Mr. Kloos made excellent use of his study of the classics - Heinlein, in particular. He didn't wrap it up as cleanly as Heinlein did Starship Troopers, but he did manage an ending that made the book complete enough to stand alone. I know he didn't intend it to stand alone because the next book is in my queue already, and there are two heavy-duty lines trailing out of the end of it - the competition for land in the form of liveable planets with the aliens and the parting with his sweetie. The girlfriend aspect is one that Heinlein left strictly alone - no girls allowed in the Mobile Infantry. And as for aliens, Heinlein's world was already fully engaged in a war with the "bugs" when the book began.
The action is fairly clear. The bootcamp sequence is fairly well done, we are told about the high drop- out rate, but don't really experience it. Kloos's world is far more dystopic than Heinlein's. A large portion of the population of Earth resides in Public Residence Clusters - nowadays we call them "the projects." They collect minimal rations and simply exist - killing each other and taking drugs. The occasional full- scale riot is addressed by the army and the military is the only avenue of escape. Our hero, Andrew, makes the cut and has no intention of returning to a PRC.
That does bring up a minor point - Kloos may be a little heavy on acronyms. I suppose it is partly to reinforce the military setting of the major part of the book. I find that I tend to "read fast" through battles and passages heavy in quasi-military babble whether the context is medieval knights in armor or space aliens. It generally doesn't make much difference to my understanding of the story. And, in all fairness, I suppose there are readers (my imagination conjures hordes of adolescent boys) who really enjoy that stuff.
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