Let's get the obligatory disclaimers out of the way. Michael Z. Williamson is a friend of mine, and I'm happy to count him as such. He is a fan of Schlock Mercenary, and I am a fan of his work. Recently (well... Penguicon, so maybe not so recently) Mike handed me three books he'd written which were not in his usual Military/SF genre. They were straight-up "modern military fiction." No rocketships, robots, or ray-guns. The books were The Scope of Justice, Targets of Opportunity, and Confirmed Kill. I devoured them over the course of about a week, and enjoyed them thoroughly. They chronicle the fictional missions of a pair of elite snipers, missions that seem very plausible in light of current world events. The first book ( Scope of Justice) starts a little slowly, but that didn't bother me. Mike's attention to detail really shows with this subject matter, and I enjoyed it. When the shooting starts, the pace picks up just fine. The second and third books don't suffer from any pacing issues (or maybe by then I was so hooked I didn't notice -- it's irrelevant either way.) My favorite of the set is probably the second ( Targets of Opportunity, in which somebody has to make a shot in which the target is smaller than the bullet fired at it), but it's a tough call. Especially since Confirmed Kill has a Schlock Mercenary reference in it right at the end. As I said in my disclaimer, Mike's a friend, and I'm a fan. Both the friendship and the fandom have been earned, though, so I recommend his books to you with no qualms whatsoever.
