The second book I would like to tell you about is the novella Ironclads by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I was mainly drawn to this book by the cover (yes, I am a cover snob!) and the fact that this book was a limited edition (not sure why that impressed me but it did!).
The world is at war and the scions are always the winners. The sons of the great corporate families always survive all thanks to their 'ironclads' which is power armour that can protect them against almost any attack. When one goes missing, which is almost unheard of, Sergeant Ted Reagan is sent to Europe to bring to find his ironclad and bring them both home. Reagan and a selection of the more disenfranchised soldiers are sent behind enemy lines, out manned and out gunned to find out what happened and bring back the suit....if they survive that is.
If you are a fan of science fiction and / or military based fiction then this is a must read. I am not a fan of the latter and like some, but not all, science fiction however, I really enjoyed Tchaikovsky's tale. Reagan and his men are believable and combined with the backstory of the war, the scions and the ironclads gives this story depth. Given the fact that this is a novella there is quite a bit of detail and it seemed much longer because of this. I never knew what was going to happen next and there seems to be a suggestion at the end that there could be future books, which I would happily read..

It’s the near future. Brexit has happened, but unable to stand alone the UK becomes part of the US – giving the latter a toehold right next to Europe. Governments are increasingly irrelevant, as it’s the giant Corporations who are running things now – including war. And as the opening sentence suggests, the sons of the rich are once again choosing war as a career. Well, it’s not like they have to risk their lives: they’ve got all the money, all the tech. No, it’s an excuse for them to play general while the grunts like Sgt Ted Regan are the cheapest of commodities.

So, when one of the ‘Scions’ – the mega-rich in their armoured tech marvel ‘suits’ – goes missing somewhere in the Nordic countries, it’s Regan and his closest few squad mates who are sent on the rescue mission. And, of course, things are never exactly what they first seem…

This is a short, standalone novella, but wow does it pack in the ideas! The plot is this one mission, but we get plenty of snippets about how the world has changed in the not-so-distant future, grounded in very real politics and such going on right now. It’s a little eerie at times, to be honest.

For the main, though, this is action all the way, with heavy dollops of very satisfying sci-fi all presented with just the right amount of characterisation – the latter not always a sure thing with such strong concepts and world-building. It’s nice to see the location of Sweden and Finland used for a change, too.

I’ve been meaning to try some of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s much-praised work for ages now, and if his longer work is anything like this I’m only sorry I haven’t tried it sooner! Recommended, for sci-fi fans, gamers, and anyone who might like a dose of action with a strong warning about ‘what if…’!

I am unfamiliar with his other work, but I found this to be an enjoyable story of a three-men team sent across enemy lines to do an undercover mission on behalf of a corporation. Things go wrong in all the expected ways, and then things go wrong in entirely unexpected ways.

Military SF is not my thing, but this is well-written and entertaining (Church of Christ Libertarian sounds sadly prescient). If military SF is your thing, I suspect you will find it worthy of all five stars.

Ironclads ha significado una pequeña decepción para mí, que estaba viendo como lo que iba leyendo de Tchaikovsky me iba convenciendo cada vez más, con la estupenda Children of Time como obra más interesante, pero sin desmerecer Spiderlight o Dogs of War.

Sin embargo, esta nueva historia resulta ser demasiado tópica en su desarrollo, cuando no en su concepción. El discurso primordial es una crítica social sobre las desigualdades económicas y el poder de las grandes corporaciones.

La novela se sitúa en un futuro cercano y para situarnos el autor hace guiños al Brexit sin llegar a mencionarlo nunca, aunque particularmente lo que más me gusta es la distinción cruda y realista que hace entre la carne de cañón y las élites de la guerra. En este sentido, el libro es una vuelta al pasado bélico, aunque sea con la más moderna tecnología. Este contraste histórico se ve reforzado por las "ideas" que se enfrentan, capitalismo contra comunismo, aunque esto es solo una fachada para ocultar el verdadero objetivo, que es exclusivamente económico.

El apartado militarista me parece correcto, con toda la parafernalia relacionada con las operaciones encubiertas y la tecnología aplicada a la destrucción a varios niveles. También me gusta que las modificaciones no sean exclusivamente armamento añadido y si me permitís una comparación comiquera, algunos enfrentamientos recuerdan a Namor contra Iron Man, carne contra metal.

El ritmo de la historia es bastante elevado, como corresponde a una obra de ciencia ficción militar. Las escaramuzas y batallas son entretenidas y no demasiado confusas.

Hasta ahora parece que todo bien. ¿Qué es lo que ha fallado para mí en Ironclads entonces?

Creo que el autor abusa de la amenaza desconocida a la que se enfrenta el equipo protagonista, cuando es bastante patente por donde van los tiros. La conspiración es transparente desde el minuto uno y ninguno de los giros de la trama consigue hacerte pestañear, ya que todo parece seguir un guión prefijado que ya hemos leído con anterioridad. Además, avanzar de encuentro casual en encuentro casual no favorece para nada la tensión que debería ir creciendo.

Es por esto que no puedo ponerle mejor nota al libro, que prometía más de lo que realmente entrega. No por ello voy a dejar de lado a su autor, porque hasta el mejor escribano tiene algún borrón.

Ted Regan and his crew have been sent on a mission with little or no chance of success. At the heart of the story are Scions, an interesting concept developed for the story. Corporations are driving the wars and the Scions keep the sons of the powerful safe in a battle while the common man fights and dies. Ted and crew have to come up with some very inventive moves to stay alive and in the game. There are some very interesting character who help along the way. They do succeed but not in the expected way. There is an ending to the story but that ending left me wondering and not quite satisfied. I did like the world building and back story. With the ending leaving some things up in the air I hope this is book one in a series. There is certainly enough there to continue the story.

Ironclads revolves around Sergeant Ted Regan and his squad of battle-hardened soldiers. Their mission: Go behind enemy lines to see what happened to a scion that went missing. Scions are essentially rich kids, sons of the wealthy and the powerful behind the world’s big businesses, clad in iron-hard battle suits. They are the elite of the elite and one of them has gone missing.

Told in Ted Regan’s voice, Ironclads is a story set in the not so far future (despite the tech being ridiculously advanced) where corporations run the world of war and simple soldiers are the pawns on the chess board used to soak up the bullets and do the jobs the rich boys are too important to dirty their hands with.

In Ironclads’ world, England has all but had it, crippled by leaving Europe (if I remember correctly) and European countries (mainly the Scandinavian ones) are the baddest of the bad. It’s a strange setting (one that includes all manners of tech from microbots to experimental human-hybrid weapons) but one the reader quickly adapts to.

The camaraderie between Regan and his squad, and the various new additions to their group that they pick up along the way, really help to make the reader feel attached. Those parts are well written and well thought out by the author.

Tchaikovsky’s ability to create a complex plot within a plot is sublime. I couldn’t help but feel on the edge of my seat as regards to figuring out what was going to happen next. I even found myself loving characters/factions I wouldn’t expect myself to.

This is my first book/novella by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I very much doubt it will be my last if the character work and overall storytelling is as high a standard in the rest of his work.

It is difficult to develop a completely believable and understandable future scenario in the fewer number of pages in a novella. The author do a good job of describing the society where a war is being waged by corporations on behalf of governments or maybe not. It seems a reader should not expect to know the whys of what happens but the author eventually pulls it all together. For me I do not want to have to think too hard about the story-line.

ronclads by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Tchaikovsky is writing up a great SF storm here, folks! I've said before that I love his SF much more than his fantasy, and this one is easily my proof positive. Right after Dogs of War and Children of Time, I didn't know if he could keep it up, but he does. And this ain't no throwaway novella, either. My only complaint is that there are only a thousand copies made!

Here's the best part of the tale... ARMOR! Think Gundam meets Special-Ops, a war-torn world with very interesting lines drawn, a world-building that is pretty fantastic AND with great reasons behind it, and very memorable characters. Right, Sturgeon?

The haves and the have-nots hearken right back to the good old days of chivalry and suits of armor. If you're rich, you have great armor, if you're not rich, you're meat. Let's get us back to those roots! :) We need to turn the world into a playground for rich soldiers like it should always have been! :)

Honestly, this is one of the best mil-sf tales I've read in a while and I may have enjoyed it even more than the author's Dogs of War. That was all about genetically altered animals and war and I may be wrong, but Ironclad seems to be a PREQUEL to that world!

War is constantly a tale of evolving means and methods and sometimes (or often) it gets really wonky. This is no different.

Above all, though, I love the characters. The stories that Sturgeon told and the reveals were great, but there was enough action in this short novella to pack a few novels, too.

Eagerly awaiting a lot more!

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

Sergent Ted Regan is sent behind enemy lines to find a fallen soldier. This soldier is the son of a large multinational corporation. He fights in a Scion, which is a robotic suit. Although Regan wonders why his small team with minimal armor and limited firepower is sent to find this soldier he knows not to disobey orders. So Regan and his team go and can only hope that they can enter Sweden, find the missing soldier and leave all in one piece.

This novella goes in-depth into the cause of the war, how the war has been fought and what the ultimate prize is for. The reader learns that the battle is a difference of philosophies between Sweden and the USA. The reader also learns that there are different hierarchies in the army depending on which side you fight for, whose your sponsor, how rich you are (and therefore the type of armor and weapons you can afford) and which blood ties you have. Adrian Tchaikovsky goes into great details about the Sweden terrain, the robot types and their advantages/disadvantageous and the shortcomings of humanity (how a good portion of the population can be bought out by a corporation). The characters are well written and given a realistic element to themselves. I loved the style of the novel, it felt like a 80’s action movie meets The Terminator. There is cheesy one-liners, swearing and an overall antiwar feel to the novel.

Although I wasn’t expecting a novel like this to have numerous hidden meanings it did. It reflected on society, warfare, humanity and corporations. It also felt like it could be a reflection of the future if things don’t change.

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC.

This is a grunts-eye view of a middle-future war, taking place after the 1% have solidified their position. Wars are fought by corporations as much as by nations, and some of the rearranged alliances and conflicts are surprising and fun to think over. Most of the worldbuilding is revealed a little at a time, rather than dumped on the reader.

The rich and powerful still need expendables to do the dirty work, and the story follows five non-privileged soldiers as they investigate the disappearance of an elite. Among the way, we see a variety of future war tech, both mechanical and biological. And of course it wouldn’t be Tchaikovsky without “bugs,” which have a small fascinating role to play.

I could tell you about more of my favorite bits, but you'll have more fun finding them for yourself. A novella is a great length for telling a story, and this one works well, but I’d be glad to spend more time learning more about this world, how it got this way, and what one of the characters did next.

Recommended both for military SF fans and those who might ordinarily prefer other subgenres.

Ironclads delivers on everything it promises. You'll find plenty of mech combat, wartime horrors, and all sorts of over-the-top technology. If you're into those things, well, this is probably a good investment.

Ironclads by Adrian Tchaikovsky- I've read some books by this author in the Apt series and found the world-building and the stories to be first-rate action and intrigue. This is a departure from that template. Ironclads takes place in a corporate-structured version of our world, where soldiers use all the fire-power and tech they can to achieve success for their sponsors, usually the ultra rich corporate overlords. Similar to Mark Reynolds' The Mercenary from the early 1960's, the grunts don't have much say and are disposable equipment on the battlefield. When a rich person decides to fight along side the grunts, he is equipped with a state-of-the-art powered battle suit called a Scion. These armored fighting suits, Ironclads, are almost a sub-genre of their own in the Military Science Fiction genre. Sergeant Ted Regan, an old hand in the wars, is the narrator, and he offers keen observations on what his happening to him and his two comrades. They're on a special mission with two additional combatants they don't know or trust. What follows is a lot of fighting, high tech shenanigans, and numerous asides from Ted and his crew. Good Military Science Fiction and well done.

On a slightly future Earth where the "Military-Industrial Complex" has openly become the driving force for all international relations (no comment on whether this is already the case), a ragtag group of soldiers is plucked from the front lines for a special mission. They are to attempt to discover what happened to a Scion, a member of one of the ultra-rich corporate families, who has done the unthinkable: disappeared despite the fantastic, weaponized armor the very wealthy provide for their own (visualize the soldiers from Halo). Along the way, the group meets the results of various biowarfare experiments, fight Swedish soldiers and Finnish rebels, and learn who they can and cannot trust.

This is a short novel with a relatively simple plot, but it's also full of little surprises. It reminded me of the stories of John Wyndham (albeit more modern). In other words, very enjoyable.

I have read Adrian Tchaikovksy's Shadows of the Apt series and loved it.
I recently read his Dogs of War and enjoyed it. However I think this has somewhat tainted Ironclads for me.
Ironclads sees us again in the near-future where the UK (read as England which annoyed me, being Scottish) has gained independence from Europe and subsequently gone bust and been bought over by the USA. The USA is likewise invading or at war with most of the rest of the world. Wars are now fought mainly in corporate interest (but then what's new *cough gulf war cough*) with armies of poorly equipped government soldiers sent in to conflict supported by corporate playboys (generally the heir to the corporate fortunes) in their massive armoured scion suits where they are fully protected from pretty much everything.
The story sees one small group of US soldiers sent in to deepest darkest Sweden to rescue one such playboy who got himself a bit too far ahead of the army and appears to have gone missing (without his scion suit).
Being a short (200 pages) book worked well for me, I felt any more scenes or narrative would have felt like padding and this was its natural length.
However it did feel a little bit like the notes or background to Dogs of War. That book notes that wars used to be fought with machines and robots but now mechanically enhanced animals was the new way. This book felt somewhat like a side story of that robot-based past and not much more.
Other aspects of the story chimed with that of Dogs of War and showed the author to be a little short of ideas - living beings with their brains cybernetically enhanced, swarms of insects disrupting communications, the USA being a little bit invadey etc.
While this is not my usual cup of tea, I have enjoyed other sci-fi and felt this was a little slapdash. I didn't like the narrative style, finding the blasé, informal tones of an army sergeant both jarring and poorly executed. And while I don't need to be spoon-fed the plot, I found some elements badly explained or not at all (what did the Finns do?!) and the major plot twist was neither surprising nor worthy of the previous 150 pages.
Tchaikovsky can describe a battle scene well and you get a feel for the whole battle as well as the key conflicts, so the action itself is fairly gripping at times. However, the finished article left me feeling a bit meh.
All in all I am glad I read this, but had expected better things from his sci-fi given Children of Time won the Arthur C Clarke award.

Ironclads is a near future sci-fi piece by Adrian Tchaikovsky; it's been a good month for Tchaikovsky - his Dogs of War was absolutely brilliant. So this short, near-future novel had some very big shoes to fill. In that, it largely succeeds.

In a near future Europe, run in large part by corporations and their super-rich members (‘Scions’), one of those members has gone missing. This is a bit of a problem, because he was wearing a suit of allegedy impenetrable armour at the time. This makes his relatives, and others who rely on their invulnerability to supplement their economic control, rather nervous. If a Scion in a suit can be disappeared, it’s always possible that they’re not as invulnerable as they thought.

The foundation of the world of the Scions is distressingly familiar. Large corporations control vast amounts of capital. With the creation of suits of impenetrable armour which only they can afford, the corporate class are working to merge corporatism with feudalism. If the invention of gunpowder democratised war, allowing the poor to hold the chivalric types to account, then the invention of the Scion suit reverses the trend. With their fingers in a lot of pies, the corporations can also restrict access to anything which would be able to crack a Scion suit – and so hold onto their effective monopoly of violence. There’s some interesting undercurrents there as well – the US government is implied to be hard-libertarian, and sceptical of rights for women, workers or, well, anyone who doesn’t run a multinational. By contrast, European governments re more sceptical, but the same hierarchy runs through them as well.

The conflict between these two philosophies has led to an actual war, the US marching into Sweden, and using its armed forces as cannon fodder, backed by the rich men in invulnerable suits who will see the benefit of any success. Looking at this from one angle, it’s a suggestion of where a world increasingly in thrall to a corporate vision will go; from another, it’s rather depressing. This is a world where the rich are going to stay on top, and everyone else is going to bleed, one way or another.
Our insights into the world are given by a squad of US grunts, sent after the missing Scion suit. They’re a diverse set, and that emphasises their humanity alongside their low status. There’s the corporate worker, now a drone operator. There’s the giant who believes firmly in the truth of libertarianism, and has the fire of religion to sustain him; then there’s his opposite, the near-socialist who can’t seem to keep his mouth shut, cynically pointing out the way everyone is getting ripped off, but unable to offer the hope of something better. They’re all under a Sergeant willing to do quite a lot for them, the everyman – smart enough to acknowledge the cynicism put forward by one of his squad mates, but also smart enough to reign it in, to look at the world from a smaller, more immediate perspective – and so survive firefights. It’s to Tchaikovsky’s credit that though we’re with the squad a relatively short amount of time, they feel like people. Troubled, wry, and rather aware that they’re not expected to survive, their resilience in the face of great events mixes with their awareness that there’s nothing spectacular about them – they’re the everyman, and that makes them easier for the reader to identify with.

There’s a lot of cool stuff here – marches through parts of occupied Sweden are cold, stark, and bleak – whilst also offering up the essential humanity of both sides of the war. That they also include tripod-esque drones, enormous helicopter gunships and the occasional power-armoured death match is icing on the cake. There’s a fair bit of blood on the deck, but this is a book which helps show off the futility of war, the crass motives behind it, and the way in which the costs are borne, wrapped in rhetoric. In that sense, it’s not a positive book, but it does feel like one which is true. There’s a fair amount of high-octane firefights, carefully, lethally described, which will keep you turning pages to see who survives (if anyone does). But these scenes bookend a more nuanced story about how the little man can work within the confines of his situation to do something better, and how even if the deck is stacked against you, it’s possible to hope, and to be human.

Ironclads is a book which throws an interesting political reality together, extrapolated plausibly from the present. It adds nifty technology – drones, cyberwarfare, bio-weapons – to the mix, and then stirs in a soupcon of war, and a healthy measure of humanity, up to its eyeballs in chaos and just trying to make the best of it. It’s a smart book, with an interesting, unflinching message – and that makes it a very good read.

I was lucky enough to receive this ARC courtesy of NetGalley. First off, this is a beautifully written and accomplished book and Tchaikovsky has a rare talent for characterisation and battle imagery. Ironclads is set in a futuristic world where society is divided between the elite & monied corporations and their powered-up almost invulnerable Scions who use war as their playground and, the underfunded, under geared dispensible soldiers who 'do' the dirty work.

The story is set primarily in what was Scandinavia where a small squad of soldiers who have been handpicked to rescue or find evidence of a missing Scion, start their mission. War has erupted between continents and battles for pieces of land, are all-consuming.

‘Ironclads’ is, at its heart, a narrative about war and its futility and a nod to unstable leaders who use aggressive and provocative rhetoric in place of diplomacy. At times, I found some of the writing quite dense and had to push through but the author manages to inject some dark humour with a tribe of tech modified Finnish werewolves who reminded me of Pierce Brown's extraordinary Howlers. The three soldiers on the mission are made interesting by their histories & interactions and I would like to see a sequel with a deeper look into this aspect of the book. I can thoroughly recommend 'Ironclads', particularly if you enjoy pure military sci-fi at its best.

In days of old, soldiering was the first choice of career. The rich obtained the best armor and weaponry money could buy. If captured, an officer might be ransomed but eventually return home. The tables have turned and soldiering has now fallen upon the common man. In the not so distant future, the rich now remain behind the front lines. They run the companies, supporting and profiting from the war effort.

A team of three "expendable" army men from the 203rd Recon Platoon are flown to London to be briefed on a secret mission. Ted Regan with fellow soldiers Franken and Sturgeon are informed that a son of an important corporate family, a Scion, was reported missing. Jerome's Scion "shell" a molded chassis, had "cut out" and his location is now unknown. Ironclads were the battle dress of heirs or spares and were never unlatched except in the confines of their compounds. What happened to Jerome? Regan and his team venture out to investigate, however, wearing inferior gear, they are considered replaceable.

Ted Regan, as narrator, introduces two additional members of the search and rescue team. Lawes, a slovenly man who is an expert pathfinder having worked on England's expeditionary force and Ms. Cormoran, a specialist in drone surveillance. A battle of competing technologies ensues pitting virtually impenetrable Scions, autonomous mechs and inconsequential humans. Will the team be able to find Jerome, the missing Scion? Will they safely return from their mission?

"Ironclads" by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a fun romp into a dystopian world where corporation fights corporation using peons as the first line of defense in a cutthroat world. A novella well worth reading!

Thank you Rebellion Books, Solaris Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Ironclads".

A gut-wrenching, action-packed military sci-fi novella by one of the hottest talents at the moment.

We are drawn into a dystopian near future where corporations and governments collude and engage in warfare for profit. Perhaps not all that dissimilar to contemporary times, except the elites are safely ensconced in Ironclads, near impenetrable battle suits, while the grunts are ill-equipped cannon fodder at the battlefront. As Sturgeon says: "Scions fight Scions, like chess players play chess players. We pawns are just here to be taken".

Ironclads is written from the first-person perspective of Sergeant Regan, who provides the voice of the disenchanted, desperately trying to hang on to his humanity in a world gone mad.

Sergeant Regan is accompanied by a motley military crew who go behind enemy lines on an impossible mission against technologically advanced adversaries with far-reaching consequences. Just imagine a sci-fi version of Schwarzenegger's seminal Predator, just bigger and badder...

Read this novella, it's batshit crazy. That's what Sturgeon says.

Awesome science-fiction military battle story. Tchaikovsky makes this story roar right from the first page with a superb narrative voice. Told in a vernacular all its own, that voice tells the tale, sounding for all the world like an Army grunt of the future relating his good buddy Sturgeon's sayings and theories. It's just an ordinary guy telling a story from his point of view.

But, wow, what a story! A future where there is a constant war being fought and the rich elites are in giant armored suits of near-invincibility and the grunts are just cannon fodder. There are cyber-beings and underground forces. And half-human and half something else things. The whole book is one secret mission behind enemy lines and the battle scenes are vivid, stark, and brutal.