Jason

Two stars and that's only because I'm feeling generous. What a stinker. The plot had potential, but unfortunately, the writing did not help at all. Holy crap, it was bad.

Just some nitpicks:

1. There's one character in the book who is always referred to as either Commander Will Matthews or Will Matthews, but never just Will or Matthews. I have no idea why. None of the other characters are given similar treatment. It actually gets ridiculous because there are several points in the book where his full name is given in the same paragraph. In one instant, it was in adjoining sentences.

2. After taking over the cathedral, the hostage-takers claim that they've planted explosives that they'll detonate if the police try and storm the cathedral.They didn't, but the cops didn't know because they didn't bother asking any of the thousands of hostages the bad guys released early on if they had seen them wiring up explosives.

3. Overall, the cops all act like absolute morons and it's obvious no research was actually done into how they would handle the situation.

4. Michael Bennett just exists for most of the book and does little during the main plot until the very last part. Otherwise, he just cycles between the crime scene, going home to his kids, and visiting his dying wife in hospice. His contributions to the hostage situation is largely relegated to talking to the leader of the hostage-takers on the phone in brief calls.

5. When the go to arrested the hostage-takers at the end, they do so while they're at work (in a prison) instead of showing up at their homes and arresting them quickly and quietly.
6. The reveal of the mastermind was disappointing because it felt like it was just pulled out of someone's butt.

Having said all that, I do plan on reading the other books in the series because I want to see if there's any improvement in the writing or not.

Actually read this back when I was in high school and I still remember quite a bit of it. A lot more than I ever expected to. The one oddity of the book is that it shifts between Dwayne Johnson the person and his wrestling persona, The Rock. IIRC, the former covered more serious and important parts of his life, while the latter was basically The Rock cutting promos. Despite this, it was a highly interesting biography and one I would recommend to a fan of professional wrestling.

Maybe it was just the audiobook and the way the people read it, but the dialogue was...not great. I don't know if that's just how Don DeLillo writes dialogue, but it was the weakest part of the story and dragged the rest of the story down.

I did like the premise, but was disappointed that it wasn't explored more. It felt like a lot of meat was left on the bone.

So first off, I just want to point out that I bought this book way back in 1998 and aside from one failed attempt back then, did not read it until now. This thing's been chunking around with me for 23 years!

Review-wise, I was originally going to give it 3 stars, but realized that that would be overly-generous, so I'm going to settle on somewhere between 2.7 - 2.8 stars. I didn't hate it, but it also isn't making onto any “Best of” list. The book just has too many issues to climb above that.

First off, the book felt dated even for something published in 1998 and I've long suspected that it was written much, much earlier, like maybe the early 90s or even the 80s. For example, the computers are referred to as “compunits” and the description evokes those table-mounted computers from the original Star Trek.

Second, is that Rick Shelley really, really wanted the reader to know that the Dirigent Mercenary Corps is a 100% all beef, baby. There are no women mercenaries, something that Shelley drives home by repeatedly using the word “men” just in case you hadn't already figured out that the DMC is a sausage fest. Indeed, there are almost no women in the book at all. The one that does get mentioned is the wife of one of the mercs. It's just odd and funny because I believe at around the time Officer-Cadet was published, other military science fiction writers were including women in their books. That's one of the other reasons why I think this book is much older than its pub date.

Sidenote: For whatever reason, Shelley decided that that aforementioned merc should be a cuckhold who is not only fine with that the fact that his friends have had sex with his wife (who works as a waitress and sex worker) and encourages the main character, Lon Nolan, to do the same.

Yeaaah...

ANYWAYS, the other problem with the book is that for being one of the top mercenary companies in the galaxy, the Dirigent Mercenary Corps. is...not great. They have their own planet, but keep their entire military force located in one base. That's real convenient for anyone who attacks them, because all they'd have to do is hit one target instead of having to contend with multiple.

They also don't seem to have any ground vehicles because they don't take any with them to the planet they're deployed to. The only transportation they did bring are shuttles that have to pull the dual role of transports and close-air support. So what we get is a lot of walking. A lot of walking. Pretty much a good chunk of the book is just Lon and his unit traveling from place to place on foot. It's just incomprehensible that a military force would show up without ground vehicles.

I'm not sure they even brought machine guns either. They have rifles, grenade launchers, and beamers (directed energy weapons), but I don't recall there being any mention of machine guns. Same with sniper rifles. Really, it's almost like these guys showed up with no heavy weapons whatsoever and were like “YEAH! LET'S DO THIS! YEEHAW, MOTHERTRUCKERS!”

If I'm being honest and I'm trying not to come off as a jerk because the man's been dead for like 20 years, but I don't think Rick Shelley really knew up from down when it came to knowing how a military works.

One final gripe is that we don't find out the motivation of the rebels the MC and the rest of the mercs have been fighting until the end of the book, when it's revealed that they're the remnants of a hyper-fanatical religious cult that tried to take over the Earth, who were dumped on the planet after they lost. It felt like it was tacked on because Shelley needed to throw something in there.

Overall, Officer-Cadet was just okay. I didn't hate it, but I'm likely never going to re-read it again.

Fun book and interesting universe I plan to revisit in the future. My only complaint is that Tully's character development never developed, at least not to a satisfactory level. I get that since the story is told through the eyes of Pyanfar and thus filtered through her own perceptions and biases, it would have been nice to have seen Tully move further beyond half-crazed and scared.

Another fun mil SF romp. Andromeda McKee is fast becoming one of my favorite fictional women. Dietz has managed to create a character who is tough as nails when she has to be, but also can also show emotion and vulnerability. Andromeda avoids falling into the trope of basically being a female version of a male action hero.

I can't wait to finish the trilogy.

(Note: There's two different versions of this book on GR: this one and another with the publisher listed as the author. No idea why. This review was originally posted on the page for the latter)

A solid 3 stars. I would have gone a little higher, but the text errors brought it down more than the lack of depth. I was fine with the latter for the most part because the book is more of a general overview of various cults and that's what I was looking for.

I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did, but I was pleasantly surprised. The Recovery Agent manages to balance itself between being a action thriller and a lighthearted romp without veering too far in either direction. One of the few books I've come across that has made me actually laugh out loud.

Having said that, it didn't stick the landing and the ending left much to be desired. But hey, the journey is just as important as the destination, so I'm not going to let the ending nullify my enjoyment of the rest of the book.

This is an odd book because it's obvious that the plot was secondary to the prose. If you like really nice writing, then you'll enjoy this book. If you like a good mystery, then you won't. The plot is flimsy, the mystery predictable. The Woman Who Married a Bear could very easily have been a literary novel about an alcoholic in Alaska and his interactions with other people, including his born-again ex-wife. Why John Straley decided to make it a (nominally) mystery novel is the real mystery.

3.5 stars.