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.[2]
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.[3]
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."[4] In reaction to this, Kloos withdrew the novel from consideration for the award.[4] He was subsequently honored by George R. R. Martin for this decision.[5]
In 2019, his short stories, Lucky Thirteen and On The Use Of Shape-Shifters In Warfare, were adapted as part of the Netflix anthology series Love, Death & Robots.[6]
Aftershocks, the first book in a new series, "The Palladium Wars," was released in July 2019.[7]
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.[8]
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".[1] He is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writers' workshop.[9]
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