Ironclad Prophecy (No Man's World) [Paperback]

When I read the original novel by Pat, I fell in love with the concept, after all English Tommy's from the First World War, transported to an alien planet where they fight Giant Bugs as well as the indigenous flora is a great combo. Add to this a writing style that would at home in the old Battle Comics, great dialogue and a world of imagination ripe for the picking (or to be picked as the case may be.)

Yet what really makes this title is the characters, yes with the WW1 troops there's a limited amount but that's what makes this so gripping as each trooper lost is one that strikes the reader deeply, the author has plenty of time to concentrate on making them your friends and when its blended with high cost stakes makes this very hard to put down.

Finally add to the mix a twisted overall arc that centres around a Crowleyesque type figure who is out for revenge against everyone with his own deep dark twisted agenda and it's a title that is a top notch addition to an already inventive world. I do suspect that with Abaddon someone else will end up playing there in the future but where these troops will arrive from is anyone's guess. Marauding Vikings who sailed into a mist? The Legendary Ninth Legion who disappeared? The possibilities are endless. Great stuff.

This is the second in the No Man's World series that was created, and is written by Pat Kelleher. In the first novel the 13th Battalion Pennine Fusiliers, a Sopwith 1½ Strutter, the HMLS Ivanhoe, a battlefield ambulance with it's driver (Nellie Abbott) and attendants (Sisters Betty Fenton & Edith Bell), and a few Germans (who will die quickly) are mysteriously scooped up during a battle at Harcourt and deposited on another planet, resulting with the creation of the infamous and legendry Harcourt Crater back here on planet Earth.

This is another novel in a long line of "Deathworld" novels, and as this novel opens, we are introduced to the crew of England's new secret weapon, the "HMLS (Her Majesty's Land Service) Ivanhoe", are admiring their new assignment, which is the land ironclad, the Mark I, and which was also known as "Big Willie", or "Mother". Each member of the crew is given a micro biography, a hint that they will become important to "The Ironclad Prophecy". Then we quickly cut to events that are happening soon after the events of the first novel as the newly promoted Lance Corporal Thomas ("Only") Adkins is pushing his troops, and a village of the local aborigines, the "urmen", to their limits. This is because they are being pursued by the Khungarri, which are the local race of scentirri. The scentirri are this planet's dominate race; they are insectoid anthropoids that are at war with, and who constantly enslave the urmans, and who want to destroy the Pennines. The scentirri have massed into a huge army who are marching on the Pennine stronghold. And when the Pennines repel the first wave, afterwards, a prisoner is captured. It is Chandor, a broken holy scentirri from the first novel.

It turns out that the only thing that can hold the scentirri at bay is their fear of the "Ivanhoe", which they consider a demon of the underworld. Unfortunately, the HMLS Ivanhoe is out on patrol and it's long overdue.

So the new commander 2nd Lieutenant J. C. Everson decides to send out Only and his company, ambulance driver Abbott, who has a crush on Alfred Perkins, one of the Ivanhoe's crew, and Chandor, to find the Ivanhoe and bring it back.

This novel quickly becomes a novel that is told from the viewpoints of Only and his company, Everson and his defense of the Harcourt stronghold, and that of the Ivanhoe and its crew.

So while Only is trudging across the murderous landscape, the crew of the Ivanhoe have driven their trolley totally off the tracks.

You can't run a tank without fuel, and the Ivanhoe's fuel has run out long ago. However, by a precipitous bit of fate, it has been discovered that some of the fruit on their new planet can be distilled into an alcohol that can be burned by the combustion engines that have come with the Pennines. The bad news is that this alcohol is toxic when drank, but when burned, the fumes cause hallucinations and other assorted behavior changes, and the crew is now starting to act like meth junkies, constantly high, psychotic and paranoid.

As the novel unravels, so does the shellshocked mind of 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Alexander Mathers, who is now raving mad. The prior-to-the-present-transplanting shellshocking has caused a bit of stress on Mathers, as has recent events, and he has taken to enthusiastically whiffing the alcohols' fumes. He is also double damned as he is also infected with a parasite that is slowly destroying his internal organs. So, he has taken to mainlining the tank fuel by drinking it to kill the pain of the parasite. This fuel is also causing him to have psychic visions, and his crew is now acting like a bunch of cultists, following his every command without thinking, even if he is intent of starting his own colony.

There's only one, no, there's only two real problems. They are running out of fuel, and there is something, a dulgar, in the nearby jungle that is reaching out and grabbing urmen and scentirri alike. And Mathers, has promised to destroy it.

Meanwhile, back at the Harcourt encampment the Pennines have encountered more misfortune. There is a Dapamji, or a massive multi-animal stampede that damages the Harcourt encampment, but the stampede is only a symptom, what caused is now coming, and it won't be pretty. It has even caused the scentirri to give up their siege.

Then Only meets up with Mathers, and Mathers has, through the noxious fuel vapors, has become a messianic cult figure fully intent, with his crew, on going native. But then Mathers decides that the Ivanhoe CAN go back, but only if the dulgar is destroyed.

With this novel we learn a little more about the No Man's World, including the fact that it has a habit of kidnapping species from across the universe. There have been previous humans kidnapped from Earth, and the dulgar, which is cross between a shibboleth and the creature from the movie "Deep Rising" is not native to the planet. And if you read the novel, what is that strange metallic wall that is under the crust of the planet?

Another positive is there is no Jeffries. He was an evil sorcerer from the first novel that had the ability to suck the fun out of a suicide. And then there is the awesome epic battle of the leviathans of the dulgar and the Kreothe, at the novel's end.

The negatives are still the scentirri and the urmen. They are still right out of a twenties or thirties bad pulp story. The scentirri resemble the Martians from the movie "Quartermass And The Pit", they are perfectly humanoid, can speak perfect, if crude, English if need be, and have fully formed societies. The urman are your basic generic jungle natives. Primative, but organized, with native shamans and witchdoctors, constantly awestruck by "modern" technologies, are easily swayed by the more sophisticated English, speak English, and are the constant prey of the scentirri. Both races were standard fare in the Dr. Who and Star Trek series. And once again, most of the soldiers are pretty much faceless extras with no personalities.

Another iffy thing is that the Mathers and Ivanhoe storyline seems to be lifted bodily from "Apocalypse Now", with Mathers playing the role of Colonel Kurtz and Only playing the part of Benjamin Willard.

And once again there IS NO REAL ENDING to this serial novel. Still, with a lot of breathless action, no Jeffries, a constant stream of inventive creatures, and even more secrets revealed, bumps this pulp adventure up into the four star category. I'm not sure if you have to read the first novel in this series to fully appreciate it, but it couldn't hurt as Kellegher doesn't do much to fill in any backstory. I can't help but think that this would have made a better tv or comic series than a novel.

For this site I have also reviewed:

No Man's World: Black Hand Gang

It wasn't until I started reading this book that I realised that it was the second in a series. The first in the No Man's World series is Black Hand Gang. I would recommend reading this first, but it is not required to enjoy this book. In my defence it is not clear on the book whether it is the first or second book in the series.

There are some books that make it obvious that a lot of research has gone into it, others have an almost obsessional level of detail and feel. Having been to my fair share of military shows and having read a a few books it is quite obvious that Mr Kelleher has a passion and feel for the British army in World War One.

This book bridges the gap between historical fiction and science fiction in an interesting way. The Great War, and in particular the Battle of the Somme are inspirational in many respects. When a whole Battalion of Fusiliers are transported by an occult ritual to a hostile alien world they suddenly wish they were back on the battlefield facing an artillery barrage again.

The world building is detailed and yet does not appear to take up a huge amount of space on the page. The characters are vibrant and believable and make for a thoroughly entertaining read.

I have put the first book on my birthday list, and will be looking out for the next one too. If you have any interest in military fiction then this will make an interesting change of pace. If you like science fiction too, then this will be a great read.