Control Point
Wrrf. Been a rough week. I'm glad it's winding down.
Between support called (and on the relatively quiet Monday and Tuesday), I was able to finish Shadow Ops: Control Point. I'd seen mention of the book on a fantasy novel review site and was just interested enough to try it.
There's a lot of neat ideas, taking the magic-in-the-modern-world out of the realm of city politics and smack into the military. And you just know if magic were real (and not somehow super-secret), there would be mages in the armed forces. So it's a different slant from usual. And there's a very X-men vibe to the whole thing with how people who come up with these powers are treated, being expected to register and how some applications/types of these powers are pretty much outright illegal whether the wielder can help it or not. There isn't much discussion as to whether a "legal" Latent can avoid being conscripted, but I suppose that's not where the story lies.
What I don't like, though, is how the main character waffles the entire time. I get (and even respect) that the author is painting a world in shades of grey where no faction is necessarily "right," but because the protagonist hadn't decided himself, I couldn't really root for him. It feels even more wrong because the story starts with him as a squad-leader in the Army and from page one he's questioning orders constantly. I'm all for seeing a soldier questioning the morality of certain decisions, but to show such utter and total disregard for the chain of command and the safety of his fellows is actually disturbing to me. Who'da thunk it?
Between support called (and on the relatively quiet Monday and Tuesday), I was able to finish Shadow Ops: Control Point. I'd seen mention of the book on a fantasy novel review site and was just interested enough to try it.
There's a lot of neat ideas, taking the magic-in-the-modern-world out of the realm of city politics and smack into the military. And you just know if magic were real (and not somehow super-secret), there would be mages in the armed forces. So it's a different slant from usual. And there's a very X-men vibe to the whole thing with how people who come up with these powers are treated, being expected to register and how some applications/types of these powers are pretty much outright illegal whether the wielder can help it or not. There isn't much discussion as to whether a "legal" Latent can avoid being conscripted, but I suppose that's not where the story lies.
What I don't like, though, is how the main character waffles the entire time. I get (and even respect) that the author is painting a world in shades of grey where no faction is necessarily "right," but because the protagonist hadn't decided himself, I couldn't really root for him. It feels even more wrong because the story starts with him as a squad-leader in the Army and from page one he's questioning orders constantly. I'm all for seeing a soldier questioning the morality of certain decisions, but to show such utter and total disregard for the chain of command and the safety of his fellows is actually disturbing to me. Who'da thunk it?
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