The verdict
Fast, pulpy military science fiction that knows exactly what it is. Read it for McGill and the pace, having started at book one.
Quick facts
- Author
- B. V. Larson
- Series
- Undying Mercenaries, book 4
- Genre
- Military science fiction
- Best for
- Readers already into the Undying Mercenaries series
- Skip it if
- You have not read the first three books
Author B. V. Larson
Machine World is the fourth Undying Mercenaries novel, and it does what the series does best: fast, loud military science fiction with a narrator who survives mostly by talking his way out of trouble. Humanity is not the galaxy’s warrior race here. It is the galaxy’s contractor, and the merchandise is its own soldiers.
The idea behind it
The premise of the series is one of the better ones in modern military science fiction. Earth was not conquered and was not saved. It joined a vast galactic empire on terms that were humiliating but survivable, and the only thing it has to trade is its mercenary legions, which it hires out to whichever alien power is paying. Humanity’s exports are its own troops.
That reframes the whole genre. There is no noble defence of the homeland here. There is a species doing dangerous contract work for aliens it does not trust, in wars it did not choose, for reasons that are mostly commercial. The series title comes from the technology that makes this sustainable: dead soldiers can be revived, so casualties are expensive rather than final, and the legions keep going back into the same battles with the same people.
James McGill, the narrator, is the reason the series works. He is not a great tactician and he is not a hero in any conventional sense. He is a competent, self-interested soldier who is very good at improvising, and his habit of bungling into a situation and then surviving it is the engine of the books. In Machine World he is up for promotion, which makes him a target, and the political side of the novel grows accordingly.
The story, spoiler-light
McGill’s legion is deployed to a planet outside the empire’s boundaries, a world covered in artificial machine life that operates on its own Darwinian logic. The immediate objective is a titanium mine, because titanium matters for hulls and hulls matter for everything, and the local machines have their own opinion about who should be allowed to dig.
The combat starts almost immediately and rarely lets up. The book also widens its scope: Earth is expanding, the Cephalopod Kingdom responds by sending ships, and a conspiracy develops in the upper ranks of the Hegemony military that has nothing to do with the enemy. McGill, as usual, is caught between the war he can see and the politics he cannot.
This is the fourth book, and the series has settled into a rhythm by now. The plot is episodic, the action is frequent, and the character work on McGill is a little deeper than in the earlier volumes. It is not a book you can usefully start with, and it does not pretend to be.
What makes it science fiction
The two genuinely science fictional pieces are the revival technology and the machine ecology. Revival gives the series its name and its peculiar stakes: soldiers can die and come back, so the drama is not about mortality but about what repeated death does to a person and to a unit. Machine World pushes that idea against a planet where the local life is mechanical and survival is a competition.
The alien politics are sketched rather than explored deeply, and that is fine for what this is. The Galactic Empire is a market, the rival powers are competitors, and Earth is a small supplier trying not to be squeezed out. It is a commercial view of interstellar relations, which is less common than the usual war-of-civilisations framing.
Who should read it, and who should give it a miss
- Read it if you have read the first three Undying Mercenaries books and want more.
- Read it if you like fast, action-heavy military science fiction with a roguish first-person narrator.
- Read it if the idea of a species selling its own soldiers to aliens sounds like fun. It is.
- Give it a miss if you have not started the series. Begin with book one, because this one assumes you know the cast and the rules.
- Give it a miss if you want literary prose or deep alien world-building. The series prioritises pace.
Where to start, and what to read next
Start with the first Undying Mercenaries novel and work forward. Machine World is book four and it leans on the relationships and the world rules established earlier, so jumping in here will cost you most of the context.
If you like the general shape of this, the comparisons are the classic military science fiction staples: Starship Troopers for the soldier’s-eye view, The Forever War for what long service does to a person, and Old Man’s War for the recruitment and the wry narration. McGill’s voice is closest to the last of those.
The verdict
Machine World is exactly what book four of a long-running military science fiction series should be: familiar, fast, and a little better than it needs to be on the character front. The machine world is a good setting for the series’ obsession with survival and revival, and the promotion plot gives McGill something to be scheming about besides the aliens.
Read it if you are already on board with the series. It is pulp in the best sense, and it never pretends to be anything else.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to read the earlier Undying Mercenaries books first?
Yes. Machine World is book four. Start at the beginning of the series.
What is the series premise?
Earth survives by joining a galactic empire and hiring out its mercenary legions to alien employers. Revival technology means its soldiers can die and come back, so they are a renewable export.
Is it a standalone?
No. It is one volume in a continuing series, and it assumes you know the cast and the setting.