Take the Shilling

Book excerpt: "Military science fiction [concentrating] on the psychology and politics of societies in conflict." ---Analog, on The Confederated Worlds series The Confederated Worlds implanted in his brain the skills to make him a soldier. He had to learn for himself how to survive interstellar war. Tomas Neumann seeks escape from his backwater planet and overbearing mother, and a mentor to replace his long-dead father. "Taking the shilling"---enlisting in the Confederated Worlds military---promises both. But despite the soldier's skills implanted in his brain, combat against fellow humans, especially ones who should have welcomed him as a liberator, threaten to destroy him, in body and in spirit. Grieving for lost comrades, demoralized by harrowing combat, can Tomas learn what he needs to survive? Because soon, with the fates of thousands of his fellow soldiers in the balance, he will face his war's ultimate challenge.