A competent story that talks about an underrated theme.
This is a hard science-fiction story that aims to study the psychological effects of the MC's actions in the military. And it succeeds in that endeavor. It reminded me of the book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Dave Grossman and of an episode of Mike Tyson's Podcast--the one with Joby Ogwyn. I don't want to look like a podcast addict but Jock Willink talks a lot about this as well. He says that a soldier often has no therapist. That means he's either his own therapist, or that other soldiers will be each other's therapists. And this happens in this story.
And the story also aims to explain the technology of the In-Body (duh, it's in the title!). That said, pointing out any mistakes on the narrative would just be a stretch because it wasn't the scope of the story. For instance, the aerossol that spread the In-body into animals. Well, that's absurd. But no matter: it's not the scope of the story.
The In-Body (nice name btw) is a chip that works like an airplane's black box, but allows someone to experience everything the user had experienced with all the detail. It's great because I can imagine that being done in the near future (if they're not doing it already, to an extent).
I love military sci-fi since I read Armor, then went on to read the anthology Armored, by John Joseph Adams. And I loved the fight scene here. I think that it also somewhat evokes Starship Troopers because of the theme.
One minor thing that I didn't enjoy though was the infodump after the first scene break. A lot of stories do that exact same thing. I think it's good, refreshing to see different structures once in a while. It doens't need to be experimental:just something a little different than the usual.
I didn't understand why MC became so sad with the cubs' death. Doesn't he experience death of humans that only occurred because of him? So why?
In the Host's Commentary, Phoebe Barton talks about birdwatching in Rome, and how they used it for divinations. I was wondering why birds were so important for the story; now I know. I'd also like to add the ravens in Norse Mythology, that were like the eyes of the gods; and the eagles used by Mongolians to spot enemies (they still train eagles today btw).
P.S.: Funny that they teach classes with a laser pointer. I thought these became old long ago ;D ;D ;D
This is an 8,5/10.