The First Casualty Review

This week I decided to review The First Casualty by Mike Moscoe. I’ve been reading the Kris Longknife series which is set long after it for years so when I realized there were earlier books in the same setting I grabbed the first one as soon as I could find it. The story starts with an interstellar war raging between Earth and the inner colonies, and humanity’s outer colonies who feel they are being mistreated and exploited by the inner worlds. It also shows action on the home front of one of the most vital of the rebel colonies, and follows an Earth allied cruiser through a navigational error that will change humanity’s understanding of the jump points they use to travel between star systems forever. Along the way soldiers on both sides stumble across a conspiracy manipulating the war and try to fight against its aims.

The base causes of the war are very cliche, and while I personally don’t mind them, that could be a turn off for some. The space battles are among the best the author has written but the ground battles weren’t of the same quality I’m afraid. Still I consider this to be my third favorite book by this author and plan to get the upcoming sequel, and the next book of the longer Kris Longknife series as soon as I can.