Splashdown: Land & Sea, Book 1

mechs don’t help thalassophobiaCame in to the book with no expectations, to be honest. Blaine Lee Pardoe is fresh(ish) off his being cut loose from Battletech writing for dubious reasons, so I wondered “is this Battletech with more differenter separately and legally distinct mecha?”Nah, it’s way better than my expectations: This one has aliens and characters that can walk and chew gum at the same time.The first I would say half of the book is introducing you to your cast of characters, which was quite a few. Because I’m old and crap, I found it somewhat difficult to keep track of them at first, but the more the books spends time with them you get to know them better, and by the end there’s very little confusion of “oh, who is she? Oh yeah!”The characters are diverse of backgrounds and temperament, from the intelligence officer to the down on his luck veteran eking out a living as a (somewhat principled) drug dealer fighting the last war in his head, to the dirtbag (may Allah forgive me for saying this) journalist, there’s plenty here for any reader.The story starts as a series of strange events that will make any casual sci fi reader shake their book/tablet and scream “FRIGGIN’ ALIENS! IT’S ALIENS YOU DUMMIES!”, which kind of works for it: yes, clearly they’re aliens, but what do they want with your microwave? Why are they eating metal form the legs of an offshore oil rig?It also does a good job navigating how a real government would respond to learning of aliens, sitting on it, then having it all hit the fan at once.One thing I like about this book is how it plays with location. You go from knee-deep in the shit of an alien attack, to the labyrinth of a Pentagon basement, as characters digest the chaos and distill information from it. You can almost smell the stale air and see the cheap low-pile carpet.While some of the early dialogue, especially between military characters seemed a bit HOO RAH machismo that chewed some scenery, it didn’t pulverize the characterizations trying to be conveyed and at the end it seemed to flow better.The action is cleanly written, and you’re able to easily visualize what’s going on; at no point did I have to flip back and go ‘wait what?’.Describing aliens, especially those of your own design and trying to get that mental image from your head to your audience’s minds eye is tricky, but by the end of the book, I had a clear(ish) idea of what these hostile sea borne aliens look like.Speaking of: the ASHUR (Augmented Soft/Hard Unconventional Combat Rig) is an acronym so tortured I strongly identify with it. They’re cool, but they aren’t invincible, nor do you even get any action in this book from an ASHUR pilot’s perspective. Combined arms is still the name of the game. The suits, when present, are beautifully shown to be power houses, if handled properly.Technology as a whole in the book is, I think, a fairly realistic portrayal of where we as humans can expect the to: direct neural interfaces, smart contacts, etc.Overall, solid, am looking forward to Riptide. Until then, Swim at your own

good take on the aliens invade story line.The only thing that diminishes the book in my eyes is that the author apparently did little research to get submarine ops and Navy day to day correct.Nuclear submarines have sails not conning towersSurfacing is a complex procedure and not something done a whim to let the captain get a breath of fresh air..if at all possible a submarine stays submerged, on the surface you are lumbering targer..takes a while to submerge.If you want fresh air you go to snorkel depth and ventilate the ship using the snorkel mastBallast tanks are outside the hull and use no pumps, you most definitely and do, drive the ship to the surface and then use the LP blower to get water out of the ballast tanks, the only other way is to blow the ballast tanks with HP/Emergency airThere is no way you are going in the reactor compartment not "reactor room" with the reactor at powerThere is no command center in a submarine is called control or ConnThe CO would never refer to the XO as Mr. Hill, he would be XO. Also, when the command transfers for any reason that new person is the captain so the XO became the captain in the storyThe Chief of the Boat is not the only person/chief on a submarine and does not do everything, likewise in the story the CO apparently always had the deck and con and there was no OOD though many of the orders given to the chief were things the OOD would do.The BSY-1 combat system has not been a part of the fleet since the 90sELF is not a means for efficient communication nor would it be used in the situations described...you would drive to PD fast, raise a comms mast and send a compressed message to a satellite.There is more that could be said but the gist is if you are going to spend so much of the story in submarine ops you might want to get in the ballpark at least with terminology

With each chapter focused solely on a single character in a worldwide story, Splashdown took me some time to get into. Specifically, it took a few chapters to really feel myself enjoying the book. I was expecting more action in the opening salvo because of the cover, and while there's some action in the first half, it was mostly training sims.That said, when the action did kick in; I enjoyed it immensely, and everything I learned in the first half of the book made sense. It tied together beautifully, and I'm looking forward to getting into book 2.

This book launches a new series and as such has the difficult job of embedding us in the world of the near future and conveying a vast amount of information without boring, a task it achieves with great success. The first two thirds are a steady but constant heating up of the tension before the full frothy action packed boil of the final third.Pardoe has always been an expert at both world building and writing combat and this book is an excellent example of his work.An immensely enjoyable and satisfying read - I look forward to the second book.

This book is in my opinion a great read, it takes you to the core of a battle and it's people involved. Nice story to.

absolutely fantastic book from start to finish cant wait for book 2 get writing mr pardoe

A very tough slog for pretty much the first half of the book gives way to the story in the back half.World building can be tough and I get that it is needed but.....some of the characters are just boring AF. Dana Blaze? Sigh.....This is why i am glad aliens are not in the BT universe....I will definitely give the 2nd book a shot and will then make a call to see if it is worth supporting after that.

Very good, I always enjoy Blaine Pardoe's novels, my only criticism is there's too many characters. It's hard to keep track of who is who and where they are in the story.