Locus Online has published Russell Letson’s lengthy, thoughtful review of Imperium Restored. I quote from a key paragraph:
I will repeat (again) the observation I made at the very start, two decades back: that despite marketing language and cover iconography, these are not only space-operatic military adventures but also novels of manners, which makes them future-setting cousins of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin wooden-ships novels . . . Here character and social observation and the intersection of the private-personal-professional and the large-scale-public are as crucial as the melodrama of battles and Blowing Stuff Up. The Praxis novels are not only about what the protagonists do in war, but about what warfare and its machineries and its disruptions do to them and for them.
Which, for the record, is what I set out to do. I didn’t want to write military SF, but SF about people who happened to be in the military.
I would love to quote more paragraphs, but it would take them a little too out of context, so I will recommend clicking the link and enjoying the review for itself.
Congrats on the great review! And that’s what the best military SF is, stories about people who happen to be in the military, with all the good and bad that brings. (This is why I continue to rave about Robert Frezza’s A SMALL COLONIAL WAR all these years later.)
Sounds great! That was quite an ending for the last book, looking forward to this!
Do you anticipate writing any further stories in the Praxis universe?
Absolutely, Steve! Though I’m working on something else now, because I don’t want to go stale on the Praxis.
Comments on this entry are closed.