Book Review: Scorpio, by Marko Kloos
A girl and her dog and kaiju-sized aliens.
47North, 2024, 285 pages
On a distant Earth colony, an orphaned survivor of an alien invasion discovers that the greatest world-ending dangers aren’t behind her.
It’s been eight years since an alien invasion drove a small surviving group of settlers to seek refuge in an underground shelter. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the ragtag band has maintained a narrowly functioning colony due to communal effort and salvage runs. Alex Archer has her own duties as a dog handler. While this off-world colony may be harsh, Ash, Alex’s black shepherd raised to sense threats, makes living in it a little nicer.
But the tenuous hide-and-seek with the monstrous species known as the Lankies is about to come to an end for Alex and her close-knit crew of soldiers, techs, and friends. When a salvage operation goes catastrophically wrong, the Lankies home in on the humans.
With hopes of a rescue long faded, all Alex has left is will-and the fear that there’s so much more to lose.
I enjoyed Marko Kloos's Frontlines series, but it went on too long. Set in a future where Earth has become an impoverished shithole and the only way out is through enlistment in the space marines, humanity finds itself fighting "Lankies," an alien race of gigantic kaiju who do not communicate or negotiate, but simply try to stomp humans on whatever world they find them, and xenoform the planets. The Frontlines novels were good military SF that got a bit repetitive, and I was kind of glad when Kloos wrapped up the series.
I picked up Scorpio because it's either a stand-alone novel or a new series set in the same universe. But it really felt like a YA side-novel that was an excuse for Kloos to make a dog the secondary character.
Alex Archer was child colonist on the planet Scorpio when the Lankies arrived. Her parents died in the initial attack, and the remaining colonists managed to survive for eight years, hiding underground and occasionally emerging to try to salvage in the ruins of their former colony. They only have about 150 people, but the handful of surviving space marines still try to maintain military regs. Alex has been trained as a dog handler, and accompanies the grunts on their salvage mission with Ash, a black shepherd who warns them of approaching Lankies.
Unfortunately, I felt like this book spent a lot of time with not much happening, and ultimately it didn't have much to say. Alex is roaming around with Ash and the grunts, there are a few terrifying encounters with Lankies, and then there is a second act which seemed pointless except that it sets her up for future novels. "A girl and her dog" seems to be the main draw here.
The tone was a little YAish (because the story is seen through the eyes of a young adult whose entire teen years have been spent on this colony). Scorpio was okay, but felt like an excuse to return to the Frontlines universe with a new character, without really adding anything new.
Also by Marko Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, Chains of Command, Fields of Fire, Points of Impact, Orders of Battle, Centers of Gravity, Aftershocks, Ballistic, and Citadel.
My complete list of book reviews.
47North, 2024, 285 pages
On a distant Earth colony, an orphaned survivor of an alien invasion discovers that the greatest world-ending dangers aren’t behind her.
It’s been eight years since an alien invasion drove a small surviving group of settlers to seek refuge in an underground shelter. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the ragtag band has maintained a narrowly functioning colony due to communal effort and salvage runs. Alex Archer has her own duties as a dog handler. While this off-world colony may be harsh, Ash, Alex’s black shepherd raised to sense threats, makes living in it a little nicer.
But the tenuous hide-and-seek with the monstrous species known as the Lankies is about to come to an end for Alex and her close-knit crew of soldiers, techs, and friends. When a salvage operation goes catastrophically wrong, the Lankies home in on the humans.
With hopes of a rescue long faded, all Alex has left is will-and the fear that there’s so much more to lose.
I enjoyed Marko Kloos's Frontlines series, but it went on too long. Set in a future where Earth has become an impoverished shithole and the only way out is through enlistment in the space marines, humanity finds itself fighting "Lankies," an alien race of gigantic kaiju who do not communicate or negotiate, but simply try to stomp humans on whatever world they find them, and xenoform the planets. The Frontlines novels were good military SF that got a bit repetitive, and I was kind of glad when Kloos wrapped up the series.
I picked up Scorpio because it's either a stand-alone novel or a new series set in the same universe. But it really felt like a YA side-novel that was an excuse for Kloos to make a dog the secondary character.
Alex Archer was child colonist on the planet Scorpio when the Lankies arrived. Her parents died in the initial attack, and the remaining colonists managed to survive for eight years, hiding underground and occasionally emerging to try to salvage in the ruins of their former colony. They only have about 150 people, but the handful of surviving space marines still try to maintain military regs. Alex has been trained as a dog handler, and accompanies the grunts on their salvage mission with Ash, a black shepherd who warns them of approaching Lankies.
Unfortunately, I felt like this book spent a lot of time with not much happening, and ultimately it didn't have much to say. Alex is roaming around with Ash and the grunts, there are a few terrifying encounters with Lankies, and then there is a second act which seemed pointless except that it sets her up for future novels. "A girl and her dog" seems to be the main draw here.
The tone was a little YAish (because the story is seen through the eyes of a young adult whose entire teen years have been spent on this colony). Scorpio was okay, but felt like an excuse to return to the Frontlines universe with a new character, without really adding anything new.
Also by Marko Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, Chains of Command, Fields of Fire, Points of Impact, Orders of Battle, Centers of Gravity, Aftershocks, Ballistic, and Citadel.
My complete list of book reviews.