First published 2019
Dietz joins the corporate infantry as a fresh recruit in humanity's war against Mars. Soldiers travel to battlefronts by breaking down into light, a process that changes everyone who undergoes it. The survivors who return are called the Light by their fellow grunts. They learn to follow mission briefs no matter what happens in combat. But Dietz's drops start going wrong. The combat experiences don't align with what the rest of the platoon sees. These bad drops reveal a version of the war that contradicts everything the corporate brass tells their soldiers. Dietz struggles to separate real memories from official mission reports while trying to stay sane. The truth about the war emerges through these fractured experiences. Dietz must decide whether to become a hero or a villain, though war makes that distinction nearly impossible to determine.
Genres: science-fiction, military-fiction, adventure, action
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Mars
Period: 21st-century
372 pages · Paperback · Angry Robot
Content warnings: violence, war