Gannon, Charles E. Trial by Fire. Tales of the Terran Republic No. 2. Baen, 2014.
When I reviewed Fire with Fire, the first volume in the Tales of the Terran Republic series, I noted that it got off to a good start but slipped into too many conventional military science fiction clichés, but since then, books in the series have been nominated for two Nebula Awards, so I thought I should give the series another look. In Trial by Fire, there are space battles and a multispecies alien invasion of, surprise, Indonesia, so there is plenty of action that is well-described. The novel, though, has three main virtues—an intriguing hero, careful and inventive descriptions of beings here called “exosapients,” and lots and lots of clearly described technology. Caine Riordan, codenamed Odysseus, is a diplomat and quick-thinking analyst, who is drawn into the fighting despite his protestations that he is not really a soldier. His alien friends and foes are well-differentiated, and I especially enjoyed the description of how a future handgun might work. I recommend reading the series in order if you want to keep up with Gannon’s world-building. ( )

Even more so than the first novel in the series, you have to be in the right mood for it.

Unfortunately, this one made a huge departure from the first novel, where you have a square-jawed hero with a fairly strong supporting cast doing heroic things and generally keep a strong presence on the page throughout, only to be pushed pretty much to the sidelines in the second novel because the adventure novel turned into an all-out novel of WAR.

I'm deadly serious. This is a grand example of all-out war, rife with tactics AND strategy, full of space battles and ground battles, from the war's break-out to the Earth's occupation to the counter-attack to the hymnal of bloodshed, reversals, and eventual cease-fire and surprise-ending.

I can't stress it enough. This is a tight single novel encompassing an entirely epic war.

I appreciated how well it was written, how well thought-out the overall strategy, the clarity of the tactics, the heroism and the glorious deaths that so many characters had to suffer. As an example of this sub-genre, this novel managed to keep my attention better than most and I tip my hat to it.

Unfortunately for me, I've never really cared to war novels of any stripe. I've learned to enjoy strategy and tactics over the years, but it's a strain. There was still my favorite characters doing heroic things, although their parts were much reduced or sidelined to very specific categories, and that's fine because a whole damn war can't be fought by a single Caine, but unless you're a fan of military fiction, you might get either lost or simply not care about this novel.

This novel DOES follow a strong Military SF tradition and tributes the hell out of it.

It IS filled with interesting reveals and reversals for both the good and the evil peeps. There's also a more galactic importance associated with the events. It's GOOD.

It's also not for me.

I'm giving it a fairly high rating on all the things it does well, and it does practically everything well. I just wish it was a bit more like the previous novel. ( )