At the end of the last book, Alex seemingly gave up on civilian life. She'd been repatriated to Earth after a daring rescue from encroaching aliens (the "Lankies", the aforementioned building-sized monstrosities with bad attitudes), and found that the quiet life of a suburban housing project wasn't really for her. So she joined the same military that had kept her colony alive under the threat of Lankie annihilation, looking for somewhere to fit in, and maybe to get a little payback along the way. And so we come to Corvus, a book where Alex gets to reckon with the consequences of that choice, and where more than a few things explode rather messily.
Alex is...well, she's something of a mess at the start of the book, and working on rebuilding herself and her image as much as the military is looking to reshape her into an effective soldier. She's troubled, yes, and struggling with trauma, but also determined, thoughtful, compassionate - and occasionally downright lethal. What makes her a good protagonist though is that she has heart. She has a sense of duty, and honour, and won't go quietly in the face of losing either of those things. But she's also a pragmatist and a survivor, someone determined to make sure everyone in her teams makes it back alive, even if that means making tough choices, to, occasionally, doing things that might, to the untrained eye, appear crazy. And along with that loyalty to her people, she has a sense of perspective, a sense of the mission that allows us, the reader, to follow along, to sympathise and empathise at her struggles, because we can see a good person working to their limits, trying to get things done, to win, or failing that, to survive, or failing that, to at least go down fighting. Alex is a hero in the clothing of an everyday person, and that makes her easy to root for, and great fun to read about.
Kloos has always had a solid set of chops for worldbuilding, and this book is no different. He's spent a lot of time making the military service for his future Earth seem plausible, and all that extra context and density of detail pays off here. Whether Alexis walking the decks of a space-carrier, or wading through mud and ruins on the surface of a deeply unpleasant world, those places have a history and a texture, sight unseen, freighted with meaning and with little details that make them feel real. It's hard to say what it is that keeps making this work so well, but part of it is the lived in nature of the spaces, and the earnest characterisation, which means that even the oddest bits of the universe are straightforward to accept at face value - you believe in it because the characters do, and you're swept along for the ride. And that's no bad thing, because while the characters are engrossing and entertaining, the world is out there giving their actions something to hang off of, a rich, dense fabric of referents and locations, all of which seem like you could step into the book and visit. Though most of them....you probably wouldn't want to.
As for the story - well, no spoilers, as ever. It trots along at a decent pace, giving you room to breathe here and there before hitting with one twist after another, one wrench or act of heroism or another, one victory, one retreat, one moment of comrades coming together, one profile in courage. It's a story that isn't afraid to show you the Big Aliens and humanity trying to take them down, and do so with action that'll keep you turning pages too late at night, but it's also not afraid to look at the smaller stuff, or to provide emotional stakes that matter as much as the gunfights and space wars do - watching a team come together, watching a group bond and live and die and survive, looking at humanity in miniature, is the heart of the story. Though shooting cool space lasers is great too. Corvus is a worthy sequel to the excellent Scorpio, and I was left a little bereft that I can't start the next book until Kloos has the decency to, you know, write it, which is always the sign of a winner. Definitely pick this up, if you're a Frontlines fan.
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