Sixteenth Watch

December 9, 2019
Hard sci-fi fans will appreciate this norm-bucking near-future military tale from Cole (the Shadow Ops series). As a woman nearing retirement age, Cdr. Jane Oliver of the U.S. Coast Guard is an unlikely action hero. Oliver recently witnessed the death of her husband in a fight between the Americans and Chinese on the moon and is still coping with her grief. The skirmish presages an escalation of tensions between the countries as a lunar war looms. Meanwhile, rival U.S. services work to exclude the Coast Guard from any extraterrestrial role, but the Guard will have a chance to prove themselves by competing in a televised military sports competition. Oliver is promised a promotion to admiral and a waiver that would allow her to retire to the moon with her daughter if she agrees to train members of the Coast Guard to compete. The vicissitudes of this training make up the bulk of the book, as the Chinese threat grows in the background. Cole’s capable portrait of a plausible future leaves the door open for a welcome sequel. Agent: Joshua Blimes, Jabberwocky Literary.

March 1, 2020

Coast Guard Commander Jane Oliver had a clear view of retirement ahead of her, after serving the moon assignment of 16th Watch. However, an overzealous response to a fight has left her husband dead, and now Jane is running on empty. When she is approached to go back to the moon, this time to train the next group for the famous Battalion Games, the Coast Guard's elite SAR-1 lunar unit, she finds a crew still in mourning and stuck in the past. Finding a way to inspire her crew, when she feels just as lost, seems impossible. Yet Jane also finds that tension between the Coast Guard and Navy commands is spiraling into border issues, and she may be the only one who can keep it from exploding into all-out war. VERDICT Cole's (The Killing Light) military experience creates an immersive read. Smart prose and intense conflict will keep readers engaged to the very end.--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2020
Cole jumps from fantasy (The Killing Light, 2019) to sf, but readers will recognize his incredible characters and imaginative situations that are based on a nugget of reality. The moon has been developed as a mining colony by both the U.S. and China, and each nation has a military presence there that serves as a peacekeeping and tension-breaking force. During the course of a riot on the surface of the moon, U.S. Coast Guard commander Jane Oliver watches helplessly as her husband's ship breaks apart from the mission formation. After the tragedy, Jane is assigned to Earth-bound teaching, but is pulled back up into space to train a crew for a televised competition. Soon Jane becomes aware that those in power are pushing ever closer to open war with China?and she is going to do everything she can to prevent it. Sixteenth Watch follows Jane from her lowest, most heartbreaking moment, and readers will be drawn to her as she proves herself to be a smart, feisty, loyal, loving, complex, tough, and flawed heroine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)