Armor Book Review of a Miltary SF Classic

Mini-review #14

This is a series of short reviews for military SF and mecha SF.  You will not see a review of something I don't like as it isn't worth writing about in that case, but I will tell you what works for me and what doesn't about the stories I did like. 

Armor is an old book published in 1984 by John Steakley.  I looked around for a Kindle edition, but no dice, and ended up buying a paperback.  I had heard that this book was a military SF classic, but I'd probably disagree with that statement after reading it.  It isn't a bad book, but it was definitely not what I was expecting to read after the first 25% of the book.  The story is divided into 4 arcs of which the first 25% is the "classic military SF with power armour (like in the title).  This is where all the buzz is from about the book.

In the initial story arc, our hero, Felix, is assigned to being a scout on his first mission on Banshee, a hellhole of a planet, where humanity is fighting a war against the Ants for some reason that I wasn't sure about.  His life as a scout is supposed to be short, but he prevails against all odds as he has a weird psychological part of his mind called the Engine that keeps him fighting and alive.

The combat is close and vicious and the humans quickly find themselves in a desperate situation.  The powered armour (Canadian spelling of armor) is pretty impressive, but so are the thousands upon thousands of 3 metre high bugs armed with blasters.  Pretty gripping combat scenes, good use of powered armour, and the read went by pretty quickly.

The story then changes to very interesting alien prison break, space pirates enter the story, and rest of the story takes place at a research station on a colony world at the fringe of human space.  It was a jarring story shift as it didn't seem like it connected with what I had just read.  Needless to say these story threads all tie together with a suit of powered armour as the glue.  Nice touch.

If you run across this book it is worth a read just for the first arc.

Does it have a cast of characters listing?
Not really.  There are many characters, but they stay under a half dozen or so in each story arc, so it is trackable.

What is the scope / scale of the story?
The battles are often fought personally by Felix.  The larger battlefield picture is at the division level, but you don't see much of it.  The situation  on Banshee starts bad and just gets worse.  It is a very personal tale around Felix and then our space pirate.

Does it have likeable characters?
Can't say I liked any of the characters other than the female scout that helps Felix out initially.  Everyone seems to be portrayed as broken goods to some extent.  The protagonist himself at the beginning is kind of an amnesiac to boot and very fatalistic.

Does it have an entertaining storyline?
Really liked the first part, and slogged throught the rest of it.  I'm not sure if this novel would get the same amount of popularity in todays very competitive military SF marketplace.

How is the internal consistency / plausibility?
The novel is really not about military organization, planning, or tactics.  You have no idea why Banshee is an important military objective.  The operation planners must have been idiots as their intel is abysmal and military bureaucracy is just out of touch with reality in this case.  Could be a good anti-war  theme and the story is really about how Felix and the grunts deal both mentally and physically with their situation.

What cool bonus features are there?
The  powered battlesuits are cool, with Starship Trooperesque weaponry. The suits have blasters, bomb dispensers, and are capable of amazing feats of strength and agility.  There are some discrpencies with the suits thought.  Despite being nuclear powered, they need recharging.  The nuclear aspect is actually a key plot point too.

The troops deploy to the surface by running into a teleporter field. Very nifty.