Book Review – Combat Frame XSeed

“Like one of the good  Gundam series with the serial numbers filed off.” would be my one sentence review of Brian Niemeier’s first book in his Combat Frame XSeed series. That’s not a slam either. While reading Combat Frame XSeed, it’s easy to visualize the agile, mech-on-mech combat that he describes, and in my mind’s eye, it looks a lot like this:

However, a 290-page novel leaves a lot more room for universe and character development than a series of 25-minute anime shows, and Niemeier has crafted a well built world where the remnants of Earth’s independent governments must work with a handful of warlords and arms traders against the technologically and numerically superior space forces of Systems Over-terrestrial Coalition (SOC).

The book follows a handful of characters as they (mostly) work together to try and stop an SOC plan to “civilize” the remaining citizens of Earth by any means necessary. It’s a solid, well-thought out universe, and no one gets a colony dropped on them. At least not in this book.

While the plot and characters are good, however, the action scenes are where Combat Frame XSeed truly shines. Flight capable combat frames blast away at each other with massive rail-guns and 110mm automatic rifles, then switch to heat axes and beam swords when the range gets too short. The action is fast, tense, and well described. Again, for anyone who’s watched a few episodes of a Gundam, Macross, or Robotech show, the action is easy to visualize.

Fans of mecha shows, or action sci-fi will definitely enjoy this book. I’ll be picking up the next book in the series, Combat Frame XSeed: Coalition Year 40 very soon.