Good Soldier, The

The Good Soldier
by Nir Yaniv
Published by Shadowpaw Press
Review by Kelli Worton
$24.99 ISBN 9781989398821

People always say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it was the cover that first drew me to The Good Soldier. An obvious mockery of war propaganda posters that boldly proclaim unstoppable military power and the imminent defeat of all enemies while also featuring images of ideal soldiers (I’m looking at you, North Korea), The Good Soldier’s cover instead shows a jubilant, chubby soldier riding a missile while holding a grinning, fluffy white dog. It’s a pretty good indication of what you’ll find inside: an absurd, yet blistering satire of military culture and war. The meaning of the dog is revealed in due course.

The jubilant soldier in question is the book’s extremely unlikely hero, Pre-Private Fux (yes, really), a recent recruit to the United Planets’ Imperial Navy, stationed aboard the spacecraft UPS Spitz. He’s an idiot, second-class, a fact confirmed by the police on his home planet Bohemia IV, and noted on his ID. As he causes one incident after another on the UPS Spitz, he’s quickly labelled a menace; in the first five chapters alone, medical devices are broken, officers are injured, and forklifts are lost to space. None of this will do; the Imperial Navy is at war, their enemy a mysteriously undefined army of insects, and Fux is putting the Navy’s careful order in jeopardy. Commanding officers Lieutenant Lipton, Lieutenant Commander Doctor Nightingale, and Commander Kapust plot between themselves to shuffle him from one unit to another, all worrying about the damage he will cause to their own positions. Early on, fanatical Ensign Berserker states that Fux is “a subversive element if ever I saw one,” and as Fux begins to unexpectedly make unexpected friends in unexpected places, things begin to unexpectedly change on board the Spitz. What will this lead to?

The Good Soldier is a fantastically entertaining Sci Fi romp that hilariously exposes issues in the military and highlights the futility of war. Yaniv uses this cast of ridiculous characters to capably mock everything from the poor quality of military food and the cramped quarters, to the absurdity of regulations, the danger of mindlessly following protocol, and the incompetence of commanding officers. As the incorruptible Fux bumbles through his time aboard the Spitz, he also unintentionally exposes the illusions of truth, power, and control, to highly amusing results. I found myself smiling constantly at the cleverness of The Good Soldier. Fux is an agent of chaos, yes, but if you want change, sometimes chaos is necessary. The message is clear: Fux might not be the hero we want, but he’s the hero we need.

Don’t miss the appendix at the back of the book, which offers translations of character names and explanations of references to literature and pop culture that you might have missed.

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