“The world’s gone mad… magic has changed everything.”
– Control Point by Myke Cole
An applaudable fusion of hardcore military fiction and mind-blowing fantasy, Myke Cole’s debut novel Control Point – the first installment of his Shadow Ops saga – is exactly the kind of novel I’ve been waiting years for: one that breathes new life into military fantasy by reimagining it in a contemporary setting.
I’ve read some amazing military-powered fantasy over the years – Glen Cook’s Black Company saga, Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera, John Marco’s sadly underappreciated Tyrants and Kings trilogy (The Jackal of Nar, The Grand Design, and The Saints of the Sword), etc. – but no author writing military fantasy has seemed to embrace the “anything goes” attitude that has revolutionized all of genre fiction in the last decades or so – until now.
Set in a modern day America that has been thrown into chaos by the advent of magic – which is manifesting itself on a sprawling plane of existence known as the Source and randomly affecting humans with powers like pyromancy, aeromancy, necromancy, etc. – Cole’s storyline revolves around Army Lieutenant Oscar Britton, a veteran soldier and leader of a team supports the Supernatural Operations Corps, whose mission it is to apprehend and/or eliminate any rogue magic users. But when Britton develops portamancy abilities (the power to open gates between realities), his life is turned upside down in an instant. With his life essentially forfeit, he receives a conditional pardon by agreeing to join up with a secret black ops squad. With a tracker – and a bomb – placed inside his chest, Britton has little choice but to go along with the plan, that is, until he can figure out a way to get free…
The reason this storyline works so well is the reason why I think so many readers enjoy paranormal fantasy series like Kim Harrison’s Hollows, Kat Richardson’s Greywalker, etc. There is a sense of “newness” here – originality, true inspiration. Cole has created a unique and meticulously described world, populated it with fantastical beings, thrown in some jaw-dropping plot twists, and – most importantly – developed a character that readers can identify with and root for.
This was not a novel without flaws, however. Cole literally throws readers into the deep end at the beginning of Control Point and just takes off with the narrative. Some readers may find it hard to get their bearings early on. And there is a learning curve as well when it comes to Cole’s frequent use of military acronyms and jargon – readers should be aware of the glossary at the back of this book and consult it whenever necessary.
But, even with those minor criticisms in mind, this was a surprisingly entertaining read – and considering the way in which Cole ended Control Point, the sequel – Fortress Frontier – should be a breathtaking reading experience indeed!
What Cole has accomplished in his first novel is nothing short of remarkable – he has created a fascinating premise, made military fantasy palatable to mainstream readers, and is the only author that I know of who has ever written the “vast majority” of their novel inside of a Barnes & Noble bookstore!
Knowing this, I had to seek Myke Cole out and ask him a few questions...
PGA: Myke, congrats on an outstanding first novel! It’s exceedingly rare when a military-powered science fiction or fantasy receives the kind of mainstream buzz that Control Point has gotten – it seems as though this novel is finding an audience with a surprisingly diverse readership. What was the initial inspiration behind writing a military fantasy series? Did you see a hole for this kind of story on the bookshelves?
MC: I don't know that I was aiming to fill a particular gap. I believe very strongly in *not* writing with a market trend in mind. This is because the publication process is so slow that by the time your book hits shelves, whatever trend you were aiming for has moved on.
Control Point is the natural outgrowth of my two biggest passions/influences. I was a dedicated fantasy nerd (comic books, D&D, fantasy novels) from the moment I could read. My parents kept expecting me to grow out of it and I never did. I have also worked nearly my entire professional life in and around the military. Joining was an easy decision for me and one of the best I've ever made (I love being a reservist). When you blend those two passions, the Shadow Ops series starts to seem kind of inevitable.
PGA: It seems to me that in this current genre fiction landscape – where the boundaries between genres are essentially gone and authors can blend any genre elements they’d like into their narrative – that it’s high time more writers take hardcore military fiction and reincarnate it using fantasy, horror, romance, etc. How fun was it writing this “anything goes” fusion of fantasy and military fiction?
MC: It was an absolute blast in the initial outlining and first draft phase. I really like your classifying the current climate as "anything goes." It captures the current spirit really well and makes me excited about the future of fantasy. But I'd be lying if I didn't tip my hat to the grind of trying to "take the book pro" (get a book deal). Once the initial writing was done and I dove into the meticulous hard work of bringing it up to a standard where it could actually SELL first to a publisher and finally to an audience, it was anything but fun. It was a bloody, harrowing grind. Unfortunately, when you are writing for a living, such a phase is critical for everything you write. I'm going through it now with Book II of the Shadow Ops series, Fortress Frontier, and let me tell you, it HURTS.
PGA: Have you always been a fan of military SF/fantasy?
MC: Absolutely. SF/Fantasy jump-started my love of reading and defined first my childhood and later my adulthood. The first fantasy novel I ever read was Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three, which I got from a take-home catalog from elementary school based on the cover. From then on, I never looked back. I moved on to Tolkien and Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony's Xanth series and John Christopher's Sword of the Spirits and Tripod books. By the time the smoked cleared, I was a card-carrying devotee.
PGA: According to your acknowledgments page, you wrote most of this novel while in the café of the Potomac Yard Barnes & Noble in Alexandria, Virginia. Can you expand upon that experience?
MC: I always thought of that cafe as a safe haven. At the time, I was leading a very frustrating life (trapped in an office job that I wasn't really happy with and desperately trying to break into professional writing with no success). I could go to the B&N cafe, put on my headphones and sink into the world of my book, focusing on the hard work necessary to bring the story to life. It had the same relaxing effect that I imagine video games do for many people.
Every so often, when the writing got too frustrating, I would get up from the table and go wander the stacks, looking at all the authors I admired, thrilling to the great cover art and even looking for the spot where my name would appear if I could ever get a book on the shelves. When you love books as much as I do, just being around them is energizing. I know it sounds hokey, but it evokes some of that . . . transported feeling I got from reading as a kid. It's very comforting to think that there are worlds without end out there, and that you never know when the next one will pop up under your nose and you'll fall in love with it.
PGA: How much of Oscar Britton is Myke Cole? And did any of your experiences as a military officer, security contractor, etc. make it into the novel in any form?
MC: Control Point is absolutely a product of my life in and around the military. The book first took form when I was working in the Pentagon and crystallized as I went through multiple tours in Iraq. I tried really hard to ensure that the book was as authentic as possible (though when drama ever came up against factual accuracy, drama won. I'm writing a story here!) while keeping it accessible to folks who aren't involved in the military. I'd like to think that anyone whose has participated in COIN operations or served on a FOB or a COP (and if you have, you'll know what those acronyms mean) in Iraq or Afghanistan will see their experiences reflected in some form in Control Point.
Oscar Britton and I, however, are very different people. Compelling protagonists need to be either spectacularly flawed or spectacularly achieved (and frequently both). I am neither as conflicted, nor as brave. We both have the same "Lawful Good" tendencies, but I am *much* more of a company guy and far less likely to move against institutions to which I have dedicated my life. But, then again, Oscar is put in some pretty extraordinary circumstances and doesn't have too many options. I guess it'd be a game time decision, but I'd be far more likely to just knuckle under and do what the government told me in the hopes that I could rejoin society in some fashion.
And that's why I would make a lousy novel protagonist. I'd rather read about Oscar Britton.
PGA: According to your website, you have two more Shadow Ops novels in the queue – Fortress Frontier (February 2013) and Breach Zone (February 2014) – will this be a trilogy or is it open-ended at this point?
MC: It's under contract as a trilogy. That said, Control Point has gotten a great reception for a debut novel. If the fans are interested and the publisher sees it as worthwhile, I am absolutely ready and willing to write as many Shadow Ops books as folks are willing to read.
PGA: Control Point seemed highly allegorical at points – if you had to condense it all down to one message, what would that be?
MC: Free societies have to balance their safety with the very things that make them free. When faced with an existential threat, how we approach it says a lot about who we are and where we want to go in the future.
Paul Goat Allen has been a full-time book reviewer specializing in genre fiction for the last two decades and has written thousands of reviews for companies like Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and BarnesandNoble.com. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
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