Douglas, Ian. Luna Marine. Heritage Trilogy No. 2. Harper Voyager, 1999.
When I first read Luna Marine in 2018, I gave it a dismissive rating and did not bother to write a review. I think I must have been annoyed at the all-too-busy plot and the derivative nature of the boot camp story, not to mention the Face-on-Mars trope it inherited from the first novel in the series. But rereading it in 2021, I think I should have given it more credit for some inventive near-future tech, albeit based on the what if we had some alien future tech to kick start our thinking trope. There is, for example, a cool explanation of why an antimatter drive would be more efficient than a plain old fusion drive. Finally, there is a riveting description of something very bad happening to Chicago. Not all the satire aimed at religious cults and United Nations bureaucracy works. On second thought then, three and a half stars, rounded down. ( )

This author is phracked up.

Starts out with a scene of a 17 year old boy wanking off to his hacked A.I., which is why I gave this the sexually-graphic tag.

Then lots of swearing by marines at the beginning, which once again tapers off the more we go on.

Then lots of boringness. Seriously, do I need a whole page describing how the space marines are checking each other's suits? Or what a stupid space assault vehicle looks like, line by line?

Then the political/philosophical/religious chatter. Oh my goodness.

I wanted a good action story from this author and was lead to believe that was what I was going to get. Nope, not a chance. Instead, I get some pinhead's borked up attempt.

I will read the final book in the trilogy, but won't be reading more. Which I find sad, as I know there are at least 6 more books by this author, and regular scifi is hard to come by these days. ( )

The second of Ian Douglas’ future history of the Marine Corps, Luna Marine is exciting and a good read. In this volume, the marines find themselves fighting on earth and on the moon for science and the rights of people to believe what they want. A cave is discovered on the dark side of the moon that contains alien technology and can shed some light on the history of mankind and mans place in the cosmos. ( )