DNF book: Terms of Enlistment

[thistlechaser]

DNF

5) Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos. If I hadn't enjoyed Kloos's The Palladium Wars series so much, I would have DNFed this one much earlier on. Instead I made it to 30% before I went to Goodreads to check not just the review of this book, but the ones later in the series. Since this is an eight book series, I really wanted to enjoy it and hoped maybe the later books would seem a better fit for me, but nope.

I don't think I ever before repeated "I don't think I'm the right audience for this" so often over a book. He's a military sci-fi author (which I learned is abbreviated as MiSF, which is kind of cool), so I had assumed the Palladium Wars series was MiSF. I had said to myself "This is just sci-fi, no different than other sci-fi books, so I guess I like MiSF!". I was so so so SO wrong.

Terms of Enlistment is military sci-fi. Palladium Wars was not.

Set in the most generic YA dystopian setting in existence, the first 20% of Terms of Enlistment was a very detailed look at basic training in the "future" (it felt pretty current-time, just with a higher level of tech, sort of more like fantasy military stuff).

There was zero characterization. After reading the first 30% of the book, I couldn't name one character trait of the main character or any other character in the book.

There was zero world building, other than one bit that actually made me laugh out loud while reading: Military recruiting offices exist in the future, but their purpose has changed. They now try to discourage people from joining the military, because everyone in the world wants to enlist. (And yet they're still called recruiting offices.)

The whole book, and by my Goodreads checking the entire series, is just military actions. Moving from one battle to the next, downtime with the squad between actions.

To be fair to Kloos, this was his very first book, so it makes sense it wouldn't be as good as the ones he wrote eight books later. Also, people who love MiSF absolutely love this book, so it really is a "it's not you, it's me" situation. I just wish I could have enjoyed it and gone on to read the rest of the series.