Terms of Enlistment, by Marko Kloos

A while back, I linked to the self-publishing story of one Marko Kloos, who after an agent rejected self-published his military SF novel TERMS OF ENLISTMENT and had it take off in a big way. That doesn’t happen all that often, so curiosity demanded that I read the book.

I once heard a joke that every right-wing blogger thinks he has a military SF novel in him, and every left-winger blogger thinks she has an urban fantasy novel about lesbian sex vampires in her. Turns out, Marko Kloos actually did have a military SF novel in him, and a pretty good one, to boot.

The book takes place in a near-future where warp drive has been discovered and humanity has begun colonizing nearby planets. However, it’s not a shiny peaceful STAR TREK future. The world’s major governments have congealed into two competing blocs – the North American Commonwealth and the Sino-Russian Coalition. Rather than nuke each other to oblivion on Earth, the two major powers have agreed not to fight each other on Earth, and instead fight each other in extrasolar space while competing for habitable planets (it’s more like the European nations competing for colonies in the 19th century than the peaceful exploration of a unified humanity in STAR TREK). Meanwhile, the NAC itself seems to be a grimly socialist state, with most of the population gathered in major cities and subsisting off government support, as advances in technology and automation have eliminated most available jobs. Nobody is starving, but the NAC hardly seems like a pleasant place to live.

Our protagonist is one Andrew Grayson, an 18-year-old who has grown up in the tenement slums of Boston. Grayson joins the NAC military in hopes of getting  ticket out of the slums, and perhaps (if he is lucky) leaving Earth and settling on some colony somewhere that’s not so crowded. Unfortunately for Grayson, he gets assigned to the NAC’s ground army, which spends its time smashing minor Earth nations that challenge the NAC and putting down riots in the major cities. However, Grayson’s girlfriend Halley gets assigned to the NAC’s space navy, so Grayson starts to plot to get himself transferred to the space navy and assigned to Halley’s ship…

…and in doing so, accidentally puts himself in the center of events that will change history.

The book was both interesting and an entertaining read. Grayson, with his miserable background and constant challenges from incompetent military officers and people trying to kill him, is a effective protagonist. He makes several questionable decisions throughout the book, but never veers into the territory of Heinlein Idealized Hero or a caricature of a psychotic veteran – he remains a young man trying to muddle through increasingly difficult situations. Also, the book’s setting of the NAC was interesting, with shades of BRAVE NEW WORLD, though in all candor it seems less like a dystopian future and simply more like a more extreme version of the contemporary United States.

I did think the character of Halley, Grayson’s girlfriend, did seem too idealized. During their separation, I kept waiting for Halley to write Grayson a “Dear John” letter (or email, I suppose), or for him to arrive on his girlfriend’s ship to find that she had shacked up with her commanding officer. It also seemed odd that the NAC military was fully gender-integrated, with gender-integrated housing and showers. I don’t know much about the military, but I suspect that rounding up a bunch of eighteen-year-olds, training them to the best physical condition of their lives, and then having them live and shower together is an invitation for all kinds of trouble. But, then, it is science fiction.

Anyway, I liked the book, and I hope there is a sequel.

-JM