When a none too bright bunch of aliens decides to capture some humans to see why everyone thinks they make such good fighters they find out, much to their regret. Chris Nuttall’s latest novel, A Learning Experience is a lot of fun and makes the title’s point as the main character discovers that power really does make things complicated, no matter how simple you’d think a libertarian mindset should make things.
The story opens with a handful of retired marines being abducted from their combined camping trip and bitching session by a group of classically despicable aliens, who fortunately, never got around to setting the security safeguards on their ship’s AI. They didn’t build it, they don’t understand it, and as a result they got to lose it in short order. In fact, that happend so easily that it’s a weak point in the story, but, but it had to be done to get to the real story which is about setting up a lunar colony / nation with Heinlinian flair and a lot of vets that alien medical technology could make whole again. Then setting up shop to protect Earth, because someone’s bound to notice one of their starships went missing on a simple snatch and scuttle mission. And thumbing their noses at the US Government in true libertarian fashion.
What’s I liked is exactly what annoys some, the preachy bits. I like that the main character’s libertarian ideals come up against hard realities when dealing with organizing the new nation, and the tribute bits that the author has thrown in to make it clear that he’s well read in the genre. A nice touch is that when confronted with alien tech that seems straight out of Star Trek, they just go for it – adopting Trek terms where it fits. Also telling is the tribute to John Ringo’s Live Free or Die, in which a human discovers that maple syrup is a precious trading commodity. Nuttle’s clearly given the libertarian near future genre a lot of though, and the book delivers on the title’s promise. It’s more than a shoot em up in space novel, and I liked it quite well.
The central character is full of self rightfulness and the romance of lost American Exceptionalism at the book’s outset, but as the book progresses he has to come to grips with the slippery slope that having the power to make the other guy do what you want offers, hence the title. Along the way you have about as much fun as any mil-sf oriented first contact novel offers, and I’m not sure why one reviewer thought the book was too short, unless he means that it ended before he wanted it to. Certainly for the price, A Earning Experience is a great value.