Death's Head
by David Gunn
military science fiction
book one of a series
copyright 2007
read in February 2014
my rating 8/10: really quite good
Tough, violent... satisfying.
The hero is just slightly superhuman. The violence is extreme but it just happens. There is no "gore porn", no excessive dwelling on the blood and dismemberment.
Perhaps I am already desensitised ? Yet I still shudder as I listen to a tv show which gleefully dissects a murder victim. In this book the violence just happens, it is not the central entertainment.
Better than all this -- the hero is a hero !
He doesn't easily make friends. Yet when he does make friends -- he really means it. And when he makes a promise, he means to keep it. This is the friend that you need when you are in really deep trouble.
Okay, this is book one of a series. Various characters are being set up to be regulars; people with special needs or special skills, who will likely reappear in later stories. Not a problem !
Because this book does -- on its own -- reach a conclusion.
There is a beginning, a middle and an end. The end of this book provides a satisfying conclusion to all of the previous action.
Yes, there are loose ends. Loose ends, not cliffhangers. The reader is not left unsatisfied... There is, just, enough room to want more.
That's the sign of a good book in a series: the reader does not *need* more; the reader *wants* more.
I want more :-)
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