Undaunted by Jack Colrain, I struggled really getting into this book and had to keep coming back to it. Ultimately decided it wasn't for me but do think others will enjoy it. Thank you for giving me a chance with this book.

all the sexism, machismo, aIn all honesty, I did not enjoy this book and had a hard time pushing through after around 50% through. It's not a bad book but it kind of falls victim to a lot of the shortcomings of military sci fi genre: they read like a 1990s US/Western military but with sci fi trappings. That means all the sexism, machismo, and marty stu tropes are present and the sci fi is nebulous window dressing.

Story: Andrew Ritchie is a small colony doctor who decides to become a grunt in the war against insectoid aliens (and not use his medical background and instead open combat). But when he saves some VIP lives in a battle, he comes to the notice of the higher ups and gets assigned to the new Valkyrie Medevac Corps. Cue training montages. The war against the aliens heats up as Ritchie chews gum and pops bad guys.

Right off the bat, it was kind of eye rolling to see the very male sexist comments. With women serving equally in the future, you'd think the military wouldn't still objectify women. But yeah, with great analogies such as, ""Plasmafire," he explained with the type of smile you get when your girl sends you a picture wearing less material than a glove." or "He was covered with ticks like bills on a stripper's G-string" (that analogy doesn't even work!), or noticing that the bar girls were 'showing actual legs. And cleavage" as if only women work the bars and not e.g., shirtless men.

I don't want to drone on about the sexism so I'll just say that the female characters didn't fare any better. Our main character, for the first part of the book, comes in contact with two females. Both are 'ballbusters' to our main character - one is a superior and one is a squadmate. Neither are well rounded female characters. The squadmate is describe as "if she wasn't my squaddie and a genuinely heartless bitch, I might have taken a liking to her." And the superior is there to stand in his way of 'doing the right thing' and be a maternal-like pain in his butt for her stupidity. It was hard to slog through at that point.

But the usual Marty Stu cliches are there: macho guy who fights the authority because he knows he is right, he has superior skills to everyone, he can do/fight about anything, and just kind of swaggers through. That worked in the 1980s for movies like Top Gun but it just feels silly and unimaginative in this day and age.

The sexism and Marty Stu are annoying and I could slog through the rest of the story if the writing wasn't so jumpy. It felt like a book written from a bullet point list; too few segues, not enough exposition to really explore the environment or get a feel for the characters, and a very disenfranchising story. The plot just jumped from action point to action point as if afraid the audience had a short span of attention and couldn't handle exploratory or emotive moments. I don't expect a CJ Cherryh experience here but I also at times felt like I was reading a novelization of a Michael Bay movie.

As I noted earlier, it's not terrible and there is an audience for this kind of macho gung ho militaristic sci fi. I just found it unsatisfying and my eyes hurt from rolling them all the time. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.nd marty stu tropes

Having examined an ARC of Jack Colrain's "Undaunted" (published by Relay Publishing) I have to confess that I am not as impressed as I had hope to be. It is not that the text is poorly written or anything of that sort. What happens here is something that I have already observed in some other titles in science fiction which are looking to achieve a balance between hard core military sci-fi and the need to cover the activities of battlefield medics in a future where much of their duty revolves around the use of advanced life saving technology. What is interesting here, and elsewhere, is that the balance between life saving and active participation in combat is seen
in a very different way than we see it in our time. The Valkyries, which are warriors trained and equipped to render lifesaving aid while simultaneously engaging the enemy are clearly very different from current usage. What is more interesting still is that they are looked upon by leadership as "force multipliers" in that their deployment dramatically impacts loss rates among combat troops. I, for one, had never really thought of medical services in these terms. Nonetheless, the narrative here largely revolves around how individuals conform to almost oppositional missions and try to accomplish them both at the same time. In this instance, as in other books confronting this kind of conundrum, combat operations tend to take overwhelming precedence while medical care is subordinated to the immediate need to secure the battlefield so that the fallen can be attended to. It is an exciting and interesting read exploring a somewhat different approach than is found in most military sci fi.

An outstanding start of a new series! This book has it all - action, good storyline, and sufficiently evil bad guys! I could not put this one down. An excellent Sci-Fi novel.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

There's is absolutely a reader for this book but it wasn't me. Military style sci-fi is hit or miss for me in general and I just didn't connect with the writing of this enough to push through to the end. That said, this book does have a unique narrative voice, and I got a strong "Top-Gun in space" vibe that could really resonate with the right person.