<a data-hook="product-link" class="a-link-normal" href="/Sentenced-War-J-N-Chaney-ebook/dp/B08VHNNG5W">Sentenced to War

Language

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2021

Searched for a colloquial word for feces. Many hits. Book is disappointing and deleted.

Note: last time I actually quoted an objectionable word in a review, the review was rejected. So, it is not like Amazon finds the language acceptable to them either. But they'll sell it to us.

24 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Language

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2021

24 people found this helpful

Boring.

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2021

I was expecting a grpping story with complex wartime interaction with aliens and high tech. What I got instead was a very bland, very boorish interplay between very predictable character tropes. It's not that it is poorly written, rather, but just 'empty' of what makes sci fi military reading FUN : complexity, dynamic interactions between characters, and attention grabbing battle field fighting. The book has NONE of this. As in, ZERO. I have no interest in being fly on the wall inside a marine barracks full of mediocre recruits. Even the banter is utterly predictable, bland, and boorish. I would say that this book was 'thee' most boring, predictable, empty sci fi military novel I have ever read. I'm only glad that I did not buy all three of four of them at once, but smartly told myself to just try the first one then see. Saved myself wasted cash. Going back to reading more Star Wars novels. Why??? Because they're on an entirely higher level than this. Maybe it gets better by book three or four. But at this point, I simply don't care to find out.

Meh.

Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2021

Meh. Nothing unique or moderately interesting "boot" story. Was hoping for more substantive read, just didn't happen. I bit disappointed.

One person found this helpful

DB01

Childish

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2021

No character building. Derivative. That was a slog. Editing was fine but the battle scenes were boring, there was no world building, no reason to care about the characters….

One person found this helpful

Inconsistent, Disappointing

Sgt Maj EMP

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2021

Mildly surprised regarding the entire effort. I'm a sucker for stories where conscripted troops perform well. The story starts with ‘our’ heroes conscripted via penal system....traffic tickets get you hard time in elite Marine units? Worse, the story starts with this plotline but falls off early and only brought up here n there to play on readers emotionally.

The ‘Universe’, the background -- Host, Frisians, etc -- is told poorly, bits and pieces, and gets wordy at times telling us, the reader, very little. Figured out one league, who they were and where they were from, when the MC’s are eating frog legs.

The Mil tech is very inconsistent, just doesn't make sense. Old Fashioned, crude RPG type weapon is the only weapon infantry has to take down an enemy -- each marine gets two shots, their rifles, overall, are useless. After 9-10 years of war, that's the best you got? from a species, humans, who have a millennia of experience in war?

The heart of any story are characters, and authors make readers assume since the charaacters are all cliched, stereotypes. Not a single character stood out and could embrace. MC was privileged youth, and acted like it throughout. His transformation of boy to Marine wasn't done well at all. Authors could have erased him, I would have not felt strongly at all.

Best sub-plotline was under done, the melding of combat suit AI with it's Marine. Specifically, the MC and how he dealt w it. Badly done and certainly not enough. Too bad because it was the best thing going on.

Then there is the overly sensitive handling of PC, especially regarding gender. Sorry, physiological differences affect, impact psychologically. It's fact, but somehow authors disregard and write of a future Marine Corps that's uneven, considerably, by gender. And that's also considering ‘augmentation’.

I believe that authors assume readers will fit everything together, nicely, by themselves. Throw us some big chunks -- have at. If you enjoy stories that have some credibility, especially character, military and logical tech, this dog don't hunt.

14 people found this helpful

Big Bust

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2021

Very disappointed in this book. I was hoping for a good old ,Star Troopers ,kinda story but there were only 2 battles and endless training and the angst exhibited by the protagonist ,was borrring. Also aggravated by the unrealistic scenarios. The guy gets an A.I.and only use 10% of its capabilities,in battle. He gets put in a foxhole,promptly turns music on and doesn't hear the enemy get within 30 feet of him. So many problems with the narrative. It ain't worth reading

5 people found this helpful

Disappointing cliche space marine tropefest.

Joshua Tucker

Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2021

There are a massive amount of logic gaps in the novel. The war is going horribly enough that they’re forcing enlistment for traffic tickets, but there’s no draft, no push for enlistment, nothing visible. They even specifically mention that there’s people that are living off the dole doing literally nothing, but apparently they’re having a hard time finding warm bodies.

They specifically mention multiple time the MC has anger issues, but when he’s actively screwed over, forced into service, turned into an abhuman killing machine that’ll probably die of cancer in a decade, and numerous other situations, he just shrugs and displays a level of acceptance that is ridiculous.

There is a big deal made about just how illegal making Augmented soldiers is, and how it all needs to be kept secret from the public. Then they let all of the Augmented, conscripted soldiers (who have had dozens of reports telling them there’s a 74% chance that they’re going to die) go out and socialize before deployment, with just a tether. Not to mention the fact that if it really was that secret, and that dangerous of information, there’s no way in hell that they could let Augmented troops leave the service. And the troops would come to that conclusion pretty quick.

The war has been going on for about a decade at this point in the book, and yet, all of the soldier’s equipment is still virtually useless against the enemy. The enemy is completely composed of Armor, no soft units at all. Yet only specialty units are being given anti-armor weapons, everyone else gets a (useless) gun.

Long story short, I think the author wanted to do conscripted-space-marine story, but it was too driven by the plot. Can’t have a draft or mass recruitment drive because then the MC wouldn’t be conscripted in this manner.The MC can’t get angry, because then he can’t be the hero who finds a home in the marines. The persons on leave can’t be a whistleblower for Government’s crimes against humanity, because that would change the tone of the story. The weapons have to suck, so that in the next book, humanity can gain an edge. The story works out like this because the plot demanded it. And it’s a lesser story for it.

3 people found this helpful

Character Likeability Lacking

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2021

I made it over 40% of the way through. Great military setup so far. That's right ... after nearly 5 hours of reading, I still haven't hit actual combat - the main character is still in training. What finally killed me was when I finally hit what I thought was Centaur military action, and it turned out to be virtual training that stops part-way through. I thought I should follow suit.

25% of the book for setup of a military action is okay, not nearly half. Especially when establishing "life-long" friendships in the military group during boot camp.

Boot camp was boring, with little interaction of characters. Adding to the fact is after boot camp they all SHOULD be assigned to different units (they aren't somehow - rules of the world are broken there - a big minus for me).

Worse, the main character, Rev, isn't good at making friends. The first scene is with a bunch of people he is trying to impress, but doesn't really care about. Then he has a potential girlfriend in the military, but nothing happens before she gets fridged. He also gets an AI in his head ... which he never uses. I mean, if you can't even interact with another intelligence in your head, befriend it at the least, there is a problem with your character making friends.

No humor. No real character interaction. No military action.

Nearly everything focused on the "augmentation" for military purposes. So "gun porn" as it is sometimes referred to, only not so much about the guns and more about the tech.

Oh, and complaining about not understanding what is going on. Not being told what is going on. And not reading the few instructions about what is going on and complaining about that. If the character is left in the dark (and doesn't actually care enough to figure the little bit he could), why should the reader care?

If you want a humor military sci-fi, read "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi - which this book compares itself to - and "Sentenced to War" is nearly like, except for the characters, the world-building, and the humor.

If you want another amazing augmentation for military purposes, plus romance and military action that actually delivers, try Liana Brooks' "Bodies in Motion" and "Changes in Momentum".

If you want to follow a kid being dragged into the military, "Terms of Enlistment" by Marko Kloos and "Poor Man's Fight" by Elliot Kay are both amazing.

This book is NOT amazing, and there is so many other book in this genre which are. But if you have run out of other options, this book has some really cool military technologies.

(Read through Kindle Unlimited)

Dumb and Dumber in the far future military, with standard over-used SF absurdities

Bob Baust

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2021

"Dumb" refers to the main character, who does dumb stuff from start to finish. He even tells himself "I should do such and such, but I can't help doing this other stupid thing". And he does it a lot.

Dumber refers to the society, government, and military commanders of the future. There is a war going on with an alien race and it's going very badly, but somehow this news is kept from the general public even though the author tells us that they can't hide the number of soldiers that never return home. On top of that, the government is now so desperate for cannon fodder that they are conscripting anybody with a traffic violation into the military. But somehow everybody still thinks the war is going well and will soon be over.

The military leadership is way past dumb. Statistics show that 200 humans die in battle for every alien that is killed, and then they send 9000 marines to battle 800 aliens. That means that after all 9000 marines are dead only 45 aliens will have been killed. Does this make any kind of sense to you?

There is much more dumb stuff going on that I won't repeat here, but trust me, it's there.

The author sometimes contradicts himself, or repeats himself, such as saying "Humanity was advancing by leaps and bounds" and then in the next paragraph tells us "Human technology was advancing by leaps and bounds". He gives us all kinds of new words, without explanations of course, some of which will still be meaningless to the reader after reading the entire book.

And he includes all the standard trope regarding future tech, and if you spend just 30 seconds thinking about any of these you realize how silly they are:
- hover vehicles (hey, at least they don't have flying cars)
- brain-wipes for serious crimes, because it is more humane to kill a criminal by erasing his personality and memories and then reprogram his brain with a fake personality. Probably saves money too.
- laser wands are used by ground personnel to direct landing aircraft (and blind pilots in the holding pattern)
- the author thinks light-years is a measurement of time

This is no Starship Troopers

Melissa K

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2021

Unless you thought the movie was the book, this is no starship troopers. I hate my war stories slogging through political correctness to provide an entirely unbelievable warfront.

The whole series feels like a sellout, and officer, not enlisted. Crap boot story, second rate action, and lots of artificial stress.