Dwain Worrell's Androne wrestles with an American identity as military despot that few Americans care to fully consider. Worrell sets his story in desert wastelands that call to mind the battlefields that the United States has occupied since the beginning of this century—Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Syria. Regardless of party politics, the US is continuously at war. Worrell points the finger at ideology, arguing that the US guarantees its own survival by not allowing non-Western ideologies to survive. Of course, it isn't every non-Western ideology that gets run through the grinder of the USAmerican military-industrial complex. Foremost, forever wars have been waged to put terrorism in check and to ensure that US interests are maintained, whether that involves keeping various foreign states from expanding their influence, ensuring that the US controls specific resources, and maintaining a military presence in key regions. The justification for war over the past century has been Woodrow Wilson's WW1 rallying cry to "Make for world safe for democracy," a rallying cry echoed in Joe Biden's assertion that we are in a "battle for democracy."
They're not wrong, but Dwain Worrell's book subtly asks if they're also not right. Worrell's villain is the US military whose tactic in the future is to attack civilians to ensure the safety of its sovereignty. In the book, soldiers enter egg shaped cocoons to pilot drones and are tasked with looking for and executing civilians, including children. While real US drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere follow the distinction principle that it is unlawful to target civilians, strikes have killed noncombatants, including children. In one of the worst known cases, a 2021 drone strike in Kabul killed seven children. Worrell not only objects to indiscriminate use of military might but also points to the problem that non-White people are targeted. Worrell's argument is that people of color and their various cultures and traditions aren't valued or, worse, are viewed as a virus to eradicate.
A good question to toss around is, what lengths will we go to make the world safe for democracy, and will the world actually be made more safe or just the United States?
Okay, I can feel you getting tired of this political science lecture. But it's uniquely difficult to discuss Androne without giving up too much of the plot. The big reveal doesn't happen until halfway into the book and it's enjoyable to slowly uncover what's really going on in this weird military installation. At the peril of giving too much away, I'll sketch out a bit of it. We follow Paxton Arés as he takes on a new assignment to pilot an Androne, a battle mech. He's given a really crappy battle mech though, one of the Spartan series, which is outclassed in nearly every way by each successive line of new mechs, each named after a fierce warrior out of history like the Apache, Zulu, and Kingsman series. Paxton has a pregnant girlfriend back home and a godfather, Marston, at the military base who'd seen active duty with Paxton's father. Marston helps fast-track Paxton for an officer's post, but Paxton is picking up on the fact that he has not been fully informed on exactly what kind of war is being fought, including where the drones they are piloting are actually located. Okay, that's where I'll stop on plot stuff because it's a very well crafted story that deliberately keeps the big plot reveals tucked away.
You might have noticed that the names of the characters are all etymologically peace and war names. Pax is latin for peace. Ares is the Greek god of war, and Mars is the Roman god of war. But while Marson is all war, Paxton's name balances peace and war. His character represents the ideal that war would only be waged to ensure peace, that war wouldn't be the first and only political strategy (as it has seemingly become for the US in the 21st century), but that war would be reserved for extreme circumstances. War begets war. Consider how the families of those children in Kabul feel toward the United States. What nightmares visit them? What desire do they feed in their hearts to repay the terror that was visited upon them?