The Red: First Light
-
-
4.8 • 8 Ratings
-
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
There Needs To Be A War Going On Somewhere:
Lieutenant James Shelley commands a high-tech squad of soldiers in a rural district within the African Sahel. They hunt insurgents each night on a harrowing patrol, guided by three simple goals: protect civilians, kill the enemy, and stay alive—because in a for-profit war manufactured by the defense industry there can be no cause worth dying for. To keep his soldiers safe, Shelley uses every high-tech asset available to him—but his best weapon is a flawless sense of imminent danger... as if God is with him, whispering warnings in his ear.
The Red: First Light was a finalist for the both the Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial awards, and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2015.
"...one of the best pieces of near future Mil-SF ever written. What's so good about it? The action rocks and the characters are engaging as hell. But this isn't just adventure fiction, it's Mil-SF and very well done, straight out of DARPA's dreambook, not somebody's fantasy." —Ernest Lilley, SFRevu
"The Red delivers intense action, leavened by a genuinely sympathetic portrait of soldiers caught up in battles they never chose. Best of all are Nagata's well-informed representations of future military tech. This is hard science fiction at its finest, full of devices like bionic limbs, exosuits, autonomous drones, and brain implants that are being developed in labs today. But you've never seen them like this, at play in a realistic field of battle, controlled by people you actually care about." —Annalee Newitz, io9.com
"The Red: First Light is one fantastic speculative fiction novel, from a plotting, characterization, military sci-fi, and thematic standpoint." —Thea James, Kirkus
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This powerful military SF trilogy opener (a Nebula Award nominee in its earlier self-published incarnation) is set in a near future where defense contractors call the shots. "There needs to be a war going on somewhere" at all times to keep the military machine fueled. Lt. James Shelley is an anti-war protestor who only joined the Army to avoid prison. To everyone's surprise, he has a talent for battle and now commands a squadron of high-tech infantry. After a serious combat injury, Shelley's body is augmented by machines, and soon he starts to believe that someone or something is watching over him via his satellite downlink, feeding him hunches that bring victory or at least minimize losses. His men insist that he is like King David, spoken to by God, but he suspects he's dealing with something slightly more mundane: a spontaneously generated web intelligence that Shelley calls the Red, whose motives are unknown. Nagata (The Bohr Maker) writes very good action sequences and the book moves well, even when its protagonist is pinned to a bed and relearning how to use his body. Shelley is a nicely developed character with an interesting voice. Fans of thoughtful, cynical, and not particularly jingoistic military SF will love this book.
Customer Reviews
Tense , fast moving and satisfying
This story moves quickly and is really hard to put down. I found her characters to be sympathetic and very engaging.
I must also mention that while what her hero goes through in recovering from the initial battle is both horrific and clearly only possible in a science fiction story the interior struggles are reminiscent of some personal experiences making that section a. It hard to read at times due to the memories invoked.