Redliners

I'll start off by admitting that I'm a David Drake fan, so until he screws up badly, my reviews are going to be positive. This novel is a nice twist because, while it has a military theme, it has no relationship to the Hammer's Slammers Series. It's about what happens to elite soldiers when they have been in combat too long. The government tries to give them a break by having them do guard duty for colonists. Unfortunately things go badly wrong, and they are thrust back into combat, but this time they have to do something other than fight and move. It's a good exploration of the difficult process of bringing combat soldiers home. The author handles it well by not turning it into a movie-of-the-week tear-jerker but leaves the philosophical analysis to the reader while putting the premise in the context of a great action novel.

I've known Dave since the early 90s. He used to say that the Reaches trilogy was his best book, but since writing Redliners, that's what he points to. He and I both have heard from combat vets about how healing this book is. I put forward that it can help anyone who has suffered any trauma. As Dave says - because it shows 'you're not alone.' Of course, if you aren't into realistic warfare scenes, you wont' be reading Drake. The cover painting says it all.

Any veteran of Viet Nam (and i don't mean just combat vets like Drake, i mean REMFs like myself) ought to recognise what this story is about; it's about damnation and about people who don't deserve it who were sent to Hell, and about redemption.It's about something we didn't get."I think my country got a little off-track; took 'em twenty-five years to welcome me back..." (Johnny Cash, "Drive On")It's about the way that people who didn't understand what some of us had been through regarded us... and it's about the only way those people could possibly have been brought to understand that we weren't (quasi-quoting Drake) toxic waste that sometimes explodes without warning; a way that could never actually happen.It's about letting the veteran prove his worth in his own eyes and in the eyes of others; letting him buy back his pride and his sense of himself as a man, and not as just a hunted/hunting animal/killer. It's about admitting that we OWE the people who fight our wars something... if only a little respect."This is your lucky day -- you been back from 'Nam for only six weeks, and I am gonna do for you what it took someone six *months* to do for me when I came back.""Really? Thanks, brother -- what is it?""Nothin'. Sign here, please." (Robert Blake as an Arizona motorcycle cop, as he tickets a truck driver, in "ElectraGlide in Blue".)The cover painting for this book -- especially *without* the huge sight-ring that is *not* part of the original painting; Baen Books has a terrible record with regard to cover art and treatment of same -- is one of themost striking i have ever seen illustrating a war story, either "real" or sf war.Simply, almost crudely, rendered, showing the combat-fatigued soldier trying to shield the child's body with his own; onhis face the expression almost of a suffering Christ, his eyes fixed in the "thousand yard stare" of what earlier generations called "combat fatigue", still out there on the front, fighting for what he himself may have almost forgotten... Right there, on that anonymous grunt's face and in his actions, is the theme of sacrifice and damnation and redemption that Drake is playing on in his text."It don't mean nothin', snake." (David Drake, "Rolling Hot" [reprinted as part of "The Tank Lords"])This book, at least as i read it, is an attempt to show that that the 'Nam grunts' catchphrase isn't true -- that it *does* mean something and that we *are* worth something."You owe us, long and heavy is the score..." (Robert W. Service, "The March of the Dead")Society owes its soldiers support and gratitude and help.Sometimes it pays off on those debts.Sometimes it's easier to just ignore the redliners you create."But it's 'Special train for Atkins!' when the trooper's on the tide..." (Kipling, "The Ballad of Tommy Atkins")

David Does It Again. Breaking away from the standard military plot, David Drake manufacturers a realistic death-world where soldiers who have been pushed over the edge (from being at the front for too long) manage to regain their humanity. Sounds complicated, but David's imagery and ability to unobtrusively convey detail carry the reader from beginning to end with an all encompassing eagerness. This is a must-have. -a

As a long time Drake fan, and a career soldier, I was amazed and moved by this book. Redliners shows the effects of combat on the combatants, and includes the distaste felt by the civilians for those same combatants. I can relate to all the attitudes expressed. The characters are extremely well-written, and show a depth that is hard to find in a "War" book. I feel that this should be a required read in a Government, or Social Studies class. Bless you, David Drake.