Very good. Special forces in space type novel. Good page-turner. ( )

The Outriders of the title are a "death proof", very low profile, very hi-tech, special forces group on a future earth. They are sent to investigate events that may be co-incidence or may be covert attacks that could lead to the first war between Earth and Mars.

"Outriders" has the twisty plot of a good spy novel, lots of shiny futuristic military toys for search and destroy games, a team of cool soldiers who are both likeable and lethal and a story-telling pace that grabs hold of you from page one (where the main character, Lincoln Suh, dies) and doesn't let up until the end.

All of that would have been enough for me to read this book with a grin on my face and then set it aside but Jay Posey added a few things that made "Outriders" more than just a good military SF novel.

I found his calm, factual way of telling this tense and violent tale compelling. This high attention, low arousal approach to dealing with a crisis is exactly what I imagine to be necessary to do the kind of work the Outriders do. Lincoln Suh, the new officer trying earn the right to lead and experienced, established team, embodies this killer calm and garnsihes it with an engaging mix of humour and self-deprication.

I also liked the way Posey brought out the similarities between the Outriders and the military/spy team that they are up against. Both teams are driven to achieve goals that they believe in through violence and destruction. Neither wants to cause harm to by-standers. Neither mistreats the people that they capture. Yet either team will shoot the other on sight with no hesitation.

James Lindgren does a great job of the narration, matching the controlled-calm of the text while still being able to keep the tension of the plot.

I've never read Jay Posey before but I'll be hitting his back-catalog soon, while I wait for the next "Outriders" to come out.

Go HERE to read an interview with Jay Posey on how he cam e up with the ideas for "Outriders". ( )

Everyone knows by now Captain Lincoln Suh died right in the beginning of the book. Hell, it’s right on the cover. What you don’t know yet its what exactly the 519 Applied Intelligence Group do and how they operate. They operate exactly as you expect: silent, quick and, if necessary, deadly.
The political landscape evolves around high tensions between Earth and Mars.
Not making comparisons here, just imagine if The Expanse didn’t have the alien stuff. Just the political.

Reading this book felt like being handled a script for a science fiction movie or game with a fast paced prose. To be expected from what is also military fiction. Never read any of Tom Clancy’s novels or the video games Jay Prosey worked on but its clear he knows all the jargon and how teams talk and operate between each other. At least knows enough to convince me.

He doesn’t waste time elaborating the setting the characters are in nor the characters themselves. You profile them simply by noticing what Lincoln sees and thinks in the immediate moment, same can be said for the environment. What you need most is context. What you get its what Lincoln gets. Probably for the better, since this is no Neuromancer and we don’t exactly need to know what every cool gadget looks like or does. Not unless it comes with some philosophical discussion on how it affects governments, parties and its people. Such discussions are not to be expected either here.

“I don’t mean to be callous about it. Of course its a tragedy. Every loss of life is. But on a strategic level, at the scale of full-blown war, this is a blow we can absorb.”

“You’re a soldier Captain Suh. That’s it. A soldier. You don’t make policy, you don’t make deals”

However, the story still touched in some very specific points: terrorism, the fight against it and the moral and geographical consequences. There’s dialogue about it and I’d risk saying its the “message” or theme. It challenges the characters to think of new approaches to the missions and how to navigate, as soldiers, in a sea of diplomacy.

Visually this would be an action packed summer or winter flick. But one of the good ones. Feels like an Intertextual success. You’ve seen it before, but not exactly like this.

I say, get your hammock ready, pick Outriders up and enjoy yourself.
( )

Meh. While Outriders had some interesting concepts, it really didn't do much for me and actually left me bored at times. I had a hard time trying to finish it. It's military sci fi that's more military fiction that also tries to be spy fiction. Maybe the author was confused.

It starts out with a pretty cool scene though. Captain Lincoln Suh dies on the very first sentence of the very first page of the very first chapter. And he's later brought back to a form of existence similar to living. Ah, modern science! Actually, it's obviously set at some point in the future. After all, it's "sci fi." I read someone venture that it's possibly the year 2100, or somewhere around there. The reason for this assumption is one of the characters states that her great grandparents were growing up in the time of the moon landing. But, now humanity has spread itself to the moon, Mars, and some of the other moons throughout the solar system.

Anyway, back to Suh. He's brought back to this existence, as I mentioned, but why? He's been brought back to become a member of super secret Special Forces unit in the military. He works his ass off in this secret training program, only to find out he doesn't make the cut, and he's shocked. But he is immediately brought into the fold of another group, the real group he was actually destined for: the Outriders, a Tier One Special Missions unit of the U.S. Army. It's a five person unit that he'll be leading. Two members of the team are women, one of whom is black and who grew up rich and privileged and joined the military against her parent's wishes. I know it's become incredibly popular for sci fi authors to include women in all military sci fi book military units, including special forces units, because future women are warriors you don't want to fuck with, but I've occasionally read some things I've really had a hard time buying, at the risk of sounding like a complete sexist pig. For instance, I just finished a military sci fi book in which this 5'4" petite female Marine carried a 140 pound railgun as her carry weapon. Seriously? I don't know many men who could do that. A lot of people generally consider men to possibly be slightly stronger than women as a gender, whether you buy that or not, so to believe that a petite woman could do that is really stretching things in my opinion. It's the height of PC.

I guess, aside from spaceships and space colonies, one of the things that makes this "sci fi" is the attention paid to the power armor. It's pretty cool. But you know, other than that, it didn't seem all that "sci fi" to me. It seemed more straight military to me. With a little spy/thriller thrown in. Tom Clancy in the future, maybe?

I guess one of the interesting aspects to the book is somewhat philosophical in nature. When Outriders are "killed" (again), if there's enough of their body parts left, they can be put back together and brought back to existence. If not, they have had personal backups made of them, so they can simply be replaced. Makes people like Suh wonder about one's soul. Is there one? What happens to it? What happens to the copies when they die (again)? Etc.

All that said, I found Suh to be a real annoying prick. I felt like he thought too highly of himself and his abilities. I thought his sense of leadership was overrated. I just didn't like him. He was a narcissist. And I never got a real good feel for his team. I guess I thought the character development wasn't the best I've seen. And the bad guys never felt all that bad to me. I just didn't feel too invested in this book. In other words, I just never really got into it. The most interesting thing about it was the beginning. Everything after that was downhill. I looked over the reviews I saw online. I encountered a number of four star reviews, maybe a couple of five star reviews, and quite a few two and three star reviews, similar to my own. Obviously, this isn't the best military sci fi book ever written. I think Jay Posey is talented. I just think he perhaps mixed some genres in this book, made an unlikable protagonist, and wrote a bland book. I haven't read anything else by him, but there's enough here to make me give another one of his books a chance though. Perhaps. But three stars. Not recommended. ( )

Outriders is Book #1 in a new outer-space, military sci-fi series by Jay Posey. His name may ring a bell because we reviewed all of his novels in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi Duskwalker trilogy – a trilogy I absolutely loved. I can assure you that Jay has brought his unique spin to outer space in the same way that he brought it to a post-apocalyptic Earth. Now that I’ve read Outriders, I can’t wait for Book #2 in this new series. If you like fast-paced space traveling sci-fi with a military theme then read on at http://popcornreads.com/?p=9082 ( )