida, a woman fiercely committed to resurrecting her husband Tom in cryonic suspension; and a near future novel now interestingly dated in some aspects.

While it is a step backwards in time from the first novel in the series, The Bohr Maker, to an indeterminate time in the early 21st Century, this novel is a noticeable improvement in Nagata’s skill. While the show more nanotechnology is less sophisticated than in the earlier book, the science is actually more detailed, specifically the challenges of maintaining someone in cryonic suspension and then reviving them. While still maintaining a fine sense of pacing, Nagata breaks up her viewpoint chapters with Kishida with snippets from popular cable tv and internet based entertainment and “Wedged Time” segments which are the dreams of Kishida’s husband Tom while he is a corpsicle.

Katie’s story is infused with an emotional intensity I seldom come across in science fiction. As fits an epic story which will cover thirty years form the time of Tom’s death and suspension to the book’s climax, the novel opens in media res with a 64 year Katie approaching a hidden crypt in an abandoned copper mine where her husband lies. Then the novel backtracks to show the political struggles of Katie with her sister-in-law, a powerful US senator; the attempts on her life; the bitter falling out with former friends over her decision to freeze rather than bury her husband; and, of course, the efforts to fund – and be allowed to use – a cure to revive her husband. And, with the betrayals of family and friends, comes the betrayal of Katie’s heart – the occasional resentments at the duty Tom’s “presence” requires, his hold on her loyalty when she takes a new husband.

If you are absolutely one of those science fiction readers who can’t stand dated science fiction, it’s possible you might be somewhat annoyed with this novel. This book has dated some in the 16 years since it was first published. That sort of thing doesn’t bother me, but, here, I found the “dated” aspects actually added an additional element of interest by showing a future different but similar to ours. On the somewhat trivial level, Nagata depicts a future with little air travel since terrorists have downed planes with missiles. While virtual reality has not taken off the way that this novel – and many science fiction stories of the 1990s – depicts, here it resembles what we would call social media. That turns out to be a major development in the decay of nation states and the beginnings of a new global order the world undergoes during the story’s timeline. Finally, Tom’s sister, Senator Carlson, fights the notion of cryonic suspension because of its expense and the resources need to find the cure necessary to revive him – a big expenses for a United States with national health care. That certainly is a valid prediction of the crimp in medical research that will be necessitated with the recent lurch toward nationalized health care America has taken.

But, ultimately, it’s Katie that fascinates and carries the reader through the story. She oddly reminded me of a female Odysseus struggling and wandering to regain the home and arms of her mate. show less

A noir murder-mystery set in a future where nanotech biotech is ubiquitous - but strictly regulated. The story does an excellent job of capturing the angsty tropes of the genre, while creating a scenario that depends on its imagined future - the sci-fi setting isn't just a veneer.

"The Last Good Man" is a Compelling immersive tale of a near-future Military Contractor seeking the truth about her son's brutal execution.

I wasn't sure this would be my kind of book. Set in the near future, it tells the story of a woman soldier working for a Private Military Contractor (PMC) licensed by the US government, who finds something she doesn't like while on a hostage rescue mission.



I see PMCs as a scourge on the earth and the US's tendency to use force in countries it's not at show more war with as criminal, so I doubted I'd be sympathetic but I was curious, so I gave it a try.



Three hours into this fourteen hours long audiobook, I was hooked. The first mission was still in progress and I still didn't know what the bad thing was that our soldier was going to discover but instead of finding myself tapping my fingers in impatience at the pace, I was enjoying myself. I found it unexpectedly compelling to get a blow by blow account of the planning and execution of the mission. it felt real. It was tense without being melodramatic.


One of the things that kept me reading was the credible but very scary biomimetic robotics being used. This is not far out tech. Many of the physical characteristics are already available and the AI and Swarm technologies are catching up fast. When they become available for real, they will transform warfare, and terrorism and private armies and organised crime.


I also liked the thoughtful way in which the role of PMCs was talked through. The dangers of having a private military capability that makes money from was but has no incentive to bring or keep the peace were given ait time, as was the impact of a boundaryless war: the ability to pursue a conflict globally, based on infrastructure capability rather than national sovereignty.


The most surprising thing for me was that the book managed to be character-driven. The soldier, Tru Brighton, ends up on a very personal quest for the truth around the public and barbaric execution of her soldier son eight years earlier. This worked partly because Tru is likeable as a mature soldier and as a mother and partly because her quest is not for comfort or even for revenge but just to know the truth.


There's a reasonably complicated plot that kept me invested all the way through without making me feel I was being teased in the way some smug bet-you-didn't-see-that-coming thrillers do. It allowed some great action scenes and a constantly shifting perspective on the truth as new facts came to light.


I listened to the audiobook version and was impressed by how well Liisa Ivary delivered the story. She has tremendous range in both pace and characterisation.
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