Lieutenant James Shelley commands a high-tech squad of soldiers in a rural district within the African Sahel. They hunt insurgents each night on a harrowing patrol, guided by three simple goals: protect civilians, kill the enemy, and stay alive—because in a for-profit war manufactured by the defense industry there can be no cause worth dying for. To keep his soldiers safe, Shelley uses every high-tech asset available to him—but his best weapon is a flawless sense of imminent danger…as if God is with him, whispering warnings in his ear. (Hazard Notice: contains military grade profanity.)

There’s a point, just before the halfway mark of The Red: First Light, where it looks like Nagata is about to pull the rug out from underneath the reader.  What starts off as your average military SF novel, with a side order of cynicism, suddenly shifts gear.  Our hero, Lieutenant Shelley, is ordered to meet with defence contractor, power broker and arms dealer Thelma Sheridan.  She says to him:

You are being used, Lieutenant.  For what purpose remains unclear, but there is a force at large in the world interfering in the affairs of Man.  We built its house, when we built the Cloud.  Now it moves among us, bleeding through every conflict, every transaction, watching, manipulating – and it does not have our best interests in mind.

Soon after this meeting with Sheridan, there’s speculation that this same force – an emerging AI – may be using a reality TV show about Shelley and his Unit to influence the thoughts of the millions watching the series.

For a just a moment it seems that Nagata is going to dispense with the ‘Military’ and focus on the SF as she narrows in on the idea of an emergent AI using the media and the narrative of reality TV to influence the population.

But that thread never really goes anywhere.  Yes, the Red – as the AI is referred to – is a constant presence throughout the rest of the novel, a sort of dues ex machina that pops in and out of the plot when required, but the philosophical crunchiness of an accidental AI manipulating the populace through the press and reality TV shows, is lost in all the shooting and righteousness and nuclear explosions.  In other words, after a brief hiatus the Military SF switch is flicked back to ‘on’ and what could have been a brave shift in focus becomes a hum drum shoot em up, damsels in distress included.

If you enjoy MilSF – and there’s a certainly an audience out there if Baen’s publication history is anything to go by – then I’m sure you’ll find The Red: First Light entertaining.  Nagata’s clean, almost transparent prose, means the novel is a quick read.  But for me this Nebula nominated novel is a disappointment.  There’s the enticing hint of another, more interesting, book just under the surface that sadly never breaks past the trappings of the sub genre.  I wanted more.  But maybe I was always the wrong audience.