SIXTEENTH WATCH

RELEASED 10 MARCH 326 pages | Paperback/ebook/ audiobook

Author Myke Cole

Publisher Angry Robot

It’s incredibly refreshing to find a sci-fi novel with a female protagonist who’s a confident woman in her fifties, rather than yet another standard sexy nerdbait fantasy. Myke Cole’s heroine, Jane Oliver, is a commander in the US Coast Guard who’s dispatched to the moon, where tensions are running high between the US and Chinese militaries. Both superpowers have valuable mining operations on the lunar surface and Oliver faces the possibility of territorial dispute escalating into open war.

Some facets of Oliver’s personality lean towards the familiar – a tendency to disobey orders and ruffle her superiors’ feathers, even as she’s haunted by the death of a loved one in combat – but she’s vividly written and always sympathetic. While the Chinese military remain nameless and faceless, Cole softens the anti-Chinese sentiment by making Oliver’s boss a Chinese-American officer, Wen Ho, who doubles as her closest friend and confidante.

The author’s experience in the Coast Guard lends a strong sense of verisimilitude to his portrayal of military operations, and his action scenes sizzle with the rush of adrenaline. The lunar battles are thrilling, with interesting ways of solving the problems of fighting in reduced gravity. Briskly paced, the book strikes a fine balance between military minutiae and imagination. David West