Review: Darkside is another excellent military sci-fi mystery from Michael Mammay

Michael Mammay is the author of more than a half dozen books at this point, including the Planetside series and the standalone science fiction novels The Misfit Soldier, The Weight of Command, and Generation Ship. When it comes to military sci-fi, few do it better than Mammay, whether that's because he's a real-life combat veteran, has a keen eye for detail, or because he has a razor-sharp wit that comes through on the page. Probably a bit of all those things.

That wit I mentioned is a key component of Planetside, a series of military sci-fi mystery novels that follow the cynical retired colonel Carl Butler, who is dragged into solving one messy situation after another despite his insistence that he'd rather not get involved. (Spoiler: Butler always gets involved.)

The last entry in the Planetside series was 2020's Colonyside; after that, Mammay took a break to write all those standalone novels listed above. But now he's back at it in the series that kickstarted his writing career, and Carl Butler is once more back on the case, this time to find a missing person on a remote moon controlled by not one, but two corporations which have it out for Butler.

Darkside is the fourth novel in the Planetside series, and it's a refreshing return to a sci-fi world I've grown to love over the years. I read it in about a day flat, and now it's time to give you some impressions. Since this is book four in the series, I won't be going into too many of the particulars, as that would spoil previous books. So whether you've read the previous Planetside novels or you're just now hearing about the series and want to decide whether to dive into, you can proceed without fear of spoilers.

Book review: Darkside by Michael Mammay (Planetside #4)

Unlike Mammay's previous book Generation Ship, which was a sprawling space epic, the Planetside novels are each tightly contained stories which are more or less wrapped up in around 300 pages. The formula has remained pretty consistent throughout, with Carl Butler being pulled out of retirement because of his reputation for getting to the bottom of thorny mysteries — especially when a missing person is involved, since he's solved a few such cases at this point. Darkside holds to that formula, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The joy of the Planetside books for me is being back with Butler and his posse of friends — the seasoned soldier Mac and ace hacker Ganos — as they're roped into yet another mystery that will inevitably involve both the military and greedy corporations doing what greedy corporations do best: screwing over everyone for the bottom line.

The setup for Darkside is thus: Butler is enjoying his retirement on the planet of Ridia 2, spending his time with friends and drinking whiskey in the afternoon. He's not one of those types who is retired but really wishes he was back at work — Butler wants to stay on his planet and live out his life. But when a young girl approaches him about finding her missing father, he can't resist agreeing to help...especially once he finds out the man went missing on the moon of Taug, where both the Omicron and Caliber corporations have significant mining stakes. If you've been following Planetside for a while, Omicron featured heavily in the second book, Spaceside, while Caliber is from Colonyside. Butler's got a history with both, and we can safely say neither is very happy to see him head to Taug. (Shoutout here to the fact that Mammay and Harper Voyager included a brief refresher at the beginning of Darkside for the events of the previous three novels, a trend I hope more publishers and authors pick up.)

Darkside is a welcome return for the Planetside series. The way Mammay writes Butler's voice is as clear and engaging as ever, and it drew me into the story from the opening paragraphs. If you've read any other Planetside book before, you don't need me to tell you how good they are. If you're wondering if Darkside holds up that consistency, the answer is a resounding yes. This book is at least as good as any other in the series (aside from perhaps the original Planetside, which is still my favorite), and in some ways it's even better.

Michael Mammay is amazing at writing combat scenes in an immersive way, and in that specific respect, I think Darkside might be some of his best work yet. There's a big set piece around halfway through the novel that involves an air drop on Taug, which has lower gravity than an Earth-like planet, that had my jaw on the floor. And that's not even getting into everything that came after, which propelled me through the book at lightning speed. I don't think that a set piece in this series has gripped me quite so hard since the initial action on Cappa in Planetside.

But action is only one part of the equation in any Planetside book. The mystery elements are also solid, with Butler resorting to some old tricks as well as using new ones to ferret out information from wheedling corporate executives and stoic military personnel who would rather not share. The hacker Ganos remains a highlight; she's fun, and far more dangerous than Butler or basically anyone else whenever computers are involved. Ganos has a great personality and serves as an excellent counterpart to Butler's world-weary military experience.

That brings us to the real star of the book, which will always be the voicing and the characters. Mammay writes great snappy dialogue which bleeds personality, but still manages to keep all the characters feeling distinct. At this point we've had multiple books with characters like Ganos and Mac, and all of that main crew feels very much like real people I was excited to see again. The writing in Darkside is really consistent with the previous books, which made it even easier to get lost in the story.

As for criticisms...if I'm honest, it's hard for me to think of any. This is book 4 in the series; I knew pretty much what to expect going in from having read the others, and it pretty squarely met those expectations. The Planetside books aren't a sweeping space opera; they're grounded military sci-fi where each book is its own discrete mystery to solve, and it is more or less solved by the end. They're reminiscent of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files in that way, where you know the hero will be on another case and a huge part of the fun is just being there alongside him and his particular brand of investigation again for a while.

Darkside is a safer book than the last few Mammay has published. It leans into a tried and true formula that readers have responded to, rather than reaching for the proverbial stars like Generation Ship, with its sprawling narrative and complex interplay between politics and science. But that doesn't mean it's bad; quite the opposite. Darkside delivers in every way I wanted it to, letting me spend more time with Butler and the rest while taking my breath away with some of its twists and turns.

It also had a great ending, which has been one of the few places where the Planetside series has wavered a little bit in the past. This isn't a series that tends to give long off-ramps, instead pulling the rug out and leaving you thinking about the resonance behind Butler's final words. The ending of Darkside reminded me more of the original Planetside novel in that way than any of the other sequels, leaving me haunted for days as I thought about the nuances of its final pages. I'm still thinking about it. That to me is a sign of how well Mammay pulled off the overarching story of Darkside on both the personal and grand scale.

Verdict

Darkside is another excellent military sci-fi mystery novel from Michael Mammay, and a rock solid return for the Planetside series. I've enjoyed all of Mammay's books that I've read to date, but there's something special about Planetside and its cast of characters that makes it so engrossing. These are short, tight books that are easy to read, as if Butler was sitting beside you at a bar telling the story over a whiskey. I'll always look forward to a new Planetside story, and that's more true than ever after reading Darkside.

Darkside is available now from Harper Voyager.

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