Liberty of Death: The Complete Series, Joe Kassabian (2021-22)
The Prisoner’s Dilemma (July 2021)
A Call to War (August 2021)
Victory or Death (September 2021)
This was a tough one. The story is interesting, and the politics -- both interpersonal and within the coalition which develops -- are realistic, in the political science sense of “realism.” On the down-side, the editing of the last two books is way rough, and I found it getting in the way of enjoying things a little too often. On the whole, though, it was worth looking past the unforced errors to find a series that, although sometimes dressed up like a cartoon, has some glimmers of real depth.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma: The series opens with the arrest and forced induction into the military of a totalitarian and vaguely socialist unified Earth, of Vincent Solaris. A high school loser, he quickly finds himself bound for war in the stars as part of a tiny cog in an enormous and badly-tuned military machine. Kassabian also introduces a strong second main character, the Martian (as in human from Mars) or “Red”, Fiona Olympus. Olympus and Solaris quickly discover there are few or no people they can count on other than themselves, and are thrust into a military adventure marked by twists and turns. There is a plentiful supply of war, underlain by a thoughtful glimpse into the corruption, both moral and otherwise, which underpins the brutal political system ruling Earth.
A Call to War: By the second book, Fiona and Vincent find themselves in a rough and uncomfortable coalition with a variety of aliens and other humans. There is much more war here, but before taking on the alien main enemy there is unfinished business to be settled with the corrupt and brutal regime oppressing Earth and striving to conqueror the whole settled solar system. There is a dark and subtly funny element to the book, typified by the founding of a new human army in a bar in the slum dedicated to our species on the world where Vincent, Fiona and other survivors have found refuge. Again, notes of realism creep in as the heroes struggle with their own flaws, make critical decisions with insufficient information, and have to grapple with questions that are (literally) of Titanic importance.
Victory or Death: The third and (mercifully) final installment of the trilogy sees Vincent and Fiona thrust into the heat of combat and the much more critical but even less tractable problems of what comes after the fighting stops. Kassabian throws in some political realism here, as there is deception, selfishness, and bad faith galore. Despite this, in the end, there is both triumph, deep tragedy, and despite it all, an enduring sense of hope.
Why is the third installment “mercifully final?” Big points off for awful editing, which distracted from the story. (See Editing And Grammar Complaint Annex, below.)
I also noticed that “smirk” (and its variations) showed up 99 times, according to the count in Kindle. Most of the smirking seems to be instead of expressing a more complex emotion, and most of it’s done by one character: Fiona. She comes across as shallow. If I could ask for one change, it’d be to work on expressing emotions from a female perspective which would really help add some depth to Fiona-like characters. (The aptly-named “Himmelstoss” on the other hand probably actually smirks more than we see. Read and find out.)
That said, there’s a ton here to like. There was also more depth than I expected. On one level the trilogy surfs the waters of the pulp ocean. There’s blood, drinking, war, sex, mysterious aliens, war, sex, drinking, shifty aliens, smuggling, war, impossible choices, drinking, narrow escapes*, war, unwashed clothes, Darth Vader wanna-be non-coms, black-and-white morality plays, war, space ships, war, and all the other staples of space opera. This isn’t an answer to Platoon -- Liberty of Death’s heart is firmly in the superficial(ish) SF world, and you can read it at that level and be happy.
But if you probe a little bit there are layers beneath the superficial adventure.
At one level, there’s a great picture of the rot--moral, ethical, economic and organizational--eating away at the core of the dictatorship which rules over Solaris, Olympus and their billions of peers. Oppression starts at home, and the consequences of this are starkly evident in both protagonists’ lives. It doesn’t get better when they’re drafted. The regime’s armed forces are as brutal and inefficient as anything ripped out of the world of Warhammer 40K and...no one cares but the victims. Who, mostly, don’t get a vote.
It’s also a world where choices have consequences, and many of those choices are hard. Really hard. Many of the consequences are negative, and the “best” of them are unanticipated -- just as in reality. Kassabian dresses some of them up in a bit of cartoon wrapping, as in the giant “oops” Vincent commits midway through the series. But what he doesn’t do is let Vincent off the hook for the choices or the consequences, even though there’s a lot of bunting layered around it. Combat has terrible outcomes, peace is harder to manage than war, coalitions are harder to manage than fighting the enemy, allies are unreliable. This all seems pretty true to life.
This is an unsentimental story, and I enjoyed the whole thing. If there were a contest for mil SF or space opera most likely to have been inspired by Thucydides or Hanna Arendt, I’d vote for this series. It was a nice find among the boilerplate.
Smirk factor: 0verdone: 0 pts (99 “smirk”/”smirked”/”smirking”, etc, in 1289 pages. Also, terrible editing.)
Immersion factor: Shallow water: 1 pt
Writing quality: Average: 1 pt
Character/plot development: Above-average: 1.5 pts
Innovative/interesting: High: 2pts
Total: 5.5/10
* Except right at the end. Read it to find out.
Annex: Editing And Grammar Complaint Rant
The books are full of unforced errors, and since I’m a pedantic Catholic school survivor, yes, it bothered me. And no, my own writing is not error-free. But I do this as a hobby, usually after work, and you can read this for free. (For which you’re welcome, by the way.)
The massive Capitol ships, like the ESS Victory he had lived on, were all gone.
Unless “Capitol” is the name of the class of ship, that’s a “capital” ship (small ‘c’) as in a main combatant and not a reference to the hill and/or building from which Congress stares down over Washington.
“Always control every element of an operation, Consol. Leave nothing to chance.”
A consol is a bizarre government bond. Vincent is a “Consul,” as in the holder of the political position in ancient Rome of the same name. (Also, good luck with that piece of advice.)
And what’s with the way quotes are formatted? I felt like my fifth grade Catholic school English teacher was going to reach out from beyond the grave and rap me on the knuckles with a ruler every time I read one of these:
“I assume this means you think you have something worth sharing with the group?” He said, clearly feeling superior.
“I can’t believe this is happening but go ahead and send them the request.” Felicity saluted and walked away. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Fiona cackled.
The first quote, strictly speaking, is two sentences (capital “H” — it would have been better to name the speaker. (“You have something to share?” Himmelstoss paused and looked around the room. He smirked at the silent recruits.) And who’s asking that last question? I guess it’s Fiona, but it’s hard to tell -- and is that what she’s cackling about, or did Felicity shoot the question over her shoulder and then Fiona cackled?
Try rather: “Are you sure you know this much about grammar?” The reviewer thought hard as he stared at the draft. “I’m worried I sound like a pedantic turd,” he sighed. “But at least,” he thought, “we know who’s saying what.”
End of rant. The problem is that I really liked this series, but the constant parade of small errors really wore me down.