# Frank Reviews: No Oath Sworn, by Phil Geusz



## M. LeRenard (Aug 7, 2011)

Okay.  I've been waiting quite a while to do this, for monetary reasons, but starting today I'm going to be posting reviews for you guys of books either written by people in the furry fandom, simply featuring anthro animals, or both.  I'll just be blunt and say that the purpose is to expand you guys' horizons a little about the real nature of writing within the fandom.  Anyone who's ever received a critique from me (which is a fair number of people by now!) knows that I have a real easy time finding faults in things, so please be aware that any reviews I post here will be entirely honest, and entirely fair (to whatever degree of fairness I can accomplish).  These won't be on any particular schedule, but if you're at all interested in professionally published books by furry authors, keep an eye out and I'll try to keep you posted.

Our subject today, ironically enough, just barely qualifies as 'furry' in that it happens to feature two characters who are anthro rabbits.  But it was written by Phil Geusz, an author so furry he has his own WikiFur entry.  Some of you may have actually heard of him before: he's been nominated many, many times for the Ursa Major awards (though opted out for personal reasons), was the guest of honor at RainFurrest 2007 and has produced and published a rather vast quantity of books and stories throughout the years.  Might we be so vain as to call him the furry Isaac Azimov?  (Well, okay, probably not quite yet.  But that's a hard record to beat.)
Anyway, the book of his I'm reviewing today is _No Oath Sworn_, the first of a trilogy of science fiction war novels.

First, a quick synopsis.  The book is about a kid named Tommy who happened to have the good fortune of being the first test-pilot for a new brand of aircraft designed to use, rather than human pilots in the seats, something called a 'brain-cored' individual.  The brain is removed alive and well from the physical body and is linked up to a computerized navigational system in the aircraft, so that the pilot controls the plane like he controls his own muscles, using neural impulses.  The book starts with Tommy showing off the new technology to a developing planet as a marketing gimmick by doing a simulated attack against the planet's very best pilots, the Top Bananas, to show off how much more capable it is than traditional, human-controlled systems.  Things go well for the run, and he's invited to the biggest event of the year, the Army-Navy games.  Then all hell breaks loose.
If that sounds interesting to you, stop reading this and just go read the damn book.  Look it up on Amazon.

Now, for those who want a review, let's talk about this thing.  In general, yes, I enjoyed it.  The action scenes are loads of fun and well-paced, getting the physics right without ever slowing down the narrative (a rare skill amongst sci-fi writers, from my experience), and most everything feels well-researched and well-thought-out.  It has a good, basic cast of characters, all of them familiar archetypes but with just enough to set them apart from the standard that they become interesting.  Which is what most authors strive for but fail to achieve, believe it or not.
Now, of course I do have criticisms, but what you'll find is that they're mainly subjective, so I'm going to talk about them in subjective terms.  Essentially, what I found displeasing was just how few risks this book seems to take.  What I mean by this is that, as I read, it seemed plainly obvious to me which side of good and evil each character was going to take the instant said characters were introduced, and I wasn't even remotely surprised by the end of it.  The book takes a very simplistic approach, free of nuance, to make us hate the enemy.
Does it work?  Sure.  But to me it felt a little cheap, especially considering the book's premise (talking about what role war plays in humanity).  It felt like that premise could have been given much more thought-provoking treatment had there been more gray areas present, since it is, after all, a complicated subject.
That said, while that sort of thing doesn't appeal to me (I'm more a part of the 'anti-hero' crowd of storytelling, I guess), you can certainly make the case that such delineated examples of good and evil in a story make for a refreshing change of pace in modern fiction (of all breeds), which is mostly dominated by obsessive fuzziness of boundaries (often to the point that the narrative becomes lost, and the reader is left confused at the end).  This book, I heard, was supposed to harken back to the days of World War II, in which the sides seemed much more clearly to stand on opposite shores than most modern wars.  A real battle of good versus evil, to speak more in the terms of the period and to be politically incorrect.
When reading it from that perspective, then, yes, No Oath Sworn does pretty much exactly what you want it to, and becomes a very satisfying experience.  I realize I used the word 'cheap' earlier, but let me expand a little on that.  I'm not talking Avatar cheap, here.  Avatar bludgeoned the viewer over the head and about the face and ears with a message the audience didn't really care about and/or didn't want to hear.  Where this book differs (and where it beats Avatar out of the sky in terms of storytelling, in my opinion) is that the message it's conveying is not preachy so much as contemplative.  While I personally think it could benefit from a little more gray, the general message is thought-provoking enough to keep the book from just being another stupid piece of action schlock.  So what I hope for, in the sequels, is to see a little more sophisticated treatment of all the points this novel introduced.
So would I recommend it?  Sure, with just that one caveat: remember where it's coming from as you read, and you'll have a blast.  I would say most of it is in the same realm as a good summer Blockbuster movie.


Okay.  Hopefully some of you found that informative.  I just purchased _Out of Position_ by Kyell Gold, but I don't know if I'll want to review it, because everybody already has an opinion of his work (whether they've read it or not), and because romance is generally not my thing.  I'm only reading it because I want to see what all the fuss is about.  Maybe I'll leave it up to you guys.  Should I review one of Kyell's books here?

Oh, and if you've read _No Oath Sworn_, please, discuss it here.


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## Antonin Scalia (Aug 7, 2011)

*Re: Frank's Book Review Corner Part 1*

You should review The Art of Dancing in the Rain/Gun, with Occasional Music


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 7, 2011)

*Re: Frank's Book Review Corner Part 1*

That second one sounds like a riot.  Even if I don't review it, I feel like I might want to read it.
But let me work my way through fandom authors for a while first.


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## Aeturnus (Aug 9, 2011)

*Re: Frank's Book Review Corner Part 1*

I would love to read your review on Out of Position, whether it be good or bad.


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## sunandshadow (Aug 9, 2011)

*Re: Frank's Book Review Corner Part 1*

I read Gun With Occasional Music years ago, it was required for one of my college courses.  It doesn't have a particularly large amount of furry content - just a genetically uplifted female sheep, as far as I recall.  It had some humor to it, but wasn't screamingly funny.  About a 6 out of 10 in my opinion.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 9, 2011)

*Re: Frank's Book Review Corner Part 1*



Aeturnus said:


> I would love to read your review on Out of Position, whether it be good or bad.


I'm thinking now that I probably will give it a review.  I just know I'm going to have to be super ultra objective about it, because I am SO not the target audience.



			
				sunandshadow said:
			
		

> ...it was required for one of my college courses.


Really?  Hmmm.... well, that does make me hesitate a little, then.  Mostly because I've had bad experiences with things college professors have wanted me to read.
Except in my French courses.  Those books were pretty much all awesome.


I'm guessing few people will have comments about the book I reviewed this week, but hopefully I've inspired at least one person to go check it out.


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## Kamatz (Aug 10, 2011)

*Re: Frank's Book Review Corner Part 1*

In case anyone was looking for it, the book can be purchased here, and the first chapter is free to read.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 10, 2011)

*Re: Frank's Book Review Corner Part 1*

Thanks, Kamatz.  I suppose I should have done that myself.


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## Poetigress (Aug 10, 2011)

*Re: Frank's Book Review Corner Part 1*

Might also want to put the book title and author name in the subject line as well, if it all fits. (I'm assuming, since this is Part 1, that there are going to be separate threads for separate reviews.)


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 10, 2011)

Changed the title.  I'll try to keep that format, if I can fit all the info.
I keep meaning to post variations of this review elsewhere, but I find myself always needing to do something else, so I haven't gotten around to it.  I spent today learning HTML, because it was suddenly decided that I needed to make a website out of all the engineering pictures we took down at Kitt Peak.  So now I know how to make a website, but I haven't posted this review anywhere else yet.

Blah.


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## Poetigress (Aug 11, 2011)

The two places to cross-post that would probably be most helpful in this case would be Amazon and Goodreads, unless the publisher has a spot for customer reviews. I'm still new to reviews/marketing, but it seems to me that the best places for reviews are as close as possible to where the book can be purchased. (As long as it's listed on Amazon or B&N, it's most likely listed on Goodreads as well.)


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