After reading and reviewing Ryan Williamson's The Widow's Son, I decided to try out one of his later works. Doomsday Recon is the first book in a series of three, and has Jason Anspach also on as an author.
Compared to The Widow's Son, I found this book to be much more polished. One of the problems I had with The Widow's Son was the constant foreign-language bits, which are still present in this book, but are handled more skillfully and naturally.
In short, Doomsday Recon was a much easier read, which is handy, because it's also much longer.
Doomsday Recon introduces a cool fantasy world based largely (I think) on Aztec mythology, and it has some very fun fiddling with nonlinear time as one of its major plot elements. It's very gory, which may turn off some readers, but at least it doesn't seem to revel in it.
The plot is simple and straightforward: a military group is transported into this strange world and is forced to cut a path through various eldritch horrors and try to survive. There are some fun subplots, such as the dealings with Alpha Squad, which I thought developed nicely throughout the book.
There are tons of characters and they are developed in a believable way. Some of the characters make some fast turns, but whenever this happens, the justification is solid. There are no "blank slate" characters; everyone feels like a unique personality with their own opinions and motivations. Character conflicts are treated with appropriate weight, with some characters getting along well, others clashing, and some disliking each other but sucking it up and working together anyway. There's a lot of sarcasm and characters pretending they dislike each other more than they really do, too.
One of the points I really enjoyed was the realistic portrayal of good leaders and the tough choices they have to make.
Books like this often fall into one of two camps: 1) "Modern tech so OP LOL" or 2) "Magic obv beats tech LMAO." This book, to its credit, falls nicely in the middle, with some excellent showings from both sides. The main characters are from 1989, so they have some good equipment, but they also get to see more modern American military gear and react to it, which was fun to read and helped round out several characters even better.
The authors pay careful attention to the resources that various groups have and how quickly they are consuming what they have. They kept a close eye on supplies and logistics and I never felt as if any group suddenly had more stuff magically--except when they actually did!
The book is written from the first-person perspective, but feels realistic and not especially plot-armored. Of course, character invulnerability is one of the potential drawbacks of this PoV, but it is handled above average in this book, and the MC gets some good development and change, all while maintaining some intriguing mysterious elements.
One point where the plot somewhat suffers is from a "we just joined the baddies?" subplot that is resolved way too quickly. I would have preferred the authors to have taken more time getting to know this new faction before the reveal--they could have even finished out this book while still working with them and I think that would have worked better. It wastes some fairly good foreshadowing.
The book is pulpy but very long. I found it a fun read, and will probably check out the sequel eventually.
If you like military and fantasy mashups and enjoy lots of crazy battles and gore, you'll probably enjoy this book.
Pick up a copy here.
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