Achieve Aggressor Six (The Waisters, #1) Prepared By Wil McCarthy EPub
debut novel, and a good one, Here's a good review I saw online: sitelink blogspot. com
The sequel, "The Fall of Sirius" is the better book, but you should consider reading this one first if you are a McCarthy completist.
Once was enough for me, I think, This is a good book and a quick read, with a very narrow focus, It's a "first contact" alien story in two phases, without any side plots, Read this way back in thes but kind of forgot about this author until recently, Really liked the story line, will read the sequel, The alien Waister armada came from the center of Orion, light years away, They scoured whole star systems free of human life and moved on to the next target, Millions died as humanity fought back, hundreds of thousands in the Flyswatter operation alone, But now survivor Marine Corporal Kenneth Jonson has a new insight into alien strategy, Would he dare act on it He might if he lives, . . Agressor Six by Wil McCarthy is the first book in the Waisters duology, The description here on Goodreads and the many positive reviews are, in part, what made me decide to read it, I must admit I was somewhat disappointed, It was a good concept about first contact but I just did not connect with any of the characters, I will point out that it was written almost thirty years ago and most of the reviews are at least ten years old or even older.
I will not be reading the second book, The Fall of Sirius, Very good, tightly plotted "space war" science fiction, Aboutyears in the future, humanity's small interstellar empire is attacked by the Waisters, technologically superior aliens very vaguely like softbodied lobsters who wipe out planet after planet without mercy.
As the Waisters approach Earth, a small research group ofhumans and a semiuplifted dog use brain implants modeled on Waister corpses to try to recreate aunit Waister "family group" and gain some insight which might turn the tide of battle.
. . or at least make the Waisters accept a surrender,
I'm not a huge fan of space war stories, which tend to devolve into military strategy/tech porn or backpatting "humans are best" nativism.
"Aggressor Six," however, goes a different route, depicting a completely original, inhuman, and seemingly genocidal enemy species, . . and yet the tone of the book ISN'T xenophobic, for the anthropologist/scientist heroes try to do the impossible and understand the enemy, gradually learning their language, thinking like Waisters at the risk of psychological breakdown for one character, even reminding themselves that the Waisters are "just people" like themselves.
In the end, the key to the problem is fairly simple but the story manages to maintain tension up till the last page, with a few little twists along the way such as mysterious Machine Intelligences, Waisterbrained dolphins, and quicklight/slowlight.
The book is wellwritten in small but pleasing ways, such as the farfuture history sketched out in a timeline at Aggressor Six's end, which is both alien and familiar, avoiding the dual pitfalls of being either too transhumanist amp bizarre to understand, or too much like modernday Earth.
Contains graphic violence and one random, unnecessary sex scene, A good book, Will McCarthy has done another novel in this universe and reading this made me want to dip into that book yet again.
Some weird strange ideas are presented in order to combat an alien menace but the really weird things happen in an almost spur of the moment bit of randomness.
Aggressor Six is a fastpaced military first contact novel, but features a psychological aspect that gives it a unique twist, Set sometime in the far future, humanity has colonized several systems, but never broke the FTL barrier, This starts with a 'war' already in progress, as the massive, alien Waister armada has already scoured a few human systems of all life, and is now heading toward Sol.
A 'scout' fleet from the armada already hit Sol, and while defeated, to say it
was costly would be an understatement, and the scout fleet only had a few ships while the armada has thousands.
. .
One ship was captured, however, and Sol's military races to gather intelligence on the aliens, It seems the aliens are typically in groups of six, something like a small hive, with a queen, a few drones and workers, and finally, a 'dog'.
Marine Corporal Ken Jonson, a survivor/hero of the scout engagement, becomes part of a human 'six' who are trying to figure out how the aliens think.
So far, humans have not been able to communicate with the aliens and they seem implacable, but maybe the 'Aggressor Six' will come up with something.
. .
I believe this was McCarthy's first novel and it show a bit as lots of sections could use more development, That stated, it is close to novella size and packs quite a story, Not really much on the military front if you are into space dog fights and stuff, but a neat idea,stars! Riveting, dark alien encounter war novel that explores Man and individuals adjust to survive when the goal is just that: Survival, No superheroes. No Super scientists. No Super Ships or Super weapons, Desperation, Terror, annihilation and the courage that comes from bladderemptying fear, Aggressor Six is a tight, wellcontained story with expansive worldbuilding and intense emotional resonance, The book follows a severely traumatized space marine in his mindbendingly difficult task of understanding and predicting the behavior of the aliens threatening Earth.
Theres mystery what do the aliens want and tension is this guy ever going to be allowed to heal set in a world that we dont get to see much of, but which feels gratifyingly vast.
The aliens dont make many appearances, but when they do, their biology and psychology work, The spacecraft and super science are not the subjects of multipage infodumps, but what we do know makes sense and is consistent, The characters dont go on and on about the future history of humanity, but throwaway lines “boy, those Clementines must have had some wild parties” tell us an interesting and believable story behind the story of, you know, the destruction of the Earth.
And the answers to the big questions hit just the right note of expected surprise,
I suppose I could quibble about the characters, What were their names again The ending was abrupt, and the love story did need developing, But I had fun reading Aggressor Six, I couldnt stop reading it, in fact, until it was over, Whats more, the story is staying with me,
There is a theme here and in other books by Wil McCarthy of racing against time to prevent an unimaginably huge calamity, and the procedural myopia we develop under such circumstances.
An alien fleet heading toward us Buckle down everyone and build more laser guns! Train harder! Sleep less! Dont waste time on chitchat move move move! Anyone who has experienced a panicked rush like this knows that it causes more damage than it fixes.
The implacable advance of death doesnt demand that we stop having feelings, Precisely the opposite in fact,
Read Aggressor Six for a gripping story of what makes us inhuman, Science fiction author and Chief Technology Officer for Galileo ShipyardsEngineer/Novelist/Journalist/Entrepreneur Wil McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine and science columnist for the SyFy channel previously SciFi channel, where his popular Lab Notes column ran fromthrough.
A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Seiun, AnLab, Colorado Book, Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K.
Dick awards, and contributed to projects that won a Webbie, an Eppie, a Game Developers Choice Award, and a General Excellence National Magazine Award.
In addition, his imaginary world of P, from the novel LOST IN TRANSMISSION, was rated one of theScience fiction author and Chief Technology Officer for Galileo ShipyardsEngineer/Novelist/Journalist/Entrepreneur Wil McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine and science columnist for the SyFy channel previously SciFi channel, where his popular "Lab Notes" column ran fromthrough.
A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Seiun, AnLab, Colorado Book, Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K.
Dick awards, and contributed to projects that won a Webbie, an Eppie, a Game Developers' Choice Award, and a General Excellence National Magazine Award.
In addition, his imaginary world of "P", from the novel LOST IN TRANSMISSION, was rated one of thebest science fiction planets of all time by Discover magazine.
His short fiction has graced the pages of magazines like Analog, Asimov's, WIRED, and SF Age, and his novels include the New York Times Notable BLOOM,.
com "Best of YK" THE COLLAPSIUM a national bestseller and, most recently, TO CRUSH THE MOON, He has also written for TV, appeared on The History Channel and The Science Channel, and published nonfiction in half a dozen magazines, including WIRED, Discover, GQ, Popular Mechanics, IEEE Spectrum, and the Journal of Applied Polymer Science.
Previously a flight controller for Lockheed Martin Space Launch Systems and later an engineering manager for Omnitech Robotics, McCarthy is now the president and Chief Technology Officer of RavenBrick LLC in Denver, CO, a developer of smart window technologies.
He lives in Colorado with his family sitelink,