The verdict
A short, sincere military story with one idea and one turn, and it lands both. Fifty-one pages is not enough room for the setting the author is reaching for, and he seems to know it. Read it in a sitting and expect a twist rather than a campaign.
Quick facts
- Author
- Gus Cadle
- First published
- 2020
- Publisher
- Magnum Opus Media
- Length
- 51 pages (a short story)
- Best for
- A complete military science fiction story in one sitting
- Skip it if
- You want a full-length novel or deep world-building
Author Gus Cadle
Duty Before Honor is a short, self-published military science fiction story from 2020, about five commandos sent to the front line to find a missing delegate. It runs to fifty-one pages, which is the right way to approach it: not a novel, but a single sitting with a turn at the centre.
The idea behind it
The premise is small and clean. A delegation has lost someone, and a team of five elite soldiers is sent to the front to find out what happened. Their orders, though, are not as simple as they look, and the story is built around the moment the team works out that the mission they were given is not the mission they are on. The book’s own description puts the question plainly: what happens when everything you believe in turns out to be a lie?
That is a familiar shape for military science fiction, and the author is upfront about his influences. The book’s description compares itself to the crew banter of Firefly, the humour of Doctor Who, the world-building of The Lord of the Rings, the myth-making of Dune, the adventure of Star Wars, the turns of Battlestar Galactica and the questions of Star Trek. That is a lot of comparisons for fifty-one pages, and it tells you what the story is reaching for: a small unit, a large setting, and a moral turn.
The story, spoiler-light
Five commandos are sent to the front line to find a missing delegate. There is more to the order than the team is told, and the story turns on what they do when they find that out. I will not go further than the description allows, because the reveal is the whole point of a story this short.
What you get, at this length, is one operation and one decision. There is no room for subplots, and there are none. Treat it as a single scene extended into a story, and it does what it sets out to do.
What makes it science fiction
The setting is a war in space, fought by soldiers with advanced equipment against an enemy the cover does not describe. That is enough to place it in military science fiction, the branch of the genre that cares about units, orders, and the gap between what a soldier is told and what is true.
That gap has always been the genre’s real subject. From The Forever War to Old Man’s War, military science fiction works best when the battle is not the point and the politics around it are. A fifty-one page story cannot develop that at length, but it can land one clean version of it, which is what this does.
Who should read it, and who should give it a miss
- Read it if you want a complete story in one sitting.
- Read it if you like a small unit on a mission that turns out to be something else.
- Read it if you would rather try a new author at short length than at novel length.
- Give it a miss if you want a full novel or deep world-building. At this length there is room for neither.
- Give it a miss if you want the military detail of a long series. This is a story, not a campaign.
- Give it a miss if twist-driven plots leave you cold.
Where to start, and what to read next
Start here. It is short, inexpensive and self-contained, and there is no earlier book to read first. If you like the idea of a small unit and a mission that is not what it seems, the obvious next step is John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War for the same humour with more room, or Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War for the older, colder version of the same thought.
One practical note: this is a self-published story, and it reads like one. The prose is direct, the scale is small, and the ambition is larger than the page count. Go in expecting that and it is a good forty minutes.
The verdict
A short, sincere military story with one idea and one turn, and it lands both. Fifty-one pages is not enough room for the setting the author is reaching for, and he seems to know it, which is why the story sticks to the one operation it can fit. Read it in a sitting, expect a twist rather than a campaign, and it delivers what it promises.
Frequently asked questions
Is Duty Before Honor a full novel?
No. It is fifty-one pages, so a short story or a novella rather than a novel. It is built to be read in one sitting.
Is it part of a series?
The story is self-contained, and there is no earlier book to read first. It was published by Magnum Opus Media in 2020.
What is it like?
A fast military story with a moral turn. The author’s own description points to Firefly, Doctor Who, Dune, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, which is a fair summary of the tone it is aiming at.
Where can I buy it?
It is available as a Kindle edition, and the buy links for Amazon.com and Amazon.in are on this page.