Officer-Cadet

So first off, I just want to point out that I bought this book way back in 1998 and aside from one failed attempt back then, did not read it until now. This thing's been chunking around with me for 23 years!

Review-wise, I was originally going to give it 3 stars, but realized that that would be overly-generous, so I'm going to settle on somewhere between 2.7 - 2.8 stars. I didn't hate it, but it also isn't making onto any “Best of” list. The book just has too many issues to climb above that.

First off, the book felt dated even for something published in 1998 and I've long suspected that it was written much, much earlier, like maybe the early 90s or even the 80s. For example, the computers are referred to as “compunits” and the description evokes those table-mounted computers from the original Star Trek.

Second, is that Rick Shelley really, really wanted the reader to know that the Dirigent Mercenary Corps is a 100% all beef, baby. There are no women mercenaries, something that Shelley drives home by repeatedly using the word “men” just in case you hadn't already figured out that the DMC is a sausage fest. Indeed, there are almost no women in the book at all. The one that does get mentioned is the wife of one of the mercs. It's just odd and funny because I believe at around the time Officer-Cadet was published, other military science fiction writers were including women in their books. That's one of the other reasons why I think this book is much older than its pub date.

Sidenote: For whatever reason, Shelley decided that that aforementioned merc should be a cuckhold who is not only fine with that the fact that his friends have had sex with his wife (who works as a waitress and sex worker) and encourages the main character, Lon Nolan, to do the same.

Yeaaah...

ANYWAYS, the other problem with the book is that for being one of the top mercenary companies in the galaxy, the Dirigent Mercenary Corps. is...not great. They have their own planet, but keep their entire military force located in one base. That's real convenient for anyone who attacks them, because all they'd have to do is hit one target instead of having to contend with multiple.

They also don't seem to have any ground vehicles because they don't take any with them to the planet they're deployed to. The only transportation they did bring are shuttles that have to pull the dual role of transports and close-air support. So what we get is a lot of walking. A lot of walking. Pretty much a good chunk of the book is just Lon and his unit traveling from place to place on foot. It's just incomprehensible that a military force would show up without ground vehicles.

I'm not sure they even brought machine guns either. They have rifles, grenade launchers, and beamers (directed energy weapons), but I don't recall there being any mention of machine guns. Same with sniper rifles. Really, it's almost like these guys showed up with no heavy weapons whatsoever and were like “YEAH! LET'S DO THIS! YEEHAW, MOTHERTRUCKERS!”

If I'm being honest and I'm trying not to come off as a jerk because the man's been dead for like 20 years, but I don't think Rick Shelley really knew up from down when it came to knowing how a military works.

One final gripe is that we don't find out the motivation of the rebels the MC and the rest of the mercs have been fighting until the end of the book, when it's revealed that they're the remnants of a hyper-fanatical religious cult that tried to take over the Earth, who were dumped on the planet after they lost. It felt like it was tacked on because Shelley needed to throw something in there.

Overall, Officer-Cadet was just okay. I didn't hate it, but I'm likely never going to re-read it again.