Interesting is the word that springs to mind when describing Unbreakable. As a massive fan of military science fiction, I had high hopes for Unbreakable. Did it deliver? Yes... mostly.
Unbreakable tells the tale of Promise Paen, the leader of Victor Company of the RAW (Republic of Aligned Worlds) Marines. When events take her and her marines back to her home planet, she is embroiled in a brewing and impending interstellar war.
Unbreakable starts out slow, but quickly escalates into an action packed, balls to the wall, military sci fi. Fascinating characters, sprawling space politics and rivalries, cracking battles and awesome tech make Unbreakable a really good read for fans of the genre. Comparisons with other favourites are inevitable, and titles like Aliens, Old Man's War, and Starship Troopers will be brought up when describing Unbreakable. And yes... there are similarities between them all. This brings me to my small problem with Unbreakable... at times it felt like I had already read something similar before. For example, Promise Paen at times resembles a female Johnny Rico... and whilst that didn't detract much from my overall reading experience I just felt Bauers could have pushed the boundaries a little more and changed things up from deploying well used tropes (I concede Robin Hobb's point though that tropes become tropes because we love them!).
Did this ruin Unbreakable for me? No. I still loved it, and would recommend it to anyone with even a small interest in science fiction or speculative fiction. A very solid debut!
4 out of 5 stars.
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