Mechanical Failure
The Epic Failure series, Book 1
Joe Zieja
Saga Press
Fiction, Humor/Sci-Fi
Themes: Cross-Genre, Robots, Soldier Stories, Space Stories
****
Description
After humans accidentally destroyed the Milky Way, their spread into another galaxy had an unexpected side effect:
it has been two hundred years (and counting) since the various factions have engaged in war. Of course, that doesn't
mean that they don't keep standing armies at the ready: after all, you can't be too prepared (or have too big of a
project to throw government money at for dubious returns). But it does mean that, instead of drills and discipline
and battle tactics, enlisted men and women are far more likely to spend their time gambling and boozing and turning
starship hallways into giant slip-and-slides. It's been one big frat/sorority party for generations, long enough that
most people have forgotten all about how to fight a war at all. But just because the peace has lasted this long
doesn't mean that it will last forever...
When Sergeant Roger W. Rogers left the Meridan military, he figured he'd parlay his skills at smooth-talking
strangers (and outright conning them) into a lucrative retirement. But his clever plan goes up in smoke, or rather
up in weapons fire and spaceship parts, when the two criminal outfits he's running a scam on end up in a shooting
match - and a Meridan ship turns up to pluck him from the debris. Nobody in top brass knows whether to condemn him
for numerous criminal charges (including theft of a spaceship, smuggling, and littering) or commend him for taking
out two of the most notorious crime syndicates in the system (albeit inadvertently). Fortunately, Rogers still has a
few friends inside the system who owe him favors; a few pulled strings and fudged forms later, and he's back in
uniform for a few years instead of condemned to hard labor in the salt mines. He's even going back to his old unit,
the 331st, Merida's bulwark against the Thelicosan system. But the military he returns to is nothing at all like the
one he left. Instead of a 24/7 spacegoing party, the ship is full of tense, serious men and women running drills,
eating cruddy rations, and saluting superior officers every five steps - just like they were real, old-school
soldiers instead of the pale imitation/parody the Meridian military used to be. There are even droids moving into
jobs that used to only be trusted to humans. As if that weren't bad enough, he keeps hearing rumors that the
Thelicosans are preparing an invasion.
Rogers would never have agreed to rejoin the military if he'd though there would be fighting involved. His first
instinct, naturally, is to flee... but, even as he desperately seeks an escape, he discovers that rumors of an
impending war are not just rumors after all. Indeed, the war may already have started while nobody was looking - and
Merida may well be losing without firing a shot.
Review
The military has long been a ripe target for humor, with its archaic rules and confusing bureaucracy and a
hierarchy that seems to favor bloat and incompetence and secret handshakes over all else. Mechanical Failure
skewers that culture (and several other topics) while transporting it into a deep space far future that's still, in
many ways, as messed up as modern times, just in space.
Nominally an engineer, Rogers's true talent lies in sweet-talking favors and conning others so he can avoid doing
anything like work - skills that worked quite well in the old Meridan military, but which don't work quite as well in
the one he returns to after his disastrous and short-lived smuggling career. The thought of actually having to behave
like a "real" soldier is enough to send him scrambling for the airlock, especially when the admiral assigns him to
lead the Meridan military's first all-droid combat unit (a job that earns him the ire of the woman of his dreams,
leader of the human unit that the droids are intended to replace). Rogers hates "shinies", who have infiltrated every
space in the ship that used to be his home/party house; they even "eat" in the onboard bars. His prejudice earns him
the side-eye from other characters, another way the military culture has changed since he left. Other changes have
him scratching his head at first, such as how everyone seems to have been shuffled to jobs they're inherently
unsuited for and don't even seem to know how to do (Rogers himself is assigned an assistant who used to be a
zookeeper), and all the propaganda posters that have popped up in the hallways and even in the private quarters. It
takes him a while (longer than the reader) to realize that the changes aren't just more inscrutable madness handed
down from out-of-touch top brass, but something far less banal or benign. A failed escape attempt leads him to an
ally, a defective prototype droid who provides him his first solid, undeniable hint that something is very much amiss
in the Meridan military in general and the 331st in particular. (It also makes him re-evaluate his feelings toward
the "shinies", part of his overall character growth from carefree/careless slacker to a somewhat less carefree man
who is willing to pause his slacking when greater needs arise.) Meanwhile, Rogers's efforts to get out of a job he
hates and doesn't know how to do through gross incompetence only end up getting him commended and promoted to
ever-higher, ever-more-responsible/ridiculous postings - which also give him ever more access throughout the ship and
its systems to see just how bad everything is and how close to ruin things already are. Along the way, he gathers a
misfit team of contacts old and new (as well as picking up some new rivals and outright enemies), all of whom come
into play in various ways, some of them unexpected, on the way to a wild climax and an ending that sets up the second
book on something close to a cliffhanger.
Sometimes the silliness of the characters could get irritating, particularly when it interfered with the progression
of the plot in obvious ways. There were a few times when the central joke of military incompetence threatened to wear
thin: yes, I get it, these people couldn't find their own backsides with both hands and a star chart yet somehow
they're in charge, can we move along... Overall, though, I found myself far more amused than exasperated, and
actually chuckled out loud a few times at work listening to this - even at moments I didn't expect to be chuckling at.
The plot itself is actually fairly decent (telegraphing and some obvious plot-extending stupidity moments
notwithstanding) and pulls off some interesting twists and ideas along the way. I enjoyed it more than I expected to,
enough that I'll likely be keeping an eye out for the next installment. For what could've been a one-note flop,
Mechanical Failure turns out to be a rather enjoyable addition to the sci-fi comedy subgenre.