Outriders
Jay Posey
Angry Robot
UK Print
ISBN: 9780857664501
Format: Medium (B-Format) Paperback
R.R.P.: £8.99
North American Print
ISBN: 9780857664518
Format: Small (Mass-Market) Paperback
R.R.P.: US$7.99 / CAN$9.99
Ebook
ISBN: 9780857664525
Format: Epub & Mobi
R.R.P.: £5.49 / US$6.99

I’d like to thank Angry Robot Books for the review copy of Outriders.  This is a military science fiction novel that’s a heck of a lot of fun.  Jay Posey is an author I’m going to be keeping an eye on.

The book opens with Lincoln Suh dying.  It’s a controlled death done under the watchful eye of the military.  Suh is going through the final steps to join an elite group of special forces, kind of like the Green Berets in space.  Only he doesn’t make the cut.

Instead he’s offered a position in a more exclusive unit, one that engages in black ops.  If he turns it down, he can go back and be a part of the unit he’d been trying for.  He decides to take the offer.

He doesn’t know what he’s getting into.

Earth isn’t politically united.  There are several major power blocs.  Mars isn’t much more unified, but the Martian colonies will present a united front againt anything they perceive to be Earth aggression.  Someone is trying to get Mars into a war with Earth.  They’re assassinating deep cover agents and destroying secret bases.

It’s up to Lincoln and his team to find out who and stop them, without attracting any attention from either side.  All in a day’s work for the Outriders.

Posey switches viewpoint characters from time to time, but the main viewpoint is that of Lincoln Suh.  I found this to be a very effective technique, as many of the other viewpoint characters aren’t exactly Lincoln’s friends, and none of them are his team members.

Lincoln doesn’t have any time to train or become a member of his crew.  They get an assignment before he can get settled in.  He has to jump in with both feet, an officer assigned to the team and pretty much an unknown.  Part of the strength of the novel is seeing Lincoln’s growth to become a trusted leader of the team.  He makes some mistakes, but he learns and grows from them.

Another thing I liked was that this was military science fiction set in the relatively near future and was limited to our solar system, and a small part of it at that.

The pace of the story moves at a good clip.  While there are plenty of places where the characters are shown to be individuals, all of the (for lack of a better term) slow passages are interesting and advance the story.  The tension mounts as the book goes on; after all, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Like I said, Outriders is a fun, fast-paced story with plenty of action and interesting characters.  Check it out.