Book Review: Armor

Source: Amazon.com

Armor, by John Steakley
 
From the book's cover:
 
Felix is an Earth soldier, encased in special body armor designed to withstand Earth's most implacable enemy-a bioengineered, insectoid alien horde. But Felix is also equipped with internal mechanisms that enable him, and his fellow soldiers, to survive battle situations that would destroy a man's mind.
 
This is a remarkable novel of the horror, the courage, and the aftermath of combat-and how the strength of the human spirit can be the greatest armor of all.

The Review:
 
Armor is most exciting when it sticks to its subject material - i.e.: the soldier "Felix" and his experience in the so-called "Ant War." This intergalactic conflict has brought Felix and many thousands of other human beings to a wind-swept desert planet called "Banshee." The place is highly inhospitable to human life on its own merits - gusting sandstorms, non-breathable atmosphere, shifting sand everywhere, and the only liquid present is a noxious acidic concoction. The rest of the details escape me, but needless to say, Banshee is not a place you'd want to picnic on.
 
The story is told in two separate story arcs. The shorter, but far more intense one, is about Felix and his combat experiences on Banshee against the nine foot tall insectoid race mankind has dubbed "ants." They are, as the book cover material describes, a manufactured soldier species, though we never get far into the monster's background. They have two legs and four arms - one pair are a manipulating pair in their frontal area, and another pair are the massive pummelling tools that they use to tear into mankind's war-fighting spacesuits, called "Armor."
 

The author, John Steakley.  Sadly, this photo is from his obituary.  He passed away in 2010 / Source: Legacy.com

The action when we focus on Felix is intense. Our soldiers of the future have the ubiquitous ray guns - called "blasters" in this sci-fi iteration, but when power runs down or the weapons overheat from use, the soldiers of this battlefield, who are consistently referred to as "warriors," fight hand-to-claw with their insectoid adversaries. It's gory and messy. Warriors are described as being covered in black ant ichor after a battle. Then again, there is plenty of red blood in the book too, as the ants are not shy about tearing a fragile human being out of their power-assisted warsuits, piece by piece.
 
The other part of the book, the longer and more involved, but ultimately less satisfying section, deals with a space pirate (with a heart of gold, no less) who has gone to a planet called "Sanction" to infiltrate a government facility and obtain some space fuel so his boss can keep flying around the universe and pillaging, in the best of space pirate traditions. Our protagonist of this section, named "Tom Crow," becomes friends with the government facility's leader, a mercurial but brilliant scientist who is tasked by the military with discovering why humanity has been losing the war against the ants. This section of the book, which splits up the parts which directly involve Felix, takes place some four years after Felix's adventures on Banshee.
 

This image is from the cover of one of the book's printing.  It depicts what can only be assumed to be Felix about to bash an ant over its exoskeletal skull with his blaster.  / Source: BarkingCats.org

The scientist who is studying the war is doing so through some unconventional memory-replays he obtains from our hero Felix's armored warsuit, which has come into the scientist's possession after being found in an adrift space vessel. We don't know what has happened to Felix for most of the story, but we keep getting told that he must have been killed. However, a thinly veiled character comes into the picture and - well, SPOLIER ALERT (but maybe because the narrator of the audio book did the voices so specifically), it was easy for me to tell that this rascal and regular drunk is actually Felix, who is hiding out from his past. Sorry to spoil it, but it isn't much of a surprise. At least not for me, it wasn't.
 
The premise of the section of the book that covers Tom Crow's adventures sounds interesting, but the execution is lethargic and sometimes a bit stilted. When I first started to read this book, I immediately wondered why it hadn't been made into a movie yet (perhaps it has - I don't know). When I got through Felix's initial story and then slogged into the material on the world "Sanction," I discovered why. It's mostly intellectual stuff. Lot's of talking. It's Lord of the Rings at it's most "sit around and scheme"-here. Well, maybe not that bad, but sometimes it really felt like the book had lost momentum. Yes, there are some interesting philosophical moments, including one in which the head-scientist guy's love interest confesses to having drowned a puppy in a well as a child. The idea is that the whole group is anxious to see Felix die, after having vicariously lived with him through mental replays of years of harsh combat in which he is sometimes the only survivor, and is often badly injured, but he is still sent back to combat over and over. The idea is powerful, but the fluff around it gets tedious.
 

When I Googled "Armor Steakley," this was one of the images that came up.  The creator of this fan-art states: "Here's some character designs form one of my comics an a piece i did after reading John Steakley's ARMOR...awesome book!"  / Source: ConceptArt.org

The motif of the Vietnam War is clearly present under the story, and I see why people can relate to it. The deep ideas Steakley is writing about are truly interesting, and when sifted out, they read well and make you think. But I think a lot of the middle section could have been trimmed so as to keep the flow... well, flowing. There is even some stuff about a samurai-like warrior class from a planet called "Golden," and some almost unintelligible issues over Felix actually being... well, I'll save that for those who read it. You may appreciate it more than I did.
 
I do recommend this book, don't get me wrong. It is quite intense in places, and as I said, the ideas in there are worth thinking about. There is some "moral" at the core of this sci-fi war story. For those brave enough to plumb the depths of Armor, I'll save the results for you to discover. The book would get an "R" rating in the US, for some sexual content, language (a few F-bombs at least) and especially for the violence, which is highly graphic and unrelenting. If you can get past that, and if the middle part doesn't dry you up like it did for me at times, you'll probably like Armor.
 
 Learn more about Armor, by John Steakley, on Amazon.com


The parting comment:

Note: there is an exclamation of bad language near the end of this video, so skip if such might offend you.



I usually avoid CollegeHumor.com videos in my blog posts, as they almost universally contain some crudity (not that I'm not crude myself at times, but... higher standard of "journalism"  - if this blog could be called such), but this one came to mind when I thought of humor associated with armor.  I must admit, I have wondered from time to time why fantasy swords and sorcery stuff often portrays women in get-ups that... well frankly there isn't much armor in their armor.  I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who has wondered that.  "Ohhh!  Right in the shiny part!"