Name Marko Kloos | Role Author | |
 | ||
Genre Military science fiction Nominations Goodreads Choice Awards Best Science Fiction Books Terms of Enlistment, Angles of Attack, Lines of Departure | ||
Occupation Science fiction author | ||
Marko Kloos reading at Gibson's Bookstore 9/16/14
Marko Kloos is an author of military science fiction and fantasy, born in Germany but living and working in the United States.
Contents
Work
Kloos is best known for his Frontlines series of military science fiction novels. Featuring the protagonist Andrew Grayson, they are set in a future in which a Western and an Eastern power bloc are at war with each other and with an alien threat.
Reviewing the first novel, Terms of Enlistment, io9 described it as sticking close to the conventions of the genre, focusing on "guns, acronyms, hard-ass drill sergeants, explosions and battles on alien worlds". The reviewer considered the second novel, Lines of Departure, to be an improvement in that it reflected a critical outlook towards powerful, centralized government that was often absent in leading works of the genre such as Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers.
Lines of Departure was nominated for the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel on a slate organized by the "Sad Puppies", a group of "right-leaning science fiction writers". In reaction to this, Kloos withdrew the novel from consideration for the award; he was subsequently honored by George R. R. Martin for this decision.
Personal life
Kloos served in the West German military as a junior NCO in 1989. He drew upon these experiences in his military science fiction.
Kloos lives in New Hampshire with his family and has been employed as "a soldier, a bookseller, a freight dock worker, a tech support drone, and a corporate IT administrator". He is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writers' workshop.