Take Back the Sky (2016). Greg Bear

Take Back the Sky (2016) Greg Bear

Weird, weirder, weirdest

War Dogs, Killing Titan, and now Take Back the Sky…

Skyrine Michael Venn finds himself inside Titan waiting for the his friends in the corp from Earth and Mars to take him and his crew out and also to take out Bug Karnack and the archives of bug knowledge found on inside Titan.  Their only hope?  The Antags.  His Antag connection from the Ice Moon Tea – Venn calls her Bird Girl -  has arranged to save Venn and his crew.  They are cut out of their armor and packed away for a journey to a large strange ship.

This ship is apparently the one used by the gurus (Antags call them “Keepers”) to travel around the solar system and beyond to plan and stage their war-shows for some unknown audience.   Turns out this ship constantly morphing in strange ways.  The Starshina – Ulyanova -  was also exposed to the ice moon tea and was linked to a guru.  As such -  she is apparently qualified as a pilot / commander of the ship.  Which she proceeds to do.  Is she a friend of humanity or is she a guru in Starshina clothing. 

The book ends with an interesting whimper and not a bang.  It leaves me with a lot of questions.  What happened to Ulyanova and the ship?  Did they fly into the sun.  What is happening with Joe and Teale’s daughter on Mars.  What does Ishida (the Winter Soldier)  look like?  Seems like a set up for one more volume of War Dogs.  One can only hope.

Killing Titan (2015) Greg Bear

Killing Titan (2015)  Greg Bear

This book follows -  War Dogs.  Our hero, Skyrine Michael Venn,  is back on Earth after getting exposed to Green “Ice Moon Tea” in the ancient artifact – The Drifter on Mars.  It left some of his comrades as black ice.   But not Venn and not DJ.  Now Venn can hear one of the former comrades as well as the bug Karnack -  ancient storage of bug knowledge. 

As he is getting interrogated and about to be executed for what they think he knows about the Antags, the gurus and what this war is really all about – he is swept back to Mars and on the Titan where he learns more.  Finally he must make a decision about who he trusts.  His fellow Skyrines and their puppet-masters – the Guru’s?  Or the Antag female that he mind melds with and who together receive tantalizing information from bug Karnack. 

I like the first person narrative.  It makes it more real to me.  Although, a bit hard to follow some times.  Reminds me a little of of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War.

War Dogs (2014) Greg Bear

War Dogs (2014) Greg Bear

 Skyrine (Marine in the sky – get it?)  Michael Venn is the here of this series.  Aliens land on Earth and give us many new things but there is a catch.  Remember the Twilight Zone where generous aliens help us and the “Holy Book” is called “To Serve Man”  -Turns out it is a cook book.  Well this is almost that bad.  The catch here is that there is another alien race which was thought to be hostile and have the convenient name “Antags”.  While they are fighting on Mars, Venn and his troup find an artifact called the Drifter which leads to interesting side effects and the next two books -   Killing Titan and Take Back the Sky.

I found the description of life in a suit, fighting the elements as well as the Antags for their lives, well done.   Some of the plot got confusing but I hung in there and it made sense.  You should hang in there too . It is worth the effort.