2019 Dragon Award Finalist, Military SF: "A Pale Dawn"

Greetings, one and all, and welcome to the FIRST installment of my SECOND ANNUAL Dragon Awards Finalists reviews!

Good looking award, hey?

Preliminary comments for the series: As was the case last year, I'm going to limit my reviews to four categories: Best Science Fiction Novel; Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal); Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel; and, Best Alternate History Novel. There are six entries in each category, for a total of 24 books (9785 pages), and I have 22 days to complete the task by the deadline.
Fortunately, I have a (tiny) head start, in that I have already read and reviewed three of the nominated works.
Unfortunately, I am experiencing more difficulty in gaining access to the works this year than I did last year. Wise, trusted, and skillful friends are seeking to solve this problem, but at THIS point, I only have  nine of the books I plan to review. However, up until about five minutes ago, I only had EIGHT, so things are looking up.



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Preliminary comments for this book: “A Pale Dawn” is set in the Four Horsemen Universe, abbreviated 4HU. The universe is introduced in a series called “The Revelations Cycle,” which consists of 12 books. That's followed by the “Omega War” cycle, also consisting of 12 books; “A Pale Dawn” is book number 8. (Book 11 in this cycle, “Sons of the Lion,” is also a nominee in this category.) There are additional collections in the 4HU, and books seem to be added almost weekly, so if you find this book to your liking, you may very well have found something to read for the next six months or so.

Preliminary comments for the story: You don't actually HAVE to know any of this in order to enjoy the book, but you may find it interesting.
About 200 years before the time of “A Pale Dawn,” the aliens landed. It seems Voyager 1 had finally left the solar system, which qualified humans as genuine space travelers, thus making them eligible to become members of the Galactic Union. Provisional members, that is; contact was to be limited to certain select species, for purposes of trade. Unfortunately, the Galactics had all the goods, and the humans had nothing except raw materials; and, the Galactics wanted those in massive quantities. Think 'tonnage' and you will have a picture of the exchange rate.
Then, a mistake (sort of) by a poor misguided soul (snicker) revealed the propensity for violence in humans, a trait which seemed to be in remarkably short supply among the rest of the members of the Galactic Union. Vast amounts of credits could be earned by taking on mercenary missions, and 100 human outfits bid for contracts.
Only 4 of those returned. By chance, each of them featured a horse in their insignia, and thus, the name and fame of the Four Horsemen emerged: Cartwright's Cavaliers, Asbaran Solution, Winged Hussars, and the Golden Horde. They formed the core of what became the single income-producing business for the human race, and remained the most prominent of all the companies that followed.
And then, it got weird.
What organization the Galactics had was provided by the various professional guilds; each guild had a near-perfect stranglehold on their area of expertise. And, by the sorts of deals the humans were getting, they discovered that there was some active hostility toward them, even from withing their own guild, the Mercenary Guild. Somehow, a lot of that seemed to stem from an ancient galactic conflict, between two races known as the Dusman and the Kahraman. The humans seemed to be subject to accusals that they had betrayed ancient agreements put into place to prevent to galaxy from being destroyed.
Again.

And it seems to be getting worse. In fact, it seems that the entire galaxy has decided to wipe the humans out. No good reason has been offered.

And THAT'S most of the back story. And you can forget most of it, if you like.

Here's something not to forget: alien societies are NOT run in the same way that human societies are. In  fact, they all seem to be run somewhat differently from each other. The most common factor may be that in the case of most societies founded on a race with binary genders, it is the gender which bears the young that seems to dominate, and to supply the warriors. Other races are non-binary, but those tend not to be capable of providing mercenaries. So, leave your male chauvinist pig prejudices at the airlock, neighbor, they don't serve you well here! The big bug facing you may be female, but she will cut you in half before you introduce yourself, and divvy up your carcass into smaller portions for easy storage and later consumption.

Does all this sound too involved? Even overwhelming? Fear not! A wiki exists, and although it's not yet comprehensive enough to answer every question you might have, it will take you a long way. I have found Rob Howell's wikis for his own books to be excellent, the wave of the future, and he's the guy who set it up. Doug Triplett maintains the site. The link can be found on the website, but I hope it will be included in future releases of the e-book itself.

However, for all you military science fiction fans (like me)  out there: Even if you have never read a single one of the prequels, you are going to LOVE this book!
High tech weapons and communications, often frustrated by low tech solutions;  boomers, bangers, boppers and stompers.
Plenty of exploding spaceships!
SIGNIFICANT military planning, tactics, strategy, and ...
LOGISTICS! From my own time as an army medic, I know a tiny bit about the tail end of the supply chain. How far in advance did they have to package the milk in order to get it in the cooler so it could be served to the troops for breakfast? I don't know that, but I do know that expiration dates matter, and so shipping schedules matter, and the order in which you pack a freight container matters. Don't worry, you will not get bored

All of that is to say: If you SHOULD happen to be stuck in some minor corner of the world, and this one comes into your hands, go ahead and read it. When you return to the world, you can get caught up. Yes. My friends, it is that well done.

HOWEVER, for the vast majority who are pulling down these books as soon as they appear, like a pack of ravenous wolves after bunnies and caribou, this answers questions, asks more, and moves the story along in decidedly lovely ways.

At center stage, we find giant rat-analogue Peepo, the villainous villain who has betrayed the entire universe, but Humans most of all. At times, she almost seems to be on the ropes. The pesky Humans, despite suffering losses, have had the dice roll their way too many times, and may even be starting an end game. Wonder how she will react to all this bad news?

As an illustration of the isolation the humans have come to experience, on the desert rock known as Paradise, Lt Col Walker of the Winged Hussars has to dig in, most literally, with the few troops he has. All of the rest of the troops and equipment had to flee the system in the face of an overwhelming Mercenary Guild force.

Meanwhile, back at the secret base, Taiko Sato is an inquisitive genius who saves lives, and also gets people killed when his plans go wrong. Well, PLANS may not be the right term; if he sees a new piece of technology, he can't rest until he has taken it apart. And maybe made it do two things it didn't do before. Like, make coffee, and open a door into the heart of a sun. He's quite busy, attempting to get back into the good graces of his commander, by repairing and improving everything he touches. Even so, he is, at first, on close confinement. Later, after showing an unexpected ability to cooperate, he is given permission to move about, but ONLY under the direct guard of two Marines, and close observation by a member of the Geek Squad. Nobody could do anything sneaky under that kind of supervision! Could they?

Let's not forget the bosses.  Sansar Enkh of the Golden Horde has visions; Alexis Cromwell, commanding the Winged Hussars, attempts to maintain iron control of herself and her company, despite being all squishy inside at the thought of Nigel Shiraz, owner/operator of Asbaran Solutions; and Jim Cartwright is learning more about his Fae, Splunk, and the  gigantic, ancient mecha than he really wanted to know.

And it all leads up to an assault on Earth and confrontation with Peepo, the rat.

This is going to be a tough category. Not only is there another book in this series represented among the nominees, but one of the authors of a third book has won this category two out of three times. Still you could go for years, and not find such a great combination of personal struggles, technical difficulties, and Machiavellian machinations that you'll find in “A Pale Dawn.” It's not a shoo-in. However, I won't be either surprised nor disappointed if it takes home the award.

Peace be on your household.