The Subterrene War Interviews…

Yesterday I stumbled across the Subterrene War website, dedicated to the science fiction series by T.C. McCarthy. The series begins with Germline, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and is followed by Exogene (available now) and Chimera (out later this year).

If you like your sci-fi gritty, grim, and with a brutalist aesthetic, then this series is definitely for you. As I say in my review, it also reminded me a little of Hunter S. Thompson in tone.

I’ll be reading and reviewing Exogene in the very near future, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share the character interviews McCarthy scripted. So, without further ado…

Colonel Martin:

Lieutenant Chopiak:

Dr. Parsons:

Private Matthews:

Also on CR: An Interview with T.C. McCarthy

“Germline” by T.C. McCarthy (Orbit)

A journalist goes native in a future war, loses grip on reality…

Germline (n.) – A secret military program to develop genetically engineered super-soldiers (slang).

War is Oscar Wendell’s ticket to greatness. A reporter for the Stars and Stripes, he has a pass to the front lines of a brutal conflict over natural resources, where genetics – the germline soldiers – battle heavily armed troops deep beneath the icy, mineral-rich mountains of Kazakhstan.

But the front is nothing like Oscar imagined. The genetic soldiers are more human than he bargained for, too. Hooked on a dangerous cocktail of drugs and adrenaline, lines are beginning to blur. And if Oscar doesn’t find a way out of the chaos soon, he may never get back.

I first heard about Germline quite a while ago, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting a chance to read it. As soon as it arrived in the post, I put aside the novel I was about to start, and dove right in. I’m glad I did – Germline is an intense, bizarre, and engrossing ride along with a man who is spiralling into his own private hell amidst what can only be described as a hell on earth (yes, he’s pretty unlucky…). It’s different to any other science-fiction I’ve read, and I will certainly be following the trilogy closely and eagerly.

Introducing… T.C. McCARTHY

A little while ago, I wrote a post about military sci-fi novels with journalists at the centre of the story. In the very short piece, I mentioned Dan Abnett’s Embedded and also T.C. McCarthy’s Germline. At the time, I didn’t know anything beyond the short synopsis I’d seen on Orbit’s website. As we draw closer to Germline’s August publication date, however, I thought it would be a great time to interview the author, and see if we can find out a little more about the book and the series it is a part of.

After receiving a PhD from the University of Georgia, McCarthy embarked on a varied career that gave him a keen perspective on warfare and foreign policy. He’s worked as a patent examiner in complex biotechnology, and also worked at the CIA as an analyst through 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. (Which is pretty cool.)

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce you to military sci-fi author T.C. McCarthy…

Upcoming: Journalists getting in on Sci-Fi Action

Two novels coming out in the near future feature journalists embedded (in one form or another) with military units as their main protagonists. I’m surprised it’s taken so long for this premise to take hold, given the attention it received during the current Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In some ways, the Horus Heresy series from Black Library has adopted the idea of journalists accompanying military forces, but it was never really central to the story – rather, it was a device to portray the story.

In Dan Abnett’s Embedded and T.C. McCarthy’s Germline, the embedded journalist takes the top spot.

Having studied both international journalism and the role of the media in foreign policy, I think both of the novels sound pretty appealing. The idea of seeing conflicts from the frontlines, but from an outsider’s perspective, offers great scope for intelligent discussion of the nature of war, so transferred onto these speculative settings, we could be in for a real treat.