Book Review: 'Systemic Shock' by Dean Ing
'Systemic Shock' (298 pp.) was published by Ace Books in June, 1981. The cover art is uncredited. This is the first volume in the so-called 'Ted Quantrill' trilogy, the other volumes being 'Single Combat' (1983) and 'Wild Country' (1985).
I'm not very familiar with the works of Ing (1931 - 2020) who was quite prolific in the 1980s and 1990s with both his own novels, and his entries in the 'Man-Kzin' franchise.
After struggling with 'Systemic Shock' I'm not inclined to try additional novels by Ing. 'Systemic' was so bad, I gave up after page 52.
The novel is set in 1996, and alternates between a technothriller narrative, detailing a war between the US-Russia bloc and the 'SinoInd' coalition, and a storyline involving the adventures of a young man named Ted Quantrill in the post-apocalyptic America generated by the war.
From the opening paragraph I found 'Systemic' to be tough going. The technothriller segments of the novel are related by the author in a clipped, breathless prose overstuffed with awkward metaphors, similes, slang, and jargon.
Here's an example, dealing with a U.S. military installation that manages satellite defenses:
“Stay at your post or go on report,” Mills snapped, then spoke softly into his throat mike as the chief leaped back to his post. “With enough power, you may be able to get Arctic coverage from echo soda module, I say again echo soda. That’s an awfully shallow angle to penetrate that deep in sea water, but it’s your lasers, Commander. I’m just an elf……Affirm; grid test programs running and green, we’re ready when you are.”
Mills turned the level, heavy-browed stare on the chief. “Pull the test programs, ready ELF grid for main-trunk use at-my-mark-mark ! Chief, we’re losing too many orbital modules, too many bogies are getting through.”
The segments of the novel dealing with Ted Quantrill suffer from stilted prose, too.
After Quantrill and the boy scouts get too close to the highway, where vehicles don’t slow down when drawing abreast of roadside hikers:
It was much easier to hear your radio estimate megadeaths than to see and hear and smell and – Quantrill swallowed against a sourness in the back of his mouth – taste a single death. Big hearty Tom Schell: one moment a mixed bag of vices and companionable virtues, the next a flaccid bag of skin leaking away into imperturbable gravel, one eye winking as though it had all been a grotesque joke. But the dirt would soak up Tom’s blood without qualm or shudder. Lucky dirt; you die for it, and it doesn’t give a damn.
'radio estimate megadeaths' ?! Gravel that is 'imperturable' ?! And dirt that is 'lucky' ?! I've read better prose in fanfic.............!
The verdict ? 'Systemic Shock' fails both as a technothriller, and as a sci-fi novel. You're much better off reading John Hackett's 'The Third World War' (1979) or Tom Clancy's 'Red Storm Rising' (1986).
