#BookReview: Splashdown (Land & Sea #1), Blaine Pardoe

If Tom Clancy did big stompy robots

For years, Blaine Pardoe nearly was the Battletech universe. When he was cancelled over the ravings of a deranged social media psychopath, he moved on to greener pastures. And while he’s still in the “big stompy robot” genre, this first book has surprises in it.

The Story

Around the world of 2039, strange events are happening. Ships disappear for no reason. Rogue waves are hitting ships. People near the water are mysteriously killed, or disappears. Plane crashes in the water have been laid out and reconstructed … while still under water. The world is about to be hip-deep in a war of the worlds, but only a few have even a clue.

Captain Ashton Slade of Defense Intelligence has come to a conclusion: Aliens have arrived on Earth. They have been hiding in the oceans for nearly five years.

And they are about to reveal themselves. And there is only one thing that can stand in their way: the giant mechs called ASHURs.

All in all, this is Tom Clancy writing a military science fiction novel. Had Tom Clancy written this, we would have gotten three unrelated plotlines that eventually intertwine somewhere after page 100 (in standard hardcover format).

Blaine Lee Pardoe, however, has eight point of view characters. Each one of them have their own distinct voice. And the characters carry the novel. And when I say they carry the book, keep in mind, the fighting doesn’t even start until 60% of the way through the novel.

We start with a scene out of Gojira, where a boat disappears. Then a sequence out of the Jurassic Park novel, where curious little creatures turn out to be a murderous swarm.

Splashdown is almost like Jaws. Or the original Gojira—you may not see the monster until halfway into the film, but you can’t really look away.

(Yes, I did prefer the original to the Raymond Burr American version. So sue me.)

Despite all of that slow burn, Splashdown is not a slow read. It’s around 100,000 words, pretty standard for Scifi; I still finished it in a matter of days.

Reading through Splashdown does give you an appreciation for weaponizing certain technology. I knew about water cutting tools that act like a laser, but Blaine weaponizes it very well for the aliens.

Keep in mind, the first three books of Land and Sea read very well back to back. They read so well together that I thought they may have originally been one long longer, like Lord of the Rings.

The Characters

Captain Ashton Slade is “Just an analyst.” He’d seen his share of fighting, and now he just wants to analyze data and write his books. Him and Jack Ryan. Frankly, this is one of the better analyst characters I’ve seen in years. Perhaps since Jack Ryan. (Seriously, there are multiple reasons I compare these books to Tom Clancy novels.)

Corporal Natalia Falto is a newcomer to Guam, and she’s a great character for following some of the infantry meeting up with the aliens.

Dana Blaze is a reporter, and she is more of a blood sucking monster than most vampires. The culture of reporting as more entertainment than information is … unfortunately, a little too close to current events. Funny enough, she’s doing the job of an actual reporter, genuinely digging into stories and trying to be first on the ground to get The Story. But she’s less motivated by the truth and more driven by making certain she gets the clicks. She’s one part Lois Lane, with all the worse aspects of your average social media influencer.

Jay Drake is all the genius of Elon Musk and all of the worst instincts of Bill Gates. His interactions are largely with Dana Blaze, leading to an unholy alliance that will have interesting long-term consequences.

Cassidy Chen is a normal California teenager. Except she likes her family. Her father is about to head overseas … to the new Marine facility on Guam.

Antonio Colton is a veteran who’s fighting the VA while dealing just enough drugs as a side job in order to make ends meet. IT’s an interesting character, and I feel like he’s one of the more detailed ones. He’s conflicted over dealing, suffers from PTSD, feels largely dead inside. But he’s about to get a Hell of a redemption arc.

Sergeant Adam Cain is an ill-tempered crank who “is always right” and is annoyed about how wrong everyone else is. He is a soldier who hate civilian life, has wrecked his family, and doesn’t know how to interact with his command structure. He has a chip on his soldier bigger than he is. Seriously, he makes Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe look laid back. But he’s an ASHUR pilot.

Commander Titus Hill is a submarine commander of the USS Virginia. But despite being second in command of a hunter killer submarine, something is hunting them.

Even characters in throwaway scenes get a quick, efficient background in only a few lines of text. It’s awesome.

The World

The year is 2039, nearly ten years after the Bratva War, where the US and Russia fought a war in Alaska. Blaine condenses the war in a matter of paragraphs, and you feel like you just read an entry in a well-written history textbook.

The United States government … still sucks, really. Nothing changes. The top military brass are REMFs.

Drones are now ubiquitous in every day life, both military and civilian.

Blaine goes into so many details on technology and how it has changed society, and how the news is reported, and how information is distributed. This is complete with holographic interfaces on par with what we’ve seen in science fiction from Babylon 5 to Iron Man. Every soldier is chipped, with digital records implanted in the arm, with adaptive camouflage gear, and helmets with visors that have on board nods. I especially like digital duplicates of classic actors in new films.

Blaine even has segments that goes into what combat cocktails may look like in fifteen years.

And of course, there are the ASHURs—Augmented Soft/Hard Unconventional Combat Rigs. They’re mechs with everything from thermobaric explosives to laser cannons to on-board fifty caliber machineguns and more. They’re detailed with backstories going back a decade.

The aliens themselves are a varied collection of species that come off feeling like they’re the Covenant from Halo.

And again, all of this is quickly and easily described in dense prose that doesn’t waste any space. I think one of the few aspects of society he didn’t touch on includes religion. But there’s a reason for that.

Politics

Honestly? This is very politically neutral. It’s promilitary, anti-officer. That’s the biggest political point here. Asides from cynicism about the government and media.

Content Warning

It’s war, but it’s nowhere near as graphic as storming Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. There isn’t much in the way of cussing—I think there is more cussing in my notes than in the book.

Who is it for?

Splashdown is if Tom Clancy wrote military science fiction for Baen, fighting aliens with giant mechs.

Why buy it?

Hell, you can buy this book to just read it to study the writing. It’s that awesome.