Griffin Reads – Armor

Title: Armor

Author: John Steakley

Genre: Military Science Fiction, Psychological Thriller

Summary:

On the brutal alien planet of Banshee, where monstrous insectoid creatures swarm in endless waves, a lone scout named Felix dons a mechanized suit of powered armor and joins the fight for humanity’s survival. But Felix isn’t just battling aliens—he’s at war with his own memories, traumas, and fractured identity.

As the narrative shifts between Felix’s harrowing combat experiences and a second storyline featuring a cynical drifter named Jack Crow, the novel explores themes of identity, survival, and the emotional armor people build to protect themselves from pain. What starts as a tale of action-packed warfare slowly reveals itself to be a character-driven exploration of what it means to endure.

Armor delivers gritty action, raw psychological depth, and unexpected literary ambition.

Content Guide:

• Intense, graphic violence and wartime trauma
• Themes of PTSD, identity dissociation, and emotional repression
• Moderate profanity and adult situations
• Some sexual references, but nothing explicit

My Thoughts:

Let me say something I’ve never said in one of these recommendations before: only read the first part of this book. It features Felix, a scout who is forced into a horrific battlefield scenario which is equal parts viscerally thrilling and psychologically haunting. The comparisons with Starship Troopers are unavoidable, but the storyline is nonetheless relentless and emotionally raw. It’s one of the most compelling portrayals of trauma I’ve ever read in military sci-fi.

And then the book becomes crap.

Maybe that sounds harsh, but it truly feels like the rest of the book was written by a second, far-less-capable author. The protagonist shifts to Jack Crow, a bumbling bully of a space pirate who fumbles his way through a protracted pastiche of a frontier western with a thin sci-fi coat of paint. Eventually the book tries to marry the two narratives, but it’s a forced marriage without love or fidelity.

Luckily, Felix’s story is completely self-contained and comes first, so you can just imagine this is a fantastic novella with some other novel parasitically attacked to it which you can safely ignore. I would recommend Felix’s story to fans of character-driven military sci-fi that balances brutal action with introspective depth. I would recommend the rest of the novel to parking meters and gas station toilets.