[rating=4]

While I know Dan Abnett’s work primarily through his Warhammer 40K novels, published through the Black Library (Other people might know him from 2000AD),  I found this one through Amazon’s  recommendation system. It’s nothing to do with Warhammer, so just put that from your mind.

Lex Falk is an award-winning  journalist, having gone from planet to planet, looking for a story. Now he’s on Eighty-Six, burnt out and just passing time.  An experimental procedure sticks him in the head of a soldier, just an embedded observer, along for the ride. When the shit hits the fan, and the soldier is injured, Falk has to take over, and get them out of there.

It’s a very careworn feeling universe, many of the characters either raging against what they see, or already smashed down, resigned to the way things are. It works well, not the grimdark of 40K, but a definite feeling of ‘one man can’t make a difference’. Once Falk’s in the soldier’s head, there’s a strong feeling of him being out of his depth, which is nice to see.

While it’s definitely military sci-fi, that aspect isn’t the primary one. The thriller aspect is. There’s something going on, where the character has to survive to discover the end of it.

 

It’s not what I was expecting, but I don’t regret buying it at all. I enjoyed it a lot.