I review No Price Too High, Book 2 of C.J. Carella’s Warp Marine Corps series, which picks up straight after Decisively Engaged and moves from a single city to the defense of the whole planet Parthenon. I get into Captain Fromm’s bigger force, the first proper starship combat in the series and the revolution in space warfare at the end.
I really enjoyed it. It’s a worthy successor to Book 1, a fun read that I pretty much inhaled, and I gave it 8.8 out of 10.
I’ve often found that new authors (new to me anyway) have a great first book and then tend to flag in the second or third book in a series, making it really hard to continue reading. It’s a real pity, as I often find myself coming to care about the characters and really wanting to know what happens to them, but when it stops being enjoyable and is simply a grind, well, let’s just say I tend to move on. An example of this is the Silver Ships series, where any realism the characters had in the earlier books just disappeared and their risks and challenges were too easily beaten. As I’ve been burnt a couple of times, I was wary going into Book 2 of the Warp Marine Corps after the exceptional first book, but, boy, am I glad I did!
This one picks up pretty much immediately after Decisively Engaged ends, with humanity struggling to survive after the days of infamy. I gave it an 8.8 out of 10, which makes it definitely one of the better military SciFi titles out there in my opinion. It’s a worthy successor, and a really fun and enjoyable read, one that I pretty much inhaled, truth be told. If you’re a fan of the genre, I’d definitely recommend it.
That worry about the second book is a real one for me. When I’ve fallen for a set of characters and a setting, a weak sequel is worse than a bad first book, because I’ve already got something invested in it. It’s the reason I tend to be cautious when a series I’ve enjoyed starts to stretch, and the reason I notice when one doesn’t. Here the characters are still the same people, the risks are still real, and the author hasn’t let the story go easy on them, which is exactly what I want from a second book.
From one city to a whole planet
Book 2 continues the story of Captain Fromm and his merry band of ne’er-do-wells, but this time, instead of focusing on a small battle in a single city, the canvas is a whole planet, Parthenon, which is the focus of a thrust by humanity’s enemies. Fromm’s previous battle was one of the few “wins” for humanity in the shadow war against it. Now that things are out in the open, and we learn that humanity is officially under attack by three different polities, the importance of holding Parthenon is even greater.
It’s a big jump in scale, and the book handles it well. Instead of a besieged embassy, the Marines are now part of the defense of an entire world, with all the pressure and confusion that goes with that. The stakes feel real, because losing Parthenon would be a body blow for a people who are already hanging on by a thread. It also makes the story feel like it’s going somewhere, which is exactly what a second book in a series needs to do.
It helps that Parthenon feels like a place worth fighting for. Defending an entire planet means the story can move between the Marines on the ground and the larger picture, and that gives the book a lot more variety than a single siege. There are more people involved, more at stake and more things going wrong at once, but the story never loses track of the characters I came to know in the first book. That’s the part that impressed me most, because it’s easy for a book to lose its grit when it gets bigger.
A bigger force and a better enemy
Fromm has a much larger force available to him, but the focus is still on the group we met in Book 1, Decisively Engaged. This time, however, some new weapons are introduced, and the enemy is not a bunch of savages but another Starfarer nation with equivalent weaponry. Instead of a barbaric enemy, Fromm and his troops now face foes with technology as good as, if not better than, their own. That changes the whole feel of the fighting, because the Marines can’t rely on being the more advanced side any more.
The combat is brutal and extremely well described, but perhaps even more importantly the author covers the essentials in a realistic manner. Weapons here aren’t “super weapons”; they’re gradual improvements, and the explanation of why Battle Mechs aren’t in prevalent use is, while sad, probably very true! While the focus is on larger set piece battles, there’s more than enough gritty combat to satisfy everyone. It’s that mix of scale and grit that I enjoyed so much, and it’s why the book felt as good as the first.
Having a capable enemy makes a real difference to how the fights feel. When the other side has comparable weapons, the Marines have to think about what they’re doing, use cover properly and trade ground for time, which is exactly the sort of small unit tactics I enjoyed in Book 1. The difference is that now they’re doing it as part of a much larger operation, with other forces depending on what they do. That gives every engagement a bit more weight, and it’s a big part of why I found the book so easy to keep reading.
Ships, and a revolution in space warfare
In addition to the battle on the ground, there’s significant starship combat here, which was one of the things sadly lacking from the first book. One of my gripes from Book 1, the lack of actual ship to ship combat, is definitely addressed here, and it’s a big part of why this one worked so well for me. By the end of the book there’s a revolution in space warfare that changes things dramatically. However, this change, while potent, also heralds some new and potentially worrying future developments for the universe at large.
The Battle Mech explanation is a good example of what I mean by realistic. A lot of military SciFi puts giant walking machines on the battlefield because they look good, and this book takes the time to explain why they wouldn’t work in practice. I found that refreshing, even though part of me was sad to see them go. It shows that the author has thought about how a real war in this setting would be fought, and it’s the same attention to detail that makes the weapons and tactics feel believable.
The new weapons are handled in the same careful way. They’re improvements and not miracle machines, which means they have limits and costs, and the Marines have to work with them as they are. That keeps the fighting grounded, and it means that when something does change the course of a battle, it feels earned. It’s one more reason I’d say this is a better book than I expected going in, and I’d happily recommend it to anyone who wants military SciFi with some brains behind the combat.
Why I’d recommend it
My score of 8.8 out of 10 puts it up with the better military SciFi I’ve read, and I think that’s fair. It’s fast, it’s gritty and it has enough ideas behind the fighting to keep you thinking between battles. What I like most is how it avoids the usual second book slump by giving the story something new to do, whether that’s a whole planet to defend, an enemy that fights on equal terms or a space war that changes shape.
Book 3 expands on this in even greater depth, but I’ll get into that in a future post. What I can say is that Book 2 sets it up very well. The series is one I’d highly recommend, and this is the point where it really starts to open up. If you’ve read the first book and you’re wondering whether to keep going, I’d say yes without hesitation. It does everything a good second book should: it raises the stakes, widens the scope and keeps the characters at the center. The gritty combat that made Book 1 such a good read is still here, and the larger battles and ship combat add something new on top. I came away with a lot of respect for how the author handled the step up, and I’m glad I didn’t let my wariness about second books put me off. If you like military SciFi, this series is well worth your time.
