The Triumphant
Review
The Triumphant is the twelfth book in the Bolo series. It’s an anthology of Bolo stories written by three different authors. They explore the emotional bond between a Bolos and the people around them, and the dangers of caring too much about a machine built for war.
The Triumphant is different from the earlier anthologies—Honor of the Regiment and The Unconquerable—because it was written mainly by and , with contributing to one story. It’s clear and collaborated, since their stories share common themes. That makes this book feel much closer to ’s original single-author works like Bolo: Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade and Rogue Bolo.
The collection’s three best stories—Little Red Hen, Little Dog Gone, and Miles to Go—explore the relationship between Bolos and their crews, especially how those bonds can lead to disaster. The Bolos are a bit like Murderbot from All Systems Red: they develop emotional attachments they worry will compromise them, even while also using those feelings to drive them to self-sacrifice.
The Farmer’s Wife
The Bolo Digger, long since converted into a tractor, is the only thing standing between the blind, mouse-like Xykdap and the agricultural colony of Matson’s World. Meanwhile, Tillie Matson is transport director aboard the Star Cross, which is carrying the last colonists and cattle to the planet when it’s attacked by the Xykdap. The ship is crippled, and Tillie now has to care for her people on a journey 20 years longer than expected.
For this story to really work, needed to pull off three things:
- Deliver some awesome Bolo action, because this is a Bolo book.
- Develop the characters on the Star Cross enough that we care about them and worry over their precarious situation.
- Weave the two storylines together so they feel connected, not just coexisting.
I don’t think she really succeeds at any of these. It’s fun that Digger has gone so deep into his farming role that he mistakes the Xykdap for pests and even whips up chemical weapon “pesticides”, something we’ve never seen Bolos do before. But he only gets one or two real scenes, while most of the story stays on the Star Cross as the crew struggles to survive.
Even there, the story doesn’t give us enough. Everything feels rushed. Watching the colonists slowly figure out how to endure—like Watney in The Martian or Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe—could have been fun. Instead, the narrative skips over 19 years and jumps straight to the ending where they finally meet Digger on the planet.
You can also start to see the conservative seeds of the (horrible) The Road to Damascus which she wrote with in the salt-of-the-earth farmers just trying to make their way against a hostile world.
Little Red Hen
The recon Bolo LRH “Red” and her crew of eight dismount troopers and three command staff are sent to scout a planet ahead of a Concordiat invasion. When the rest of the fleet arrives, they find Red nearly destroyed and her entire crew dead. What happened to them? And is it Red’s fault?
This story mixes heavy action with a lot of technical detail, like ’s As Our Strength Lessens, but also carries a strong human element. Red is a mother figure to her “boys,” and it’s their deaths in service of the mission that push her into madness. Her last act, after being recovered, is to commit suicide because the officer assigned to court-martial her is her former commander, and she knows he would destroy his own career rather than condemn her.
In a sense, this story is another rewrite of ’s Field Test, just like Rogue Bolo was. It even directly references that earlier story1 and uses it to foreshadow Red’s reasons for her suicidal behavior. When Red finally breaks at the end, it reminds me of HAL 9000 in ’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, because she’s torn apart by contradictory orders: to protect her crew while also ensuring the intelligence they gathered is uploaded. The deep connection between Red and her crew is like The Last Command.
Little Dog Gone
The Bolo GWN Gawain is destroyed during a Deng invasion, and the planet it was defending is overrun. Two hundred years later, a girl becomes obsessed with the wreck, discovers it’s still functional, and begins secretly repairing it. She has to keep her work hidden, because an abandoned Bolo is considered too dangerous. If the Navy found out it was still alive, they’d destroy it.
The story is partly a coming-of-age tale, following ‘Lima over five years as she and her bully-turned-partner Brad repair the Bolo, fall in love, and work through their own problems. When the Deng finally return, the Bolo still isn’t fully restored and needs a brain transplant from Brad’s mortally wounded, genetically engineered dog to be battle-ready.
This story is similar to A Relic of War, with an old abandoned Bolo that should be shut down as a threat but instead becomes the only thing capable of saving the town. It’s also reminiscent of Final Mission, where children awaken a forgotten Bolo that is then called on to repel a Deng invasion. The genetically enhanced dogs reminded me of the Tines in ’s A Fire Upon The Deep.
Miles to Go
Nike, a special Mk. XXIII Bolo, is a test bed for advanced AI research and the first of her kind to develop emotions. Her new commander, Paul Merrit, has to hide her unique abilities from Bolo Command, since they would destroy her out of fear. But when the planet Santa Cruz is attacked by an evil corporation and Merrit is betrayed, Nike becomes the only thing standing between the civilians and certain death.
This was my favorite Bolo story when I first read it 20 years ago, and it’s still my favorite on reread. is known for his overly verbose world-building, but he absolutely knows how to set up that moment where the good guys rally: the kind of scene that makes you want to jump up and cheer because you know the villains have finally overreached and are about to get what’s coming to them. And he uses it to great effect here.
Miles to Go has the best action sequences of any Bolo story. The bad guys throw everything they’ve got at Nike, but she wins through with both brains and brawn. In that way, it’s a lot like Murderbot: Bolos are incredibly competent, and Nike is no exception.
This story pulls in pieces from many others. From Field Test,2 it takes the distrust of smarter Bolos. From The Last Command, the emotional bond between commander and tank. From Final Mission, the forgotten Bolo awakened at just the right time to fight off a new threat. From You’re It, the knock-off Bolos, here called Golems. And from The Murphosensor Bomb, a machine with emotions and emotional intelligence (MAX was written first, but comes later in the timeline). The use of poetry throughout reminded me of ’s Hyperion.
A Brief Technical History of the Bolo
An in-universe technical paper “written” by Felix Hermes, this story details the history and design of Bolos from the Mark I to the Mark XXXIII. I loved this kind of thing as a kid. Some of my favorite books to pore over were The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, and Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, because I was (and still am) a huge nerd who loved figuring out how many Enterprises it would take to destroy the Death Star or how many Space Marines a Bolo could defeat. My only complaint is that it isn’t illustrated; I’d pay a fortune for that book if it existed!
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“They say the first Mark XX went and committed suicide on ‘em; but, hell, at least it had a reason. Doing its duty, upholding the honor of the Brigade and all. That’s what they said, anyway. But this little baby, she’s just starkers, no explanation, nuthin’…”
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Also directly referenced:
Yet my Main Memory contain ample documentation of the opposition Doctor Chin and General Bates faced before Unit DNE was permitted to demonstrate the feasibility of a self-directed Bolo against the People’s Republic.