Book Review: Centers of Gravity, by Markos Kloos
Book eight in the Frontlines series: more Lanky fights, and then... The End?
47North, 2022, 329 pages
Stranded light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and his crew are on a desperate mission to discover the Lankies’ secrets. They can’t let what they’ve found die with them.
Nine hundred light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and the crew of NACS Washington are marooned in a sunless system with limited water, reactor fuel, and food. The last hope for survival is to go where nothing human has gone before.
After embarking on a scouting mission to the only moon with surface signs of life, Andrew and his Special Tactics Team make two startling discoveries. One is a dream: a form of protein and plant life that could save the starving humans in the rogue system. The second is a nightmare: this harvested rock is infested with Lankies. Far from the seemingly mindless aggressors Andrew has battled for years, these show a terrifying awareness, and they have surprising secrets of their own hidden away in the darkness.
When the Lankies sense an uninvited presence in their world, Andrew’s operation becomes an expedition to hell. The odds against his small crew are stacked high. Of all the mysteries of space, how to escape with their lives is the greatest unknown of all.
In the seventh book in the Frontlines series, I bemoaned that the twist - Major Grayson's ship gets pulled into a Lanky warp tunnel and transported thousands of light years away, with no way to get home - seemed like a way to milk a series that's been coasting a while for several more books.
Well, I was worried for nothing, because in book eight, it appears Kloos has finally wrapped up the series. There is no final resolution of the Lanky War, we just gets lots of battle scenes, some interpersonal drama, Grayson reflecting repeatedly on his career path from junior enlisted signing up for the military to escape Earth's ghettos to a field officer on a starship, with a wife serving on another ship... and then, boom, help arrives, he goes home, and the end.
The Frontlines series overall is pretty good if you like MilSF. The first book, Terms of Enlistment, read like a slightly updated version of Starship Troopers, complete with alien bug-monsters (though they come as a surprise at the end, and they're actually space kaiju). As humanity fought its war against the Lankies (and occasionally each other), complete with an invasion of Mars, and later expanding out to other star systems, the series began to get repetitive. Each book I would say "Okay, that was fun, but where is this going? Are we just going to keep reading about ground and space battles for book after book?"
Mostly, yes. So when Centers of Gravity abruptly brings Grayson back to Earth, evidently to retire to a pastoral life that seemed impossible for the average person in the first book, I wasn't so much disappointed as just... that's it?
Like all the books in the series, this one is named after a military term that really doesn't have much to do with the book.
I enjoyed the run of this series, but even though there is probably space for more installments (maybe with a "retired" Major Grayson training the next generation of starship troopers and combat controllers), I think it's just as well that the series ends here.
Also by Markos Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, Chains of Command, Fields of Fire, Points of Impact, Orders of Battle, Aftershocks, Ballistic, and Citadel.
My complete list of book reviews.
47North, 2022, 329 pages
Stranded light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and his crew are on a desperate mission to discover the Lankies’ secrets. They can’t let what they’ve found die with them.
Nine hundred light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and the crew of NACS Washington are marooned in a sunless system with limited water, reactor fuel, and food. The last hope for survival is to go where nothing human has gone before.
After embarking on a scouting mission to the only moon with surface signs of life, Andrew and his Special Tactics Team make two startling discoveries. One is a dream: a form of protein and plant life that could save the starving humans in the rogue system. The second is a nightmare: this harvested rock is infested with Lankies. Far from the seemingly mindless aggressors Andrew has battled for years, these show a terrifying awareness, and they have surprising secrets of their own hidden away in the darkness.
When the Lankies sense an uninvited presence in their world, Andrew’s operation becomes an expedition to hell. The odds against his small crew are stacked high. Of all the mysteries of space, how to escape with their lives is the greatest unknown of all.
In the seventh book in the Frontlines series, I bemoaned that the twist - Major Grayson's ship gets pulled into a Lanky warp tunnel and transported thousands of light years away, with no way to get home - seemed like a way to milk a series that's been coasting a while for several more books.
Well, I was worried for nothing, because in book eight, it appears Kloos has finally wrapped up the series. There is no final resolution of the Lanky War, we just gets lots of battle scenes, some interpersonal drama, Grayson reflecting repeatedly on his career path from junior enlisted signing up for the military to escape Earth's ghettos to a field officer on a starship, with a wife serving on another ship... and then, boom, help arrives, he goes home, and the end.
The Frontlines series overall is pretty good if you like MilSF. The first book, Terms of Enlistment, read like a slightly updated version of Starship Troopers, complete with alien bug-monsters (though they come as a surprise at the end, and they're actually space kaiju). As humanity fought its war against the Lankies (and occasionally each other), complete with an invasion of Mars, and later expanding out to other star systems, the series began to get repetitive. Each book I would say "Okay, that was fun, but where is this going? Are we just going to keep reading about ground and space battles for book after book?"
Mostly, yes. So when Centers of Gravity abruptly brings Grayson back to Earth, evidently to retire to a pastoral life that seemed impossible for the average person in the first book, I wasn't so much disappointed as just... that's it?
Like all the books in the series, this one is named after a military term that really doesn't have much to do with the book.
I enjoyed the run of this series, but even though there is probably space for more installments (maybe with a "retired" Major Grayson training the next generation of starship troopers and combat controllers), I think it's just as well that the series ends here.
Also by Markos Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, Chains of Command, Fields of Fire, Points of Impact, Orders of Battle, Aftershocks, Ballistic, and Citadel.
My complete list of book reviews.