Charlotte's Army

By Patty Jansen
$2.99 Rating: 1 star1 star1 star1 star
(4.00 based on 2 reviews)

Published: Sep. 21, 2011
Words: 23,045 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9780987200938


Short description

Seven thousand artificial human soldiers on their way to fight an interstellar war all share the same fault: they're obsessed with the same woman. A stand-alone story set in the ISF-Allion world.

Extended description

In a far future, a fleet of ships hurtles through space on its way to a distant war. Aboard the ships is an army of artificial human soldiers, highly trained and dangerous. Doctor Charlotte West, the neuro-technologist responsible for the soldiers’ artificial brains, travels in the support fleet. Two months before the arrival at the war site, the soldiers start fighting each other and disobeying commands. When they are brought in for tests, Charlotte finds that all seven thousand men share a pathological obsession with her.

Tags

military sf, science fiction, space, clones, space wars

Available ebook reading formats

Single purchase gains access to all formats. How to download ebooks to e-reading devices and apps.
Format Full Book Sample First 10%
Online Reading (HTML, good for sampling in web browser)BuyView sample
Kindle (.mobi for Kindle devices and Kindle apps)BuyDownload sample
Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)BuyDownload sample
PDF (good for reading on PC, or for home printing)BuyNo sample available
RTF (readable on most word processors)BuyNo sample available
LRF (Use only for older model Sony Readers that don't support .epub)BuyDownload sample
Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)BuyDownload sample
Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting)BuyNo sample available
Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page)BuyNo sample available

Reviews

Log-in to write a Review   Log-in to add a Video Review

Review by: Tsana Dolichva on May 01, 2013 : star star star star star
Charlotte's Army is a novella by Patty Jansen set in the same universe as several of her other works but which stands alone. I've previously reviewed her novel Shifting Reality and short story "The Rebelliousness of Trassi Udang" from the same universe.

Since I first heard about it, I've found the premise of Charlotte's Army interesting: an army of artificial (clone-like) soldiers were all created with the same flaw. All of them are in love with Charlotte, one of the army's senior medical staff. I was interested to see how it would all play out and what caused the flaw. The fact that it wasn't Charlotte's fault was kind of gratifying since she was quite a likeable character.

Other issues explored in this novella were how human the constructed soldiers really were. The human soldiers in the story generally treated them as second class and highly expendable citizens. Where the top brass see erasing one of their minds as nothing more than recalibrating a piece of machinery, Charlotte sees it as deleting a real person. It was an interesting dynamic.

Charlotte's Army was a quick, enjoyable read. It rounds out the world I've read about in Shifting Reality nicely (although I want to stress again that it completely stands alone). I highly recommend it to science fiction fans and anyone interested in giving the genre a go.

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Dar Mil on March 23, 2012 : star star star
I downloaded this from Smashwords for free. I have read books by Patty Jansen that I really liked so I took a chance. This is probably a book guys who like sci-fi would like. I suppose the word Army in the title should have been a give-away. I don't like my sci-fi to involve politics or war. I did like that the main character didn't want to erase the memories of war from her patients. The mind control was an interesting if not controversial plot element. Sorry I couldn't be more into it. Maybe it was just the frame of mind I was in. Maybe I need to be wired in to join in Charlotte's Army? :)
(review of free book)

Report this book