Steel World - Book Review

Steel World , by B. V. Larson , is a military SF book and the first on the Undying Mercenaries series.

Steel World use some common themes in military SF - aliens came, and for some reason or other humans are now fighting, using a mix of human tech and tech that was reverse engineered/bought/stolen - usually for the fate of mankind.

In this particular case, aliens got the humans to enroll in a galactic empire, and the only thing we could contribute with were mercenaries. The undying part is also not uncommon but fairly well employed - they can clone both your body and the content of your mind right to the point you die.

The story comes from the perspective of James McGill, born in 2099 and who discovered that his only real option after being kicked out of the university is joining the mercenaries. On his first mission, he ends up in a routine campaign in the Steel World - which contains various species of dinosaur like sentient beings of various levels of intelligence which are constantly fighting.

Of course, nothing is as it seems and the fate of mankind (as usual) hangs in the balance of the fight.

Overall, very enjoyable, and I recommend it to fans of the military SF genre.

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