Androne is the story of Paxton Vare. An everyday Joe, he spends his time as a mechanic, repairing ground-based war drones (what the military calls landrones) and preparing to be a father. Short of experienced operators, however, the military calls Paxton up to perform a month-long shift as an androne pilot. Bipedal mechwarriors operated virtually, Paxton straps his arms and feet into the control booth of an older model called the Spartan. The world is still reeling from an event dubbed the Ninety-Nine, a mysterious phenomenon which wiped out 36% of the world's military infrastructure and instantaneously destroyed twenty-seven of the world's major cities. Everyone knows the source of the destruction is not aliens or AI and assume it must be have been done by an invisible enemy. In these ambiguous times Paxton is given strict parameters for his androne's desert patrol route. But things start to fall apart when a fellow operator gives him a metal marble that bypasses security protocols; Paxton can now take the Spartan anywhere. But where? The answer changes his and humanity's lives forever.
Androne is feels like recent, big screen Hollywood films. It takes a speculative futuristic scenario, throws in a bunch of eye candy (including fancy guns, natch), and stirs until action and drama result. On the surface, Androne does this well. There is a tight prologue that grabs interest, followed by a scene which takes the main character out of their element and puts them into a mechwarrior with a mystery to solve: how has humanity been so easily defeated against all logic? This mystery gathers steam until the inevitable fireworks show and revelation of the mystery. Androne ticks these boxes through occasionally sharp, flashy bits of prose.
The trouble is, Androne is a novel. Readers need muscle and bone under the story's skin. It needs to live in their imagination, not just the screen. More bluntly, the novel is not well executed. Worrell does not deploy the technique needed to deliver the science fiction action-drama the premise promises, and at the depth a good book requires.
We can start with characterization. Paxton Vare is inconsistently presented, and becomes soulless for it. He is everything, and nothing. One moment he's appeasing an acerbic father, and the next he is Che Guevara rebelling against an army lieutenant. A few moments later he's nodding amiably with an openly manipulative officer—no rebel Che in sight. A few scenes later he pleads with two bullies to get out of a situation, no fire in his fight. And then a short time later he's punching a person he disagrees with. Couple this with phlegmatic dialogue and the sum doesn't jive into a character the reader can identify. To be clear, humans, i.e. 3D characters, are inconsistent when rendered properly. Trouble is, Worrell doesn't seem to have had a foundational idea of who Paxton is—a conception to tie Paxton's humanity to. Instead, Paxton's character serves the story. Secondary characters likewise feel subservient...
Another significant issue with Androne is diction. As mentioned, there are occasional flashes of brilliance. Worrell puts alliteration to good use, there are a few nicely related action pieces, including the climax, and minimalism is often applied to solid effect. But alongside these aspects is the incongruent usage of language, for example, "The shrapnel spattered across..." Shrapnel doesn't spatter. "...the bruises on Woden's nose..." Noses don't bruise. And so on. If Worrell were writing a literary novel, the reader could ponder the deeper meaning of the verbiage. But Androne is straight-forward sci-fi action drama, no sub-text. And the final point regarding diction is self-awareness. The novel possesses such lines as "Go and save the future." And sadly, it's not tongue and cheek.
My third and final criticism is that Worrell doesn't deploy a basic technique this type of story desperately needs: tension. In the early going there is talk of a dissenter among Paxton's fellow operators, a mysterious person they dub “The Collaborator”. Worrell never digs into this and truly builds a mystery the reader cares about But that is minor. The biggest shortcoming regarding tension is that Worrell never takes advantage of the story's premise, the Ninety-Nine, the grand, unfathomable, unexplainable, massively mysterious event that somehow wiped out the greatest military powers the world has ever known and that not one, single, solitary person can explain. Rather than being an event that impacts everything from setting to pscyhology, the characters treat it like a murder next door—significant and something to talk with people at work around the water cooler, but not life-altering. I mean, can you imagine the global chaos that would result from a sudden, instantaneous event destroying Tokyo, New York, Beijing, London, etc., etc.? Look what the Cold War did to our collective Western society, let alone an actual mass destruction event. The Ninety-Nine does not get the treatment it deserved, and the novel distinctly loses something for it.
The bottom line is that due to lack of polished technique, Androne never achieves flow state. Twitchy, it can reel off several good paragraphs, then step into a pothole of poor word choice or a cheesy line, or present a wild tangent to the main character. It's perpetually disruptive. Likewise, it never takes advantage of its own premise, to build proper tension around the massively uncanny events.
In the end, Androne is mainstream science fiction for readers who do not care about technique or style. It presents big screen explosions and action through robot warriors—eye kicks if ever there were. For readers looking only for that, have a look. For a tighter, more sophisticated version of this story which takes its readership's intelligence for granted, try William Gibson's The Peripheral.
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