The Trials (The Red, #2)

Lieutenant Shelley's high tech adventures continue in this the second volume in Nagata's The Red trilogy. This story starts a few months after the end of [b:First Light 23309759 First Light (The Red, #1) Linda Nagata https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1435548329s/23309759.jpg 24561453]. Shelly and his “apocalypse squad” are confined while awaiting court-martial for their actions in the unauthorized “First Light” mission. This initially led me to think the book would be one of those tense courtroom dramas, but that part, while strong, turns out to just be a warm-up intro. There are lots of trials to be sure, but they aren't all in the courtroom. Shelly and his team are soon on new and very dangerous missions with civilization itself hanging in the balance. Additionally they find themselves to be targets in international power struggles. Things get very intense.Linda Nagata is a very good and skillful writer and she explores a lot of themes in this book. These include such varied things as PTSD and the camaraderie and brotherhood of combat soldiers as well as extrapolations of present day cutting edge technology into the near future.In summary, “The Trials” is a good sequel to [b:First Light 23309759 First Light (The Red, #1) Linda Nagata https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1435548329s/23309759.jpg 24561453]. Like the first book, it is violent and fast moving. I am quite looking forward to the final book in the trilogy, [b:Going Dark 24885594 Going Dark Linda Nagata https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1439174865s/24885594.jpg 44534204], which will be out later this year.