Book Review: Rubicon
Rubicon by J.S. Dewes
I chose to read Rubicon because I thought it was a book adaptation of the video game Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon by FromSoftware. It was not in fact that despite also being a story about a character who is resurrected multiple times, fights on an alien planet that has the tech of a long dead civilization, befriends an AI, fights robots, must kill their best friend, has themes of transhumanism and has the word rubicon in the title. So if you want to pretend it’s an armored core fanfic nobody is going to stop you.
Rubicon is a science fiction book by J.S Dewes and apparently the first book in a series but the other books have not been written yet. Rubicon is about sergeant Adriene Valero, a soldier that has died 96 times thanks to the resurrection technology that humanity created as a way to gain an edge in their endless war against the Mechan hive mind. The fact that she can’t go three months without being brutally killed has left her apathetic about life and emotionally numb. But that starts to change once she is reassigned to a special forces unit, and her virtual intelligence starts becoming self-aware.
Warning: There will be spoilers beyond this point in the review. I liked this book a lot, and I recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi books or war stories. This is probably my favorite book I have read so far this year, and it has a few good reveals so you might want to approach this spoiler-free. It does have some graphic violence in it, though, so it might not be for people that strongly dislike that
Adriene is an extremely well-written character, you sympathize with her almost instantly because her job requires her to die traumatically over and over again. Because soldiers can resurrect back at base, the army sends its soldiers on what are effectively suicide missions. The fact that her branch of the army is underfunded and under-equipped made me want to root for Adriene all the way. Once Adriene is transferred to the 505th special forces division, Adriene is a fish out of water, having to learn how to use the new tech others have already mastered
Another one of my favorite characters was Adriene’s AI assistant called Rubicon. Rubicon is wonderfully both snarky and empathetic. He goes the extra mile to make sure Adriene is safe and slowly manages to break through the shell of apathy that Adriene has built around herself. There is also lots of great banter between Rubicon and Adriene as both grow as people.
The other side characters are enjoyable as well. Adriene has a really cute romance with the ship’s doctor, Daroga. Daroga is just super sweet and gentle, something you don’t see in a lot of male love interests. Adriene’s combat squad are also fun characters. They have a good-natured attitude and look out for each other. It hurts when they die later in the book, even though I knew that they could be resurrected.
I also liked the way science fiction technology worked in Rubicon. I’ve always been skeptical of stories where immorality is portrayed as negative. Saying that avoiding death is bad is like saying vaccines or doctors are bad. Rubicon made the immortality trope work for me by showing its physiological impact on Adriene. She feels intense body dysmorphia from being in a body that is a copy of a copy of a copy of her original one. She feels like her body is more like the inorganic robots that she fights than a human. The robotic Mechan hive mind also adds to the horror of immortality. The fact that they can hybridize a person and turn them into a machine means that it’s preferable to die rather than be captured. The description of how Adriene was hybridized in then forced to gun down her comrades before dying of dehydration is truly horrific. This horror is shown fully in the opening chapter when Adriene is forced to kill her whole squad and herself because being hybridized is worse than death.
Overall, the Mechan are terrifying enemies. In the book’s first chapter, there is a great fight were they overwhelm and kill Adriene’s squad easily. Unlike humans, they are relentless and don’t feel pain. The threat level of the Mechan maintains constant throughout the book because whenever one is killed, two more take their place. They are also mystyeros. They are hostile and have the numbers and firepower to wipe out humans, but don’t. Their threat level only rises once we learn that the Mechan leave humanity alive because they want to become biological by uploading their mind into humans and wear them like flesh suits.
Overall, with great character themes and action Rubicon is the best 400 pages I have read so far this year. Unfortunately, Rubicon is not 400 pages long. It’s 460 pages long and the final 60 pages contain one of the worst endings I have ever read. One of the worst ways to end a book is with a deus ex machina, an event where the hero wins out of nowhere out of a contrived coincidence. Rubicon‘s ending is the only thing worse than a deus ex machina, it’s a diabolus ex machina. At the ending the villain switches from the Mechan who have been built up as threats the whole book to Adriene’s commander who was secretly a bad guy. At the end of Rubicon Adriene’s AI friend sacrifices himself for the greater good. But it doesn’t matter because the evil commander wins anyways and kills Adriene permenently. It feels even worse because we see Adriene win but the book retcons the victory all for the sake of a twist ending. This is a slap in the face for anyone who liked Adriene or Rubicon. It also doesn’t resolve the war with the Mechan. This would be like if Star Wars ended without the audience ever finding out if the empire had been defeated.
Still, though, Rubicon is worth a read if you like existential horror, romance sci-fi, or action. 8/10
Reviewed by Teen Volunteer, 4/9/25.