October 19, 2015
In Bear's War Dogs, aliens called the Gurus offered humans advanced technology. U.S. Army Master Sgt. Michael Venn discovered the price tag: war against a relentless enemy. Meanwhile, contact with the Drifter, an ancient fragment of a moon that crashed into Mars, turned his fellow soldiers into what resembled black glass. In this satisfying sequel, Venn learns that his encounter with the Drifter gave him the ability to communicate with someone he thought dead, and possibly with the remains of ancient beings who lived in Saturn's system billions of years beforeâincluding on Titan, where the war has raged far hotter than on Mars. Venn can find the answers he needs, and save his comrades, if he can live long enough to put the pieces together on Titan. Bear slowly transforms Venn from a cynical grunt to someone who can alter Earth's destiny, without taking the soldier out of him. Readers will appreciate the mix of fast-paced military fiction and eons-long mystery, a blend of brutal and sublime in which life is precious no matter how vast the scopeâor the type of life. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Associates.
October 1, 2015
The follow-up to War Dogs (2014) finds Master Sergeant Michael Venn back on Earth, hidden away in a top-secret facility where he's being poked and prodded (physically and psychologically) about recent events on Mars, where Michael and his fellow soldiers encountered a mysterious ancient artifact, the Drifter, buried deep below the Martian surface. Who put it there? Does it have any connection with the Antagonists, humanity's alien enemy, or with the Gurus, the benevolent alien race who revealed to humankind that the Antag forces were massing on Mars? In the hopes of answering these questions, a team of rogue military and government agents breaks Venn out of captivity and whisks him off to Mars. Although it's written as a military storyreaders familiar with Haldeman's The Forever War, Heinlein's Starship Troopers, or Scalzi's Old Man's War series will feel right at homethis is actually a novel of big ideas and philosophical exploration. It's the middle installment of a trilogy, so readers unfamiliar with War Dogs might feel a bit lost, but it's definitely one of Bear's more interesting recent novels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)