Death Troopers, Joe Schreiber

like an unconcerned lover, meeting you for a “nooner”, Death Troopers is quick and dirty. it doesnt ask you how you are doing or if you are getting close. when it is finished, it rolls out of bed and leaves you staring, asking “what exactly just happened”. you feel a little dirty, then you shower and get back to work. in the end, it is still a nooner, so who can scoff at that? not i.

a little background info to explain the above..

as a kid, i was an avid book reader. you put it in front of me, and it would be consumed. scifi, conspiracy, historical fiction.. even the babysitters club.

i was a blank template for the DnD dice rolling dork who, if 40, would still be living in the basement. a virgin, who had +60 defense against magic.

i was a sucker for sci-fi movies. i watched starwars, star trek, battle star (original), buck rogers.. my dad ended up recording over our copy of The Beastmaster because my brother and i watched it far far too often.

as i got older, conspiracy’s became more of a focus, zombies and the occult.. i began theorizing how i would reinforce structures in case of a zombie apocalypse. i became the dice rolling dork, and escaped with only minimal scarring.

although i have been considered a geek for most of my life,? i have been able to keep myself out of the uber geek, fanboy, socially scary category.? Joe Schreiber screwed that all up for me.

by combining Starwars and Zombies into a novel, Joe forced me to pick up a Starwars universe book. this is the first that i have ever read, and as we all know, addictions always start with a single experience…. so.. damn you Joe.. and thank you joe…, . but ultimately.. damn you Joe. i am one step closer to becoming the “starwars kid”. someone keep video cameras away from me for a while.

when i bought this, i found that the dust cover on the book was reversible, a poster for the book. the cover itself, instead of being blank as many hard covers, sported the books image.. inside, a timeline for where this book exists in the universe (between 1-5 years before “A New Hope”).

The plot is pretty basic, Prison barge breaks down in the abyss of space. a Star Destroyer is found, which has only 10 life forms aboard. prison guard enters the Star Destroyer to scavenge parts, then all hell breaks loose.

For those who say “i dont like star wars, so i wont read this” get over it. this is a horror/zombie novel. Starwars is almost cursory in most places. with the exception of references to familiar starwars species and verbiage, there is not much here that is out of the ordinary for a space/sci-fi storyline. no magic microbes that let you levitate stuff, no “laser swords” or cryptic green man doling out advice from a swamp.

for the avid starwars fan, you wont be disappointed by some of the surprises either. some references just cant be made in a review, doing so would just be bad form on my part.

in the end, i would suggest this book for any sci-fi or horror fan. at 230 pages, it was fast and fun. i look forward to reading it a second time, and loaning it out.

~~

To ballantine/del-rey books:

Great job on the design of Death troopers. there is one aspect that kinda pissed me off though.

What is the point in putting an excerpt in the end of the book for marketing purposes when you choose to put in chapters 3-5? do you realize that with out chapters 1 and 2, we are less likely to read it? that it makes little sense and therefore has a negative impact on the choice to buy the book you have excerpted?

in the book you chose, the characters exist nearly 40 years (thank you timeline!!) after a new hope. the book looks good, but it took far too long to get to the point where i understood what was happening. to be honest, if i were to buy the book, i would not read the first two chapters, as i am already far past their usability.

i have never run into a teaser excerpt that was mid book, and i hope i never do again.

what were you thinking..? very annoying