Lord of War

A review of Warlord by Doc Spears

You mean Warlord?

Benjamin Colt is a Green Beret damaged by circumstance. While others have stumbled into honor, each time the prize of combat is dangled in front of him, it’s snatched from his grasp. There’s nothing for a professional warrior to do except keep getting up no matter how many times he’s knocked down, hoping that the next time will be the one that brings him his day of days.

But just as he’s poised to get his wish, the universe plays another practical joke on him… Aliens are real, and come bearing gifts that are secretly sending the world back to the Stone Age.

Using their technology to beat them at their own game, Colt and his team are catapulted onto a world not their own. The ancient and dying world of a dream. There he must fight perilous and personal battles against barbaric aliens and the twisted hearts of men, surrounded by the tragic remnants of a once great civilization—one slowly withering from the memory of the galaxy to return to the red dust from which it came.

A thrilling military adventure of air cars, ray guns, four-armed giants and eight-legged cavalry, miniguns and 40mm grenades. A captive princess needs a hero to save a world… and Ben Colt, who needs a princess to make him—a Warlord.

“Doc Spears’ Warlord harkens the golden days of science fiction and fantasy with a decidedly modern military twist that will keep you reading page after thrilling page.” – AP Bestselling Author Jason Anspach

Thus is the promise of the back-cover blurb, but, as is ever the question for those who seek out reviews, is the promise fulfilled? Is the Oath kept? Is the circle unbroken?

TLDR - Yes, yes it does.

To be fair, I think SM Stirling does the tribute to Princess of Mars and company with slightly more panache and word-smithing skill with In the Courts of the Crimson Kings (which shouldn’t be surprising, given how long monsieur Stirling has been sharpening his powers), however, this isn’t just a tribute to the Grandmaster, but also a WarGate book. What is WarGate? Well the basic concept is ‘modern military forces in another world’, so, basically, it’s modern techno-thriller isekai. Sorry, not sorry.

So, modern military bros in a portal fantasy, servicing targets and getting it done. This is fun. No, ‘fun’ fails to convey the appeal. This fucking rocks bruh. No cap. Like rocking a fucking M4A1 set to ‘fun’. Like detonating a claymore to initiate an ambush.

I see the light.

I see the light.

I see the light.

If you know, you know.

SFC Benjamin Colt is the emotional heart of this book, and the emotional heart of this work is fucking roller coaster ride. Our sergeant first class seemingly has it all, all the career high points and merit badges. Ranger. Jumpwings. Special Operations Diver. SF. He’s the veritable definition of High-Speed, Low-Drag. But he doesn’t have the one decoration he really wants, craves, lusts for more than anything, more than living, more than sex.

The CIB.

This is the only decoration on your fruit salad that anyone ever really cares about. And Benjamin doesn’t have it. Without seeing the elephant he knows he is incomplete. Unproven. He’s Schrodinger’s warrior, neither alive nor dead.

He has a spot on an operational ODA as an 18F, that is to say, assistant operations and intelligence sergeant, which is the number-2 NCO on the Team, junior only to the 18Z, the Special Forces operations sergeant, or to speak plainly, the Top Kick, the Team Daddy. And yet there is a hole in his heart. He is incomplete. And there’s times he thinks he is nothing but a sham. An impostor. That he’s taking up a slot that another, better man deserves. And he kinda despises himself. Also there’s an old flame that has him messed up. But Bruh, she was a stripper, shoulda’ seen that coming bruh.

Not going to lie fam. I liked Ben right away, because yeah, I can relate. Totally.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

That shit is real yall. And it don’t matter how much shit you can see in an irregular bullshit war, you still don’t got the badge, the only one that matters.

Anyway.

Our A-Team flies a globemaster through a GATE and crashes on Mars. Well not our lifeless rock. No. Our lucky few crash on fucking Barsoooom!!

Can I get a hell yeah!?

I mean the serial numbers are filed off. But it’s fucking Barsoom. Tharks. Apes. Reds. Whites. Greens. Check and motherfuckin’ check. Vocabulary update, it’s Vistara instead of Barsoom, Tarns instead of Tharks, Thulia not Earth, and Hyboria not Venus. There’s implications and hints of a fallen solar-system spanning civilisation, now lying in ruins. Heckin yeah bruh.

So yeah, you might be asking, why is there an A-team on Mars? Earth, the Earth that we left behind, is dying. A mutagenic plague is sweeping the land changing man and machine into killer monsters or piles of sludge. Hey JD, isn’t that the setup for Forgotten Ruin? Yes, yes it is. Our A-Team also has a copy of the perpetual taco machine, the nano-tech molecular assembler than can print JP-8, comp-4, ammunition, Rip-It, and Redman, everything a growing operator needs.

Ima choose to believe that this stick of operators was meant to join Talker’s crew in the Ruin, but the science-hippies messed up their calcs. Given what happened to the other A-team that hit the Ruin, ending up as undead liches unliving in tombs, probably for the best.

Our heroes crash on Vistara and promptly end up fighting for their lives as their strength is tested by the local Tarns. Turns out M240 is strong. Remember kids, happiness is a belt-fed weapon. But the 18A and 18Z, the commander and senior non-com have purchased their agricultural plots. This leaves the 180A executive officer and 18F O&I, that is to say, SFC Benjamin Colt, as the leadership team.

There’s a slight problem however, Chief Asshole and Sergeant Colt don’t like each other. At all. Chief Asshole demotes Colt and puts one his cronies in the O&I slot, sending Colt and his only close buddy on a long range patrol. And that’s when the story really takes off. Benjamin manages to do the greenie-beenie thing and make nice with the Tharks errrrr, Tarns, yeah, and for a minute it’s just like we’re doing a meet and greet with a tribal chief in A-stan.

And then we meet Deja Thoris sorry, I mean Talis Darmon Sylah. Hubba hubba. And our hero is smitten at first glance. The thirst is real yall. And this is the crux of the book. See Chief Asshole and SFC Colt have two conflicting visions of ‘we’re on Barsoom now, wot do?’

And basically you can read this book as a commentary on nation building and special operations in general. Especially in a world where the American Empire is slowly dying the death due to a thousand self-inflicted wounds. Chief Asshole says, ‘if the old structures are no more, then we are the strong, let us do as we please.’ To this end he makes alliance with the seeming strong horse of the desert barbarism of the lowland Tarns. Colt says ‘we must live as men, and therefore, we should ally ourselves with the legitimate authority of this land.’ To this end he seeks alliance with the Red Vistaran kingdom (and the princess).

This is more than Colt thinking with the little brain, but no, it doesn’t hurt that he also falls for her at first sight, she is beautiful, she is everything a princess is supposed to be. See, think about it. With the Red Vistarans, there are women who can be married to the A-team, with the Tarns, not so much. Sure, Chief Asshole intends to conquer the Red Vistaran kingdom and rule in his own name, but just ask the French in Sicily how that goes. Far better to follow happy Austria’s example:

Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube!

Let others wage war, thou, happy Austria, marry!

Thus the pattern is revealed, the free-lance warrior, the hero, the mighty-man without land of his own, leader of a mannerbund. is secured to serve the rightful king, the throne of the land, the crown, the chalice, by marriage with the King’s daughter, not only binding the warrior to the kingdom and the king, but improving the royal line with new strength of blood. The circle continues unbroken. All is as it should be. This is adventure fiction in communion with the Western Literary Tradition, going back to faerie tales that are older than the Indo-Aryan invasion of Europe.

10/10

Hail and read!