stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Amtrak Wars

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:57:00 GMT

A post apocalyptic struggle between the three groups of North American survivors -- a military society called "The Amtrak Federation", the mutes (the survivors of American poor neighborhoods), and Ne Issan (former Japanese who sailed from Japan when their islands were flooded).

Year	Title
1983	Cloud Warrior
1985	First Family
1987	Iron Master
1988	Blood River
1989	Death-Bringer
1990	Earth-Thunder

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Earth Thunder

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:36:00 GMT

ISBN: 0747400024
LibraryThing

This is the last book of the Amtrak Wars series. I'm much less comfortable with Steven's character in this book -- he's always been a bit mixed up, and I don't blame him for that given his background, but in this book he's actively disloyal to those he loves, which is something new. That made the first 50 or so pages of this book quite hard to read, because I find it hard to read books where I hate the main protagonist.

A lot of people complain about the ending of this book, especially as its the last Amtrak Wars book written, but doesn't resolve the main plot line. I didn't think it was that bad though, although perhaps that's because the coda didn't appear in earlier versions? The coda resolves a lot for me, and although the ending is sad, I thought it was fair.

I liked this book overall.

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Death Bringer

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:22:00 GMT

ISBN: 0747400016
LibraryThing

I feel sorry for Jake Olsen. It must be hard having the ensign-in-the-red-shirt role. This book is as good as the rest of the series, and the First Family truly are bastards. I really liked this one.

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Blood River

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:17:00 GMT

ISBN: 0747400008
LibraryThing

This is the fourth book in the Amtrak Wars series. Its pretty good, about the same level of writing as Cloud Warrior and Iron Master, which I guess means it was better than First Family (which was mostly a connector between the first and third books in the series). In this book we learn that the first family are even more nasty than previously disclosed, and that Cadillac is possibly the most annoying person on the planet.

This book must not have been very popular in the US, because I've never seen it for sale in the US, but its reasonably common in Australia. That's a shame because the copy I have is about to fall apart, which means I'll have to wait until next time I am back home to try and find a replacement copy.

Overall this book was quite readable, and I enjoyed it.

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Iron Master

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:08:00 GMT

ISBN: 0671653385
LibraryThing

This is the third book in the Amtrak Wars series. I think this is a better book than First Family, which suffered from not having much plot development. This book on the other hand moves the plot along, whilst being interesting. You also get to learn more about the Iron Masters, as well as how dodgy the First Family is. A good read.

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First Family

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:59:00 GMT

ISBN: 0671655671
LibraryThing

I finished this book on the bus into work this morning (I had a pretty distracted weekend, and didn't get much reading done). This is the second book in the Amtrak Wars series, and takes place immediately after Cloud Warrior. The book feels like it is only half a book -- there is plot development such as learning more about Roz, meeting the First Family, and the Iron Masters, but there isn't much action. Basically I look back on the book and wonder what happened in it -- it would have been better to combine this with the next book and have a complete story in one.

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Cloud Warrior

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:47:00 GMT

ISBN: 0671559729
LibraryThing

I read this post-nuclear holocaust book as a kid and liked it, so I thought I'd give it a try again. Given most second hand science fiction books are $2, the barrier to entry is admittedly quite low as well. This book revolves around two groups -- the Amtrak Federation (a military society formed from survivors of those who crewed MX missile trains, a real system of roaming trains carrying nuclear missiles from the late 1980s and early 1990s -- the idea was that something which moved was harder for the Russians to find) and the "Mutes" (the civilan survivors of the holocaust, who are now mutated by radiation). Its a good book, although very different from the Asimov I've been reading recently. That's a good thing, because I think I need a bit of an Asimov break to be honest.

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