SciFi Month 2025 - Books From The Backlog: Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines #1) by Marko Kloos

  

Happy Thursday everyone! Welcome back to Books from the Backlog, the weekly linkup I'm taking part of which is hosted by Carole's Random Life in Books.  This is a great way to put a spotlight on books that I've had sitting on my shelf for awhile.  I don't know when I'll get to my weekly featured book, but I hope to some time hopefully soon.  In honor of SciFi Month 2025 (Image credit: Artwork by Yuriy Nedopekin), all this November I'm featuring sci-fi books.

This Week's Neglected Book:

Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines #1) by Marko Kloos

Published: March 14, 2013

Genre: Military sci-fi space opera

My Copy:

Format: Trade Paperback

Where I Acquired It: I picked this up at a local thrift shop.  I've only been there once so far, but it really made an impression.  You know the tv show Hoarders?  Well, it looks just like one of those houses on the inside.  I literally have no idea how the place is allowed to remain open for business since it seems like a disaster waiting to happen.  That said, it's the sort of place where if you can't find it there, it might not exist if you know what I mean.  Anyway, it's one of those places where you feel like you have to buy at least one thing to help them decrease their hoard of stuff.  Even if that one item won't make one bit of difference in the long run.  Anyway, it's a trip to visit, but it made me feel very overwhelmed and nervous that I might get buried alive if I made one wrong move.

Summary (From the back of the book):

The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements: You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world . . . or you can join the service.

With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price . . . and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.

Why Did I Add It?

Like I said above, they have a lot of everything and I thought I'd try this military sci-fi series opener.  I don't read this kind of sci-fi often, but it has been compared to the writing of John Scalzi.

Have you read this or would you read it?  Would you recommend it to me?  Are you participating in SciFi Month this year?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!