Book Review: Dead Sky By Weston Ochse

Dead Sky By Weston Ochse

Paperback, 480 pages

Published November 2019 by Solaris

The first book in this series was a masterpiece of military horror and science fiction. Military sci-fi in the last 50 years comes in a pretty standard mold, one that has been fashioned over and over again based on the Heinlein Starship Troopers template. Lots of great works have been done in the mold from the Forever War by Vietnam war vet Joe Handleman to Card's Ender's Game and Scalzi's Old Man's War. I know Weston and I both agree on last year's The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley as a fantastic entry in the genre. Being that Weston is Vet and long time military contractor it gives him special insight and like Handleman he used that insight to create a great entry in that mold with the Grunt series. (I have only read book one so far, but it is really good).

As good as Grunt Life was Burning Sky took on the same important theme of PTSD and did something rare in military sci-fi it broke new ground. It could be said that This series is more military horror than Sci-fi and the second book is more horror than the first. We are dealing with supernatural creatures, not aliens. The thing that made the first book special to me is that it also dealt with the experiences of trauma, reality, and sense of being all through the lens of PTSD. That is why I was so surprised that when I interviewed Weston for my podcast (link below) and he said he hadn't read Philip K Dick yet.

Like me take a quick aside...While he fixed that because he made reference to the PKD book Cosmic Puppets that has the same demons as his book in it. Very funny scene by the way and The interview contains the moment where we at Dickheads put the characters of this book on the trail! (Ha!)

Burning Sky was a masterpiece in my opinion and it is still, in my opinion, Weston's strongest work to date. It has what is reality aspect of it that makes it a true story of post Traumatic pain. It gives that novel an extra weight that is hard to top. That is my biggest problem with Dead Sky. It is fun and exciting. It has great moments of suspense and character moments. It never reaches the jaw-dropping reveals of the first book. Sometimes it is hard when the mystery is revealed. Jaws is not nearly as scary when you see the mechanical shark.

Dead Sky is not a bad book, it is a really fun book. I read it pretty fast, and Weston's grasp of characters is strong enough that I stayed up late reading it. The biggest problem this novel has is the powerhouse of the first book. The first book dealt with heavy issues of the unending trauma of violence and war. I feel this was more action fun and less of the themes mixing with the plot. That is what was so impressive about the first book is those themes mixed in so perfectly.

It is hard to talk about the plot without spoiling the first book. The main character who goes by the name Boy Scout propels some of the book's best moments with one of his new skills. The Trauma sticks to hit in the form of connection quite literally to his demons. One of the strongest aspects of the book is Boy Scout's relationship with Sister Rene the character that teaches him this skill.

I like Dead Sky a lot. But I LOVED Burning Sky. It was fun and worth it to spend time with these characters. This series is done with this second book but the characters might not be. Either way I recommend both but it is hard to go wrong with Weston.