Burn Cycle

Cry Pilot, Book 2

By: Joel Dane

Narrated by: David Shih

An unbeatable enemy. A planet on the brink. And a squad with a taste for revenge.

In this incendiary new military science fiction novel, an infantry squad crisscrosses the globe on a search-and-destroy mission against a relentless foe.

After cry pilot Maseo Kaytu's white-knuckled victory over the mysterious lampreys at Ayko Base, military command develops new weapons and a new strategy. The updated mission is simple: pinpoint the Hatchery, the "spawn point" of the lampreys, and blast it into a fine powder. Kaytu's battle-tested squad tracks the enemy from remote bases to elegant cities to subterranean caverns, but the lampreys start hitting harder and faster. While the squad is winning battles, Earth is losing the war.

When the search for the Hatchery shines a light on Kaytu's insurgent past, he faces a terrible truth. There is no line he won't cross to protect his squad. Then a vicious counterattack teaches him another lesson: You can't save everyone. In the end, all you can do is the job.

©2020 Joel Dane (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"I picked it up, I started reading. I kept reading. This is that kind of book, intense, involving, with intriguing world development. Recommended. Joel Dane is a writer to watch." (C. J. Cherryh, author of the Foreigner series)

"Joel Dane's Cry Pilot is a hyperkinetic and unflinching battle narrative that never loses sight of the truth of being a soldier: the squad comes before all else. Told with momentum and immediacy, Cry Pilot is authentic, exciting, and excellent." (Marko Kloos, author of Terms of Enlistment)

"In Cry Pilot, Joel Dane has imagined a fascinating high-tech future Earth where ecological collapse and runaway evolution have conspired to create enemies no army has ever encountered before. Told through the eyes of a young soldier seeking to escape a grim past, the action-packed plot holds tight to a human dimension." (Linda Nagata, author of the Red Trilogy)

"Awesome read! The language takes you into the world of the story. The first-person voice invites you to internalise the world of the character, a time and place strangely prescient. Joel Dane has created a uniquely familiar world reminiscent of the Mesozoic Era of large predators, only in the future. I look forward to seeing what he writes next." (Nico Lathouris, screenwriter, Mad Max: Fury Road)

Better than the first book

I felt like the first book was a bit slow and plodding, spending too much time on backstory and invented terms. This time the story got underway, with only short asides for relevant plot points as refreshers from the first book. Frankly I wish the first book had been more like this!
Narration is solid but nothing to write home about imo

Great writing well narrated

I can’t ask any more from an audio book. Incredible world building, really interesting characters with great chemistry and a narrator who brings life to it all without getting in the way. I have never reviewed anything before but had to do something to express my appreciation for the experience.

Anvil squad rocks!

Great second book to the series! I loved the gritty combat descriptions. The interaction between the characters has developed into a band of brothers and sisters with who is left alive. Anvil squad has definitely seen their fair share of scrapes and bruises. I liked where the book left off and I look forward to listening to the next book.

Inconsistent

This author is gifted with creating a great story, and then destroying it with juvenile cringy sex scenes and horrible dialogue. There are five star moments in this book, but I have a strict one orgy is more than enough policy...