Kevin Ikenberry's Steel On Target (The Buzzer War Book 1)
Day 3 Of Jimbo's Awesome Memorial Day Event
Welcome to Day 3 of my four day Memorial Day Weekend Event. We’re rocking right along and might actually get this thing done on time this year. Stranger things have happened. Like uhhhh…
Sumfin’. I’m pretty sure.
Anyway...
Today's victim is Kevin Ikenberry, a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, having served as an armor officer and in Space Command. He says he got to play with a lot of cool toys as a member of Space Command. I wanted to ask what they were but I didn't because I don't need to be arrested for espionage if any of it is classified. I mean, I love the vets and I love my readers but I love my kids too and if I get busted for espionage I get separated from them.
I hear you out there....
But Jimbo, what about the book?
Kevin Ikenberry put some serious steel on target with this book. Err… I mean this review is all about Kevin Ikenberry’s Steel On Target (The Buzzer War Book One). Sorry, easy mistake to make and I’m writing this on a Monday, although if I did it right you’ll all see it on a Sunday. But seriously though, Ikenberry hit the mark this time. He’s right on target with his projections about what humanity would do upon meeting a hostile alien species for the first time. Being a former military officer, he hits the bullseye with the types of questions his characters ask to figure things out. And when it comes to the military feeling of the book, Ikenberry is definitely zeroed in.
Ikenberry is a damn fine writer with a background in the military and that translates to some excellently written Military Science Fiction. His background with the whole space thing helps too. I’ve never been a fan of “write what you know.” I’m writing an urban fantasy and while it’s set in my hometown, I don’t know to to make myself invisible and incorporeal or how to use magic to control a truck with no one in it, or make a hungry bear stand next to a deer calmly. That being said, it might just make sense to say that someone should know what they write and Ikenberry very clearly does. He’s been there, done that, and it shows.
Seriously, not to spoil too much, but when the bad guys (aka The Buzzers) show up there is next to no cooperation between different combat arms in the Army and any collaboration between the Army and the Fleet is right out. Everyone wants to exist in their own little fiefdom and never mind anyone else’s concerns. This is a problem, as should be evident not just to those who have served (like Ikenberry) but also to anyone who has read ten solid minutes of military history.
The command situation in the Union Army during the America Civil War was a mess, especially in the East and, in my opinion, made a good general in Robert E Lee look like a genius. Combined Arms Warfare was an invention of Gustavus Adolphus in the 1630s. (For comparison, the Alexander and his troops had fought the Battle of Gaugamela against the Persians roughly two thousand years before.) And, of course, close air support was invented by the US military during World War II. All of that works but it should have been invented sooner.
*SIGH*
Never hand a historian a soapbox. You might not get it back.
All of that to say that Ikenberry’s assumption about the necessity of cooperation between the branches (however one wishes to term it) are spot on. It also seems likely that a military that hasn’t fight a war in awhile could devolve into a situation where they don’t have that cooperation in place because human beings are naturally more interested in how to make themselves look good and protecting their own than they are in looking out for each other, at least until the fecal matter has well and truly struck the rotary air impeller, as indeed it does.
Of course, Ikenberry used to be in tanks and he writes his story like a tanker. Pride of what you do is part of any branch of the military and any Military Occupational Specialty within it. Ikenberry’s tankers are the heroes of the story and, really, the first human forces to engage with the enemy on the ground and have any real effect. There are reasons for this, at least one of which has to do with the story itself, but it’s there. That’s a good thing though. You can’t ask much more of an author than that they write a quality story and show themselves the way they actually are. Ikenberry manages to do both here.
Ikenberry’s main character is a guy named Michael Sandhurst. I like Sandhurst. He’s a soldier’s soldier. He gets the job done, but he does it in a believable manner. He’s not Rambo. Sandhurst finds a way through without being a world ending superhero. He works with his unit and fights as part of a team. He’s an officer who doesn’t give up on his people. He doesn’t always find it easy to avoid micromanaging, but he learns his lessons along the way with the help of a friendly NCO.
The supporting cast is cool as well. We’ve got infantry, tankers, pilots, the high command and probably some others I’m forgetting about. Everyone seems to be right for what they are. I probably said that wrong, but it’s true. The supporting cast has does what they would do if they were real. That’s not quite right, either. Just know that Steel on Target is filled with believable characters doing believable things for believable reasons and it somehow all works out as being more entertaining than my entirely believable actual life.
The villains of the piece, the so called “Buzzers” are pretty believable as well. We don’t know much about them yet except that they fight well, but they work. No one is sure why they’re here or where they come from, but I like that. It’s the first book in the series. We don’t need to know what size shoe the bad buy wears. We need to know what they can do. Blaine Lee Pardoe does this well in his Land & Sea series as well. If and when humanity ever encounters an alien species establishing communication is going to be hard to establish. Violence seems likely if only because someone (on either/both side(s)) will do something that seems normal but the other side doesn’t appreciate and it’s on from there. At that point, there’s no way to establish a peace because the two sides can’t talk to each other.
Steel on Target is the first book in a series and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of them, although I think they’re not all out yet. You can blame Ikenberry for that since, if it were up to me, he’d put out three books a day and I’d be buried trying to keep up. Whatever. I’ll shut up while you go and buy yourself a copy of the book now. You’ll thank me later.
Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Drinks from Carlos
Steel On Target
Kevin Ikenberry
Aethon Books, 2024
Steel On Target is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you: