Carnifex is a near 1000-page behemoth of a military sci-fi novel by Tom Kratman. It’s offensive (to a certain class of people), obnoxious, and hard to put down. It only took about a week to finish the book, and I’m employed, married and have children.
Carnifex is the second book in the Carrera series by Tom Kratman. Ihe first book, the protagonist, Patrick Hennessey, builds himself a private army and uses that army to take revenge upon those that took his family away from him. Carnifex continues that story of Patrick Hennessey, now Patricio Carrera, and his burning crusade against those extremists who killed his family in a terrorist attack.
The series takes place on a remarkably earth-like planet, Terra Nova. Terra Nova is the only colony of earth and the various ethnicities of Old Earth have arranged themselves into similar nations. You have not-quite-Japan, not-quite-US, not-quite-EU, and so on. This felt ridiculous at first, but Kratman makes a compelling argument that this is what the colonization of another planet might actually end up like, given the irreconcilable differences between the various people groups on earth.
The story itself is very interesting, both in of itself and because of what Kratman uses the story to show. The war in not-quite-Iraq has been won mainly due to Carrera’s army, the Legion del Cid. Carrera now turns his gaze to not-quite-Afghanistan where the terrorist leaders who murdered his family have holed up. In addition, there are many other plots intertwined throughout the novel that will only bog down this review if I try to summarize all of them. Suffice it to say, this is an expertly crafted novel where all the plot lines intertwine and twist together into a fantastic whole. I had a hard time putting it down.
The characterization tends to be fairly decent. Carrera is a very interesting character that allows Kratman to discuss his own views on war, violence, nationalism, extremism, progressivism, and more. That said, the characters aren’t just mouthpieces for Kratman. They are their own characters, each with their own personality and quirks. How Kratman managed to create such a huge cast of soldiers, terrorists, generals, wives, tribesmen and soothsayers is beyond me. Things can get a little ridiculous with every non-Progressive female character being a beautiful, buxom woman with a great body. Another little nitpick is the huge amount of named characters. At times, it was hard to keep track of them all, and it would have helped if there was some kind of character list with a blurb for each character.
I should mention that this novel is just brutal. Far more than the first book, A Desert Called Peace, was. The terrorists commit some truly disgusting and horrific acts throughout the book. In keeping with Kratman’s philosophy, the protagonists do the same in return. There is also some fairly gratuitous sex scenes that were a bit off-putting. This is definitely not something for kids to read.
While enjoyable, there are some things that keep Carnifex from getting five stars. First, there is a sense of realism that pervades the novel. There is nothing wrong with this, but the novel doesn’t feel very science-fiction-y. There are mentions of space fleets and aliens, but they all take the back seat to the not-quite modern-day Earth conflict between the protagonist and the Salafi (i.e. Islamic) terrorists. Against this tone of realism, you have instances of complete obnoxiousness that ruin the realistic tone. At one point you have a crazed lesbian prostitute who takes control of some massive guns and lays waste to a couple of pirate ships because they killed her lover. Events like this just seem so out of place in a novel that works to establish a fairly realistic tone.
Finally, there is a lot of military jargon in this novel and a lot of time is spent depicting how an army actually mobilizes. While this can be interesting to someone who has no idea what its like (yours truly), it can really bog down the novel and I found myself skipping entire paragraphs. I didn’t even lose track of what was going on after skipping these sorts of paragraphs, making me think they were superfluous to begin with.
Despite some of these minor nitpicks, the novel itself is very readable and very interesting. Be warned, if you are of the leftist and progressive persuasion, you will likely hate this novel as it features many progressives as villains and discusses taboo subject areas (at least taboo in a politically correct environment) with unabashed frankness. I guess that is what makes it so interesting. It’s a fresh perspective on the nature of war, violence, nationalism and other things written by a military veteran.
I enjoyed Carnifex. The story itself is very interesting and Kratman’s thoughts on war and everything else are intriguing. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up if you are in the mood for something that will challenge you thinking while entertaining you with a great story.
4 out of 5 stars
The Eldritch Paths 