Armor (Audible Audio Edition) John Steakley Tom Weiner Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Download As PDF : Armor (Audible Audio Edition) John Steakley Tom Weiner Inc Blackstone Audio Books
The planet is called Banshee. The air is unbreathable, the water poisonous. It is the home of the most implacable enemies that humanity, in all its interstellar expansion, has ever encountered.
Felix is a scout in A-team Two. Highly competent, he is the sole survivor of mission after mission. Yet he is a man consumed by fear and hatred. And he is protected not only by his custom-fitted body armor, the culmination of 10,000 years of the armorers' craft, but also by an odd being which seems to live with him, a cold killing machine he calls "the Engine."
Armor (Audible Audio Edition) John Steakley Tom Weiner Inc Blackstone Audio Books
There is a good reason why John Steakley’s “Armor” still, after all these years is a common sight on the shelves of your local bookstore. From what I know about Steakley, he intended Armor to be a Starship Troopers with better action scenes. Well, what we ended up with was something much, much more. I rarely feel compelled enough to write reviews, but I still feel so strongly about this book that I could no longer hold myself back. This is a book that I recommend to friends, and have on more than one occasion given as a gift. And it’s never disappointed.Armor is really two stories. The story of Felix the scout who has the fortune to be the lone survivor on many missions in the war against ant-like creatures on the planet Banshee. The other part is the story of Jack Crow, who is basically a notorious and infamous space pirate, who by the way simply must have been the inspiration for the Jack Sparrow character from “Pirates of the Caribbean”; the similarities are simply too numerous to be coincidental.
While Steakley clearly achieved his goal of making a Starship Troopers with better action scenes, this book really shines in its clairvoyance. If Starship Troopers is World War II, then Armor could easily be Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s an examination of the lifelong trauma that can come from battle, the cluelessness of military leadership, and somehow, a pseudo space western on a planetary outpost called Sanction, which is tangentially related to the Ant War.
Steakley’s writing style is direct. The action is very kinetic, and it totally works for me because it really paints an authentic portrait of the sudden and seemingly random nature of violence. This book also has a transition in it that does seem jarring at first, but is totally justified.
If you are science fiction fan then this is a must read. In my opinion, it’s to the science fiction genre as “The Catcher in the Rye” or “To Kill A Mockingbird” is to general literature.
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Armor (Audible Audio Edition) John Steakley Tom Weiner Inc Blackstone Audio Books Reviews
Battle armor is a standard component of military science fiction, but the concept was still reasonably fresh when John Steakley wrote Armor. The novel has its strengths and weaknesses but it still makes for entertaining reading.
The first section of Armor follows Felix, a scout wearing a battle suit who is dropped onto the planet Banshee where humans are at war with a species that would resemble ants if ants were 8 feet tall. Felix turns out to be a master at surviving combat while all around him die, a distinction that earns him the unwelcome privilege of being dropped into combat over and over again. Felix experiences fear but has an uncanny ability to set it aside while he busies himself with the tasks of killing and staying alive. He calls that survival instinct "the engine" that takes over and drives him into (or away from) combat. This section of the novel is unremarkable (and not entirely believable) in its descriptions of battle but is noteworthy for the psychological profile of Felix that it begins to develop.
The story resumes four years later. The focus is now on Jack Crow, the legendary pirate who gave humanity the Blaze-drive. Well, Crow actually stole the drive (and the ship it was powering), but still. Everyone knows of Jack Crow and Jack enhances his reputation by telling embellished stories of his exploits. As part two of the novel opens, Crow is escaping from a mining prison where is being used as for slave labor. Crow manages to gain passage on a pirate ship, the captain of which wants Crow to help him steal fuel from a Fleet Scientific Colony. Crow takes along a battle suit that the captain has salvaged and gives it as a gift to the colony's director, who is able to access the suit's memories, which turn out to be Felix's memories. Over a period of time, those memories are experienced anew by the director, his lovely assistant, and Crow.
One of Armor's most interesting aspects is way the three people who are tapping the suit's memories react to Felix. They are initially numbed by the terror he experiences on each mission and by the knowledge that Felix will eventually die, but they begin to hope he'll die so that the torment they are vicariously experiencing will end. The bastard just won't die and they hate him for it.
The third section takes us back to Felix and gives us more insight into his personality. Why does he persevere? Why does he wear the armor? Is he using it as a shield or is he walling himself off from others? What motivates him? Bit by bit, slices of Felix are revealed to the reader. It is that unraveling of Felix, more than the relatively tiresome fight scenes with the ants, that make Armor worth reading.
In part four we spend some time with the symbolic "hero" of Fleet who, unlike Felix, has never known the terror of battle. He teams with Felix for awhile and we eventually learn what becomes of Felix. This leads us to Jack Crow and the novel's concluding section.
Steakley's writing style is a bit frenetic. The style is meant to convey the speed and confusion of war but it more often comes across as unpolished prose. Crow is an interesting but underdeveloped character and the ant culture, as well as the reasons for the war, are not explored at all. As a fast-paced adventure story that focuses on the psychological horrors of war and its impact on a reluctant warrior, however, Armor is quite good, and some passages are striking. It is the kind of novel that military sf fans will eat up. Fans of more cerebral sf might be less enthused, but Armor has enough going for it that most sf fans should find it worth reading.
I really enjoyed this book. I have not read a ton of military sci-fi but I thought this novel was better than both Starship Troopers and The Forever War, two classics in the genre. There are two seemingly unrelated plotlines that come together near the end of the book in a pretty cool way. The reason I'm giving this four stars instead of five is because of the numerous spelling errors throughout the book. This is not something I usually care about or even notice but I definitely noticed it when reading this book.
The best part of the book is about Felix. At first, Felix comes off as a mysterious character. Little by little, Felix unravels and you get to know more about his tragic past. The pieces come together and it begins to make sense, everything is put into context. I didn't care about the Jack Crow part, he was just a very arrogant jerk. I think the story should have just focused on Felix. Most of the book felt like a chore to read. Steakley should have given Jack Crow his own book. He probably had an impulse to write about Jack Crow and couldn't resist. Armor is a very slow burn as a book. I also think it was 100 pages too long. The Jack Crow part felt like Steakley went off on a huge tangent.
I started this book at 3 in the after noon, and after a party finished it at 254 in the morning. It started as an awesome kill aliens book with an interesting character and mysterious past. It then morphed into a kind of mystery that lead to soul searching and still more dead aliens, ending was a bit sad but still awesome, wish Eyes was there.
I am failing this book in a review but it is easily in the top 20 of my favorite books, and I read an unhealthy amount. One of the best book purchases i have ever made. Will remember this book for a long time.
There is a good reason why John Steakley’s “Armor” still, after all these years is a common sight on the shelves of your local bookstore. From what I know about Steakley, he intended Armor to be a Starship Troopers with better action scenes. Well, what we ended up with was something much, much more. I rarely feel compelled enough to write reviews, but I still feel so strongly about this book that I could no longer hold myself back. This is a book that I recommend to friends, and have on more than one occasion given as a gift. And it’s never disappointed.
Armor is really two stories. The story of Felix the scout who has the fortune to be the lone survivor on many missions in the war against ant-like creatures on the planet Banshee. The other part is the story of Jack Crow, who is basically a notorious and infamous space pirate, who by the way simply must have been the inspiration for the Jack Sparrow character from “Pirates of the Caribbean”; the similarities are simply too numerous to be coincidental.
While Steakley clearly achieved his goal of making a Starship Troopers with better action scenes, this book really shines in its clairvoyance. If Starship Troopers is World War II, then Armor could easily be Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s an examination of the lifelong trauma that can come from battle, the cluelessness of military leadership, and somehow, a pseudo space western on a planetary outpost called Sanction, which is tangentially related to the Ant War.
Steakley’s writing style is direct. The action is very kinetic, and it totally works for me because it really paints an authentic portrait of the sudden and seemingly random nature of violence. This book also has a transition in it that does seem jarring at first, but is totally justified.
If you are science fiction fan then this is a must read. In my opinion, it’s to the science fiction genre as “The Catcher in the Rye” or “To Kill A Mockingbird” is to general literature.
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