Linoge is first out of the gate with his review of Oren’s War, which author Steve Merlo graciously sent gratis to a number of gunbloggers, myself included. Linoge says, in part:
I really wanted to like it, but by the end, I could not….
I confess I had much the same initial reaction to the book. Midway through I was still rockin’ with it; by the end I was actually angry at the book, which has never happened to me before. It took me a while to figure out why, and how that reaction was unfair to the book, and I’ll explain that below. A second read-through is giving me a slightly different reaction to the book, and my review of the details of the book will, I promise, be up after Boomershoot. Before that, though, let me comment on Linoge’s review, which is worth reading.
I think I can explain his reaction to the book (and Linoge hints at it himself). Linoge admits he has not yet read the “standard” works in the subgenre. Oren’s War falls into the subgenre of citizen-takes-violent-action-against-jackbooted-government-thugs fiction. It’s a small subgenre! — Unintended Consequences being IMO head and shoulders above everything else; Enemies Foreign and Domestic and its sequels a somewhat distant second, and books like They Came For Our Guns, They Came For Our Freedom; Walt’s Gulch; Patriots; and Oren’s War making up the others I’ve read so far. Most of those, it’s important to note, are the first novels written by their authors.
(Oren’s War could also be said to fall into a second subgenre of citizen-takes-violent-vigilante-action-against-criminal-scumbag fiction, among which the most similar in terms of style would be the ebook Lights Out and a printed book — whose name escapes me at the moment — in which crime victims band together in clandestine cells to kill criminals. I’ll try to dig it up later tonight.)
Here are my thoughts, which I will explain below the fold:
1) I think Linoge, through no fault of his own, had unrealistic expectations for this book.
2) Oren’s War tries to accomplish several big things within a very short novel. This constraint makes flaws that are glossed over in longer, wordier novels of the subgenre much more jarringly obvious in Oren’s War.
3) When compared to its fellows in the subgenre(s), Oren’s War doesn’t do too badly.