Review: White Ops, by Declan Finn

With White Ops, Declan Finn tosses his hat into the world of sci-fi and delivers an action-packed adventure mixed with layers of political intrigue against a background of interstellar warfare.

The story

Sean Patrick Ryan is known to many as the biggest badass in the galaxy. To paraphrase another character known for getting into more than his fair share of fights, “he doesn’t say that, that’s what people tell him.” With a reputation like that, trouble seems to follow him, which is how he learns that a little known race called the Pharmakoi are breaking out of their star system in a bid for galactic domination. Fortunately, his early warning to Earth’s military and his relationship with the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy, the Renar, gives Earth a fighting chance against the belligerent and well-armed aliens. Over more than a decade, the Pharmakoi are finally defeated, having been eradicated after a last ditch attack on Earth.

However, Ryan and his long-time friend Peter Sierra sense early on that something isn’t right. Realizing that the Pharmakoi aren’t smart enough to have even reverse engineered their tech and that their hardware for ground warfare is far behind their spacecraft, the pair conclude that there is another race behind the scenes. A race that is almost certainly at least as far advanced as we are over the age of the musket.

As Ryan and Sierra conduct their separate searches, another, more political drama plays out between President Douglas Wills and Admiral Sherman Newcomb.  Both fought in the Pharmakoi War. Wills however ensured that he stayed out of harm’s way and intentionally crafted situations to make himself appear far more heroic than he was. Newcomb on the other hand was the hero of the war, leading the charge against the invaders with his combination of brilliant tactics and generous use of nukes. The Admiral’s record naturally made him popular, so popular that Wills has always seen him as a threat even though the military man has never displayed any political ambitions.

Now, as the hidden enemy is ready to make their move, the war between the two men is heating up. Wills may have Earth’s military and the telepathic Thought Police on his side, but Newcomb has Sean Patrick Ryan and Associates.

The characters

In some ways, the main character of Sean Ryan is like other Finn main characters. He is larger than life, a tactical genius, and Catholic. However, Ryan’s personality is markedly different than either Tommy Nolan or Marco Catalano. While he certainly enjoys taking out the trash, Ryan is more of a happy warrior than Marco who takes a borderline sadistic glee in dishing out violence. While he may have been raised in a monastery, Ryan is also less saintly than Nolan. Unlike both, he has never had any interest in leading anyone or anything up until now. Not that the biggest badass in the galaxy has held himself aloof from society, he just doesn’t want to be responsible for anyone except himself. That is, until the Anima, the power behind the Pharmakoi begin to make their move.

Admiral Newcomb is the picture of leadership. A mere intelligence officer at the beginning of the war, he finds himself in command of his ship after the top brass of his fleet are wiped out in the first battle. Fortunately, like Jack Ryan from the Tom Clancy novels, Newcomb isn’t just good at analyzing data; he’s also willing to act boldly on his conclusions. It’s his willingness to think outside the box and actually learn about his enemies that allow him to rack up victory after victory against the better armed Pharmakoi. And while he doesn’t have political ambitions, that doesn’t mean he’s inept on that front either as he has managed to hold off Wills’ attempts to discredit him over the years, and even adapt to running a massive Dyson sphere known as Alexandria station populated with multiple alien races, including the perpetually fighting Soivan and Touri.

Douglas Wills is the classic overly ambitious politician, quick with a smile and turn of phrase that get the attention of the media and of voters. And like many politicians, he is corrupt to the core, willing to go far beyond mere media manipulation and skimming a few tax dollars here and there to murder in order to advance his career. In fact, it’s one of his more detestable acts that brings him to the attention of the Anima.

There are a host of side characters throughout White Ops that are also well developed and interesting without ever quite stealing the show from the main characters. Most if not all of them could carry their own short stories and a few could be the focus of other novels in the future. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that should happen given Finn’s characters have a tendency to grow beyond their original confines.

The world

White Ops is set far in the future, far enough that humanity has spread far into the galaxy thanks to figuring faster than light travel. There are, however several other intelligent species out there amongst the stars and not all of them are friendly and many others are much more advanced than the humans. However, thanks to human tenacity and their performance during the Pharmakoi War, the people of Earth often find themselves in the middle of galactic events, mediating disputes between a variety of other races.

It’s also a galaxy full of strange locations and we get to visit more than one. Between Earth, Renar, and Alexandria Station, it’s clear that this is a galaxy that is lived in by more than one kind of intelligent life form.

Different races also have their own unique aspects, most especially the Renar who genetically modify their ambassadors to reflect the world they are sent to, resulting in physical forms that look completely different than most Renar. The Touri are extremely dinosaur-like in appearance and the Soivan spend their first hundred years with an exoskeleton that earns them the nickname “crickets.” In short, the work put into differentiating the alien races is much more impressive than the Star Trek method of giving everyone different bumps on their foreheads or pointy ears.

Finn also avoids the Star Wars trap of giving one profession to an entire race, i.e. the Jawas are all junk traders. The Renar for example have a caste system centered on their different professions.

The politics

The politics within the book are typically corrupt and supposedly democratic. Those of the book however are along the lines of, “I work outside the system, don’t get in the way.”

Content warning

There are some gruesome deaths but that’s about it.

Who is it for?

If you are a fan of Finn’s other work you definitely love this. If you don’t already have that as a baseline, Kai Wai Cheah delivers a similar level of action in his novels. Also, any action oriented franchise in which the hero mows through tons of bad guys. John Wick or the Equalizer immediately spring to mind.

Why read it?

Because Finn takes his penchant for larger than life characters who have no problems taking out the bad guys and puts it in space. What follows is not just action but a healthy dose of political intrigue and a hint of mystery that demonstrate that the author can do a lot more than just write a solid fight scene.