The Soldiers’ Perspective, Book Review
The Soldiers’ Perspective by author Phillip Murrell
Thank you to author Phillip Murrell for providing me with a copy of The Soldiers’ Perspective in exchange for this honest review.
The Soldiers’ Perspective is a hard sci fi war thriller written by Phillip Murrell, an author who is also active US military. I initially agreed to read the book because I thought it would be interesting to read a war novel from the perspective of someone who has first hand knowledge on the subject. This assumption was rewarded with a satisfying fiction experience.
I honestly don’t typically read this kind of science fiction. I was turned off in the beginning of the book by all of the weird alien names that sound extra spacey. It’s just not my style. But I got over it once I started to get to know the characters and got a feel for how the book is written.
It’s told from various and often opposing perspectives on a large and ongoing war. There are two main sets of characters telling their side of the story through alternating narratives. Different soldiers from different armies discuss how they got involved in the conflict and how they intend to survive it. They have different ideologies and pasts but there is always some common ground.
In the case of The Soldiers’ Perspective the great unifiers are good craft beer and pro wrestling. I love both of these things so I fully embrace this theory. For real, if everyone got into pro wrestling we’d all be a lot better off, you gotta learn not to take everything so seriously!
We are also given many side narratives from various participants in the war. These chapters function quite well as connected short stories and range from shocking to heartbreaking. Some of these chapters were my favorite parts of the whole book.
Since The Soldiers’ Perspective is a sci fi novel it does have some more surreal aspects to it. It was common for this book to have one chapter featuring over the top sci fi style, almost cartoony, violence but then have the next chapter have much more grounded and human violence. It was interesting to see these forms juxtaposed, it made the real world violence hit that much harder.
The end of the book finally merges the perspectives together in an unfortunately realistic ending. This is a war book after all, it is not romanticized.
Murrell is a competent writer who has taken his personal experience and transformed it into an action packed novel. I look forward to seeing more from him and recommend The Soldiers’ Perspective to any hard sci fi fans looking for a good balance of Earth politics with space adventure.
4/5 space ships 🛸🛸🛸🛸
If you like The Soldiers’ Perspective you might also like The Sheriff of Babylon
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Buy it here: The Soldiers’ Perspective