Tag: Michael Mammay

by Michael Mammay

ISBN 978-0-06-269468-3

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this title from the publisher.

 “You seem to think of Cappans as a homogenous group… I would suggest to you that they’re as diverse in their thinking as humans.”

Having walked free despite his decision to annihilate much of the population of Cappa, Colonel Carl Butler has started a new life on Talca Four, home to the galaxy’s military bureaucracy. Forced into retirement, Butler now has a nominal civilian title as Deputy VP of Corporate Security at a tech firm that mostly keeps him around for the optics. Divorced and living alone, Butler continues to grapple with his guilt, his infamy, and what the future holds for a man known as the Scourge of Cappa. Then his boss entrusts him with a secret assignment to investigate a rumoured security breach at a rival firm that holds important military contracts. Soon Butler’s sources are turning up dead, and he realizes that what he has gotten himself into is more than a simple hack, and that the stolen information may cost him his life.

Spaceside picks up about two years after the events of Planetside, when Colonel Butler found himself maneuvered between a rock and a hard place, and chose to take the fate of Cappa and its people into his own hands. He thought his decision would eliminate the hybrid super soldiers that were the result of secret military experiments on Cappa, but now, on the streets of Talca Four, he keeps thinking he sees humans with Cappan eyes. Is he finally succumbing to the guilt of all the murders he committed, or just losing his mind? A hero to some, and a pariah to others, Butler has few people he can trust to help him unravel the mystery, and find out whether any of the hybrids made it off Cappa.

Spaceside leans more towards sci-fi mystery or spy novel than military fiction, with only a couple of prolonged tactical engagements, one of which actually takes place in the context of a VR game. Most of the military elements of this installment come in the final pages, when Butler unexpectedly finds himself deployed with a private mercenary corps. Although two years have passed since the events on Cappa, it is clear that they still continue to profoundly affect Butler’s mental health, and cause him to question himself. While we do not land in the immediate aftermath of the mental health consequences of such a deployment, the reverberations are felt as he chooses a path forward, and ponders whether any kind of atonement is even possible in such a situation.

It is a tricky thing to keep a reader’s sympathy with a character who is arguably a war criminal. Butler has charisma, but he also continues to use people to get what he wants, even when that puts them in danger. That he begins to think about atonement, and to see the Cappans in a more nuanced light is small consolation for the continued casualties, even though Butler is merely a cog in an overall corrupt system. If Planetside showed the military in that light, Spaceside turns its attention to how corporate interests perpetuate and profit from the problems of imperialism. A third as yet untitled Carl Butler story is slated for a likely 2020 release.

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by ISBN 978-0-06-269466-9

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this title from the publisher.

“I needed to pound my head against a wall where nobody could see me. The stench around Mallot’s disappearance was getting stronger. A high councilor’s kid had disappeared into nowhere, and somebody wanted it covered up.”

Colonel Carl Butler is working a semi-retirement post at Student Command, only a year from finishing his service, when his old friend General Serata calls in a favour. The son of a High Councilor is Missing in Action on Cappa, one of the highest conflict zones in the universe. But Lieutenant Mallot isn’t just missing; he disappeared off a medical transport enroute back to Cappa Base, and hasn’t been seen since. Worse, no one on Cappa Base seems to want to cooperate with the investigation into his disappearance. Butler arrives on Cappa Base to find tensions running high. Medical Command doesn’t want him in the hospital questioning their personnel. The Spec Ops colonel who has been stationed on Cappa for over two years never leaves the planet, and won’t return Butler’s calls. Something is seriously wrong, but figuring out what may come at price Butler isn’t prepared to pay.

Planetside is narrated in the first person by Butler, who has the kind of narrative voice you might expect in a hard-boiled mystery or military sci-fi. So I was understandably expecting a hard-drinking, womanizing, fairly unlikeable narrator who would probably cheat on the wife he left behind on their home planet. I was therefore pleasantly surprised that while Butler is indeed hard-drinking—he flouts military rules to transport a case of his favourite whiskey to Cappa Base—none of the women we encounter are set up as flimsy love interests or sex objects. I was particularly worried on first meeting Alenda, who is assigned to assist Butler when he arrives on Cappa. Alenda, however, is a thoroughly competent aide, though it takes her a while to earn Butler’s trust. She also has a wife and kids back home. Butler is a bit protective of her in a way that is kind of annoying, but which makes sense for his character. Mammay’s space is also not pasty white, with characters from Alenda to Xiang, Patel, and Chu.

The planet Cappa has strong parallels to the Middle East. It is a desert planet, and Spec Ops intel says that while most of the locals are friendly, there is small but powerful insurgency that continues to fight occupation. Cappa is one of the few planets humans have discovered inhabited by sentient, humanoid life forms, but the desire to mine the silver that is key to many of their technologies overrides any better intentions that might have argued against occupying the planet. Space Command has been fighting there for more than eighteen years, with no end in sight. Mammay doesn’t do a lot of world-building outside of the situation on Cappa, and we don’t know a lot about how humans expanded across the universe. But we do know that it has been a ruthless and imperialist resource-driven expansion that has wiped out lifeforms on planets not habitable by humans in order to facilitate mining. While the lack of sexism and homophobia is refreshing, the military and political structure of this universe is rife with its own issues, mirroring on a universal level the problems that are currently destroying our planet.

Butler spends much of the book trying to get a meeting with Spec Ops chief Colonel Karikov, who has a distinct Kurtz/Heart of Darkness thing going. He hasn’t been up to Cappa Base in over two years, and when Butler digs deeper into the situation, he can’t find anyone who has spoken directly to the Colonel anytime recently. The early part of the book has a vibe that is more mystery than military, but when Butler heads down to the surface, things get more tactical, as obstacles are thrown in the way of his getting to Karikov’s base. These parts were a bit slower going for me, but I was engaged enough in the mystery to push through the descriptive military engagements which I found less interesting, but which would no doubt appeal to the military sc-fi fans who are the more likely audience for this book.

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