Many books about the military start with a young recruit who has a lot to learn before the end of the book. Jacob Brown is certainly that. He’s also really enduringly stupid, spoiled, unmotivated, and did I mention, really dumb. On the bright side, he’s got some screwy DNA that makes him superhuman which goes a long way to protecting him from his own stupidity.
If it was just Brown who was so dumb, the book might have survived it. But it turns out the whole military is just as dumb. For example, Brown is graduated early from military school where he did just well enough to keep from getting kicked out. He’s commissioned as a lieutenant in the marines (something he didn’t train for and doesn’t want to do) and sent on a covert, intelligence gathering mission for which he has been given absolutely no training. Then, thanks to an assassination, he ends up in charge of said mission where the stakes are extraordinary. In theory, these elements could have produced a great story, but it frankly didn’t work for me.
This book is the first in a spinoff series from Dalzelle’s Omega’s Force. I haven’t read that series, but the hero of this one is the son of the hero of that one. Perhaps it would have helped to be familiar with those books before trying this one.