The first book I finished in 2024 was Androne, the debut novel from film and TV writer/producer Dwain Worrell. I’m pretty sure I got this as a free Amazon Prime monthly Kindle book, which, as an aside, a lot of the Kindle freebies were absolute garbage last year. Most months were a pile of books you couldn’t have paid me to read. Androne, however, was intriguing enough that I gave it a shot.
The story revolves around Sergeant Paxton Arés, an newly minted Androne pilot, and veteran of multiple “peacekeeping” operations, as he explores a whole new realm of warfare. A catastrophic event called The Ninety-Nine obliterated major military installations across the world. Now a joint coalition of world powers is fighting a war against an unknown enemy, while training their soldiers on a new kind of technology: the titular Androne, a remotely piloted humanoid drone (Android + Drone = Androne).
The book starts off slowly, needing to do a substantial amount of world building, and giving us time to get to know Sergeant Arés, his fellow soldiers, and the supporting members of his life. Arés is a great character. Not a raw recruit, he’s been a soldier for years, saw in-person combat, and now is learning this new kind of war, while also grappling with the idea of becoming a family man.
We follow him through his training, and ultimately, into combat. Worrell writes combat with a TV writer’s eye for scenes. The Andrones clash in a way that’s easy to imagine, particularly if one has some familiarity with the Mobile Suits of the various Gundam incarnations. There are multiple types of Andrones, with major differences in speed, size, and armament. If this gets picked up by the SyFy channel for a series in a year or two, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.
Pleasantly surprising for a 2023 release by a TV writer, Androne is largely politics free. The world seems to have generally come together, Independence Day like, to deal with this new existential threat.
The book comes to a fairly satisfying conclusion, while still leaving massive room for the follow-up, which Amazon says is coming later this year. I know I’ll be making it a Day One pickup!