James Review -- Legion of the Damned: Andromeda’s War

This week I decided to review Legion of the Damned: Andromeda’s War by William C. Dietz. The story begins not long after the end of the previous book. Legionnaire Andromeda McKee, who is secretly Cathrine Carletto one of two surviving members of a family targeted for annihilation by the empress Ophelia, is pondering her decision to not kill the Empress when she had the chance.

Back on Earth, the resistance group led by McKee’s uncle, the only other survivor of her family, manages to kill the Empress’s secretary and lover. But this leads to a massive retaliatory attack to kill anyone in the area where the secretary was assassinated and Mc’Kee’s uncle falls during the battle. John Avery, McKee’s lover and former superior, has found himself assigned as Ophelia’s military attache. But most of his time is focused on Prince Nicholai, Ophelia's young heir. The group goes on a tour of the outer colonies but the Empress’s ship is badly damaged during an ambush by a fleet belonging to the alien Hudathan. An emergency jump carries the Empress’s cruiser to a crash landing on the planet Savas where there is a small human outpost. But Savas is also where disgraced Hudathan Admiral Nola-Ba is working to build a secret base. The natives allied to the Hudathan find the wreckage of the human ship and launch a massive attack which Avery, Nicholai, and Daska, a synthetic double of the Emperss, manage to escape but Ophelia and the rest of the human survivors are captured.

McKee is selected to lead a small team to rescue the Empress while the Imperial navy fights to secure the space around Savas. But will she pass up a second chance at vengeance even knowing that such an attempt might lead to retaliation against her subordinates?

I give this book 7.5 out of 10. It had a nice variety of battles and some interesting characters. However I feel some events and decisions by characters happen more because they need to for the plot to move where the author wants than because they make sense. Also, I think there were some parts that could have been removed or shortened without hindering the story.