The Runes of Engagement

April 22, 2024
Bestseller Buckell (A Stranger in the Citadel) and debut author Klecha, a former Marine, pair their talents and experiences in an impressive military fantasy adventure that combines Middle Earth lore with U.S. marine mystique. When an interworld portal allows elves, orcs, trolls, and other storybook monsters to wreak havoc on Earth’s cities, a squad of Marines under the command of Staff Sergeant Ray Cale is dispatched across the portal with human coalition forces allied to the wood elves. The task: to escort the elven Lady Wíela to safety from the Corrupted One (“a force of evil and mayhem, ancient and brooding, that had been spreading across the world like a virus”), so she can negotiate an alliance between their worlds. Buckell and Klecha provide thrills a minute as Cale, who faced painful choices in Afghanistan and has only a rudimentary knowledge of Middle Earth, overcomes unearthly challenges with street smart know-how. The authors convincingly develop the personalities of both Cale’s squad and the nonhuman characters while offering genre fans an up-close look at Marine training. It’s an unlikely mash-up, but it works.

Starred review from May 1, 2024

When the portals open between 21st-century Earth and a place that looks like Tolkien's Middle-earth, complete with elves, dwarves, and orcs, armies in every country dig in, throw the monsters back through the portals, and defend the planet by making alliances with creatures out of a Dungeons and Dragons handbook. One hard-bitten marine sergeant and his squad of newbies and nerds are escorting an elven princess to Manhattan when a dragon pushes them back from the gate and into an epic quest through forests, deadly blizzards, and evil-infested abandoned mines in order to reach an artifact (which will save the day or get them all killed), in a place far wilder than any gamer ever imagined. The novel takes military science fiction and throws it into a fantasy blender with John Scalzi's "Old Man's War," S.M. Stirling's "Emberverse," and David Drake and Eric Flint's "Belisarius." VERDICT The collaboration by Buckell (A Stranger in the Citadel) and debuter Klecha is tons of fun and full of geeky references and in-jokes. Will be catnip to readers who love this combination of military SF, alternate history, and fantasy.--Marlene Harris

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2024
Buckell (A Stranger in the Citadel, 2023) and debut novelist Klecha throw a squad of almost-prepared marines into a fantasy adventure when their mission to escort a princess to the portal back to Central Park on Earth goes wrong. As their base is overrun, the marines launch a rescue mission to find the crashed helicopter holding the wood-elf princess Lady W�ela and return her to any one of the portals that will take her back to Earth. This is complicated by Lady W�ela's disappearance as soon as they reach a village and simplified by a pair of indigenous figures--a trouble-attracting child, Salia, and a mysterious ranger, Peridot--who help them relocate Lady W�ela and necessary supplies. The geeks on the team, educated on Lords of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and related video games, provide vital knowledge about some of the fantasy creatures they encounter, but even those don't entirely reflect the reality they're experiencing. Readers will delight in the nerd-culture references in this military-fantasy romp as the squad discusses Stark Ridge, FOB Vimes, and other landmarks named by the visiting humans.

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June 1, 2024
This rollicking military fantasy follows a squad of Marines trapped in a magical Tolkienesque realm and their quest to return home. After rifts open up all over the planet and Earth is invaded by armies of creatures straight out of The Lord of the Rings, humankind joins together to drive the orcs, trolls, and dragons back through the portals. Military forces assigned to secure the rifts are stationed on the other side and must defend the gateways from a never-ending barrage of "fairy tales coming to life to kill [them]." After embarking on a perilous mission to locate and transport Lady W�ela, an elven princess, through the portal in an attempt for humankind to join forces with the elves, staff sergeant Raymond Cale and his squad are cut off from Earth after a forward operating base is destroyed. Vowing to somehow get the princess to safety, Cale and company set out across a dangerous realm inhabited by a multitude of nightmarish fantasy creatures that is described as "something out of Peter Jackson's wet dreams." While the initial blending of fantasy and military fiction is appealing, the charm quickly wears off as the storyline becomes predictable and none of the characters evolve into anything other than two-dimensional stereotypes. The nonstop action and battle sequences, however, do keep the momentum going and will have readers furiously turning pages. The saving grace is the humor throughout, which will have fantasy fans--particularly Tolkien nerds--laughing aloud. In one fight scene, for example, the elven princess is described as "twisting her body and running through the gauntlet like Legolas on speed." In another scene, a line from Pulp Fiction is referenced brilliantly. The laughs, however, can't compensate for cardboard characters and an unsurprising storyline. A fun but forgettable fusion of adventure fantasy and military fiction.

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