James Review -- Star Trek: Prometheus: In the Heart of Chaos

This week I decided to review Star Trek: Prometheus: In the Heart of Chaos by Bernd Perplies and Christian Hamburg. 

The story begins shortly after the last book ends. The Klingons have put a short time limit on the mission to find and stop the source of the recent hostility and terrorist attacks by the usually isolationist Renao before they launch a full-scale invasion of the Lembatta cluster that the Renao call home.

The Federation starship USS Prometheus and the Klingon battlecruiser IKS Bortas have determined that the Order of Purifying Flame, the Renao terrorist group, is under the influence of the Son of the Ancient Red, an energy being that feeds off of hate and anger. The Son had been imprisoned on the long lost Renao Homeworld, Iad, thousands of years earlier. But a century before a Federation starship had stumbled across Iad before falling under the Son’s sway and crashing into the planet which weakened the prison.

However, the Son is rapidly increasing tensions among the Federation and Klingon crews. Also, the Order of the Purifying Flame is beginning to lash out at Renao who aren’t part of the order. The Klingon and Federation crews determine that the White Guardian, who had imprisoned the Son, might be native to a region with conditions similar to those around Iad, conditions that are extremely unusual.

After an agreement that delays the Klingon invasion, and an extensive search of Federation databases, another such region is found that would be more merciful, then Prometheus sets off while the Bortas continues the search for the Order’s primary base and shipyard. Upon arriving, the Prometheus begins talks with the White Guardians by allowing them to possess the ship’s Emergency Medical Hologram. They explain that the Son is actually one of their own, a child who got lost while exploring and, while on the brink of starvation, discovered the Lembatta cluster which looked like home, and a new stronger source of nourishment within, the emotions of the Renao. But feeding on the emotions drove the Son insane and an elder of his people was dispatched to deal with the problem. The elder managed to imprison the Son and move the Renao safely out of the imprisoned Son’s reach, but the elder also starved to death during the journey home and with their population so few, the White Guardians are unwilling to send another to their death to again lock away the Son.

Lieutenant Jassat ak Namur, the only Renao to join Starfleet so far, convinces the White Guardians that killing the Son would be more merciful then leaving him to live out his life in madness. The White Guardians reply that they can transfer some of their energy to a host who can carry it to Iad where it will destroy the Son, but they also warn that the host is unlikely to survive. Namur convinces Captain Richard Adams to let him be the host and the race is on to deliver Namur to Iad even as the Bortas locates and begins its assault on the headquarters of the Order of the Purifying Flame…

There are also a number of interludes concerning negotiations between the Federation and Klingon Empire as the Federation tries to convince their ally to delay its invasion, actions on the perimeter of the cluster, and the reactions of non-Order Renao as the Purifying Flame turns on them.

I give this book 9.5 out of 10. I like many of the characters, and also enjoy the final battle against the Purifying Flame base and its defenders. Also, I find the explanation of the origin of the Son of the Ancient Reds, and presumably the Beta XII-A entity which appears to be another mad Guardian from a different universe, to be a well-written twist in the story. I wish some of the interludes had been expanded further, though. While I know the trilogy is over and many of the characters won’t be returning, I hope that the Prometheus subseries is continued in the future.

James Review -- The Alexander Inheritance

This week I decided to review Ring of Fire: The Alexander Inheritance by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff, and Paula Goodlett. 

The story begins shortly the cruise ship Queen of the Sea, Tug Reliance, and Barge 14 find themselves warped to the year 321 BC along with a small part of the port they were in. While fuel and water are minor problems, food will quickly become a crisis, so the ships set out for Alexandria, after consulting with an expert on the period who was traveling on board the cruise ship. They find themselves a few months after the death of Alexander the Great when the civil wars that tore apart his empire are in their early stages.

At Alexandria, the ships manage to negotiate for food but eventually find themselves under attack by an Egyptian, officially rogue, fleet. Having anticipated such attacks, the Queen of the Sea has been manufacturing weapons and armed itself with rapid fire steam cannons that easily repel the attack. However during the battle, Reliance, which hasn’t been refitted with weapons yet, flees only to find itself captured by a force belonging to one of the two largest factions of Alexander’s former empire.

Taken to the port of Tyre, Queen of the Sea engineer Daq Jakobsen finds himself befriending Alexander the Great’s Widow Roxanne, who is also regnant for her son, one of two recognized heirs to the empire, and their son Alexander IV. The prisoners manage to create improvised hand grenades, killing a few of their guards, and when Queen of the Sea comes to rescue them, Roxanne and Alexander IV, along with some troops loyal to them, join the Queen of the Sea, having been held prisoner by the faction controlling Tyre. However, they weren’t warned that any of their slaves who boarded Queen of the Sea would be freed and a group of the soldiers soon launch an attempt to seize the vessel in retaliation.

After the attack is repelled, the three ships set out for Trinidad where they purchase land from the natives to establish a colony before returning to Europe where they rescue Alexander the Great’s brother Philip, who is a severely autistic mathematical savant, and his wife Eurydice, who is his regnant. But Fort Plymouth, the colony on Trinidad , finds itself under siege and efforts to determine the future of Alexander the Great's empire continue even as the regions visited by the vessels from the future swiftly begin developing technologies that weren’t developed for two thousand years in the original timeline…

I give this book 9.0 out of 10. I love the characters and there are a wide variety of interesting problems they face during the story. However, I found a few scenes, that I’m sure were meant to be humorous, not very interesting, and a few of the problems mentioned in the story were solved off screen with not nearly enough detail about the solutions and how they were reached for my tastes, while others I feel were solved too easily. I just hope this is the start of a series, something I strongly suspect, and not a standalone novel.   

James Review -- Willful Child: Wrath of Betty

This week I decided to review Willful Child: Wrath of Betty by Steve Erikson. 

The adventures of the Terran Affiliation Engage-class starship Willful Child under Captain Hadrian Sawback continue. However, Klang captain Betty has vowed revenge on Sawback for foiling his plan to surrender so his people can infiltrate the Affiliation and wreck the economy, and a group within Affiliation command plan to send the Willful Child into impossible or near impossible situations until Sawback fails, leading to his death or removal from command, with the AFS Century Warbler under Captain Hans Olo secretly following the Willful Child to clean up the resulting crisis.

The Willful Child is sent to investigate a several-parsecs-wide energy anomaly driven by an unknown ship which is destroying everything in its path and heading straight for Terra, AKA Earth. Sawback leads a team to the unknown ship and finds that it is under the control of Sparky, the robot guard dog who guarded the junkyard owned by Sawback’s grandfather. Sparky is on a quest to find Sawback so the crisis is swiftly resolved.

After this, the Willful Child is assigned to explore a solar system where another Engage-class starship vanished. They arrive to find an inhabited planet showing signs of recent nuclear weapons use and orbited by the AFS Hateful Regard which has been stripped of components and sprayed with graffiti. Sawback leads a team to the planet, finding it inhabited by descendants of humans transported from Earth long ago. The planet has split into two societies, the Dims and the Pubs, with the Dims besieging the last Pub stronghold. Sawback and his team quickly discover that the Pub’s leader is Richard Rabidinov, former captain of the Hateful Regard, who imprisons Sawback’s party so he can seize the Willful Child. Sawback and his party swiftly escape, freeing a captive Dim envoy in the process.

Almost immediately, the Willful Child is attacked via a slow-traveling giant spear launched from a nearby planet. Sawback sends a unit to investigate, but the shuttle pilot accidentally jettisons his craft’s fuel supply, leading to a crash landing. While Sawback is planning a rescue, the Willful Child receives priority orders to rendezvous with a freighter, pick up the lubricant the cargo ship is transporting, and transport it to the planet Women Only. Sawback realizes this is a mission specifically assigned to him to prevent him from rescuing his stranded crew but concludes that if he violates regulations concerning how long an Affiliation ship can use its faster-than-light T-drive without a break, he can both rescue the stranded crew members and meet the freighter on time.

I give this book 4.5 out of 10. I still find some of the characters interesting, as well as Sawback’s continuing quest to fix human society, but I found a rather noticeable editing error early in the book. Also, the title doesn’t fit because Betty never actually interacts with the Willful Child until the story’s climax. Also, I feel this would have worked better as a short story collection than a novel. It feels like a collection of disconnected episodes linked together by the thinnest threads. The threat posed by the villain could have tied the adventures together better but he only starts acting during the emergency lubricant run plotline before being sidelined until the climax. And again, this series commits the worse sin a parody can--namely, I don’t find it very funny. It reads like a long series of jokes, most of them very poor ones, with only a few points that amuse me at all.

James Review -- Vatta’s Peace: Into the Fire

This week I decided to review Into the Fire by Elizabeth Moon.

Determined to find and rescue any other imprisoned survivors, Ky contacts her great-aunt Grace Vatta who is Rector of Defense for the planet of Slotter’s Key. Grace launches an investigation, but is soon critically injured by a poison gas attack in her home. And Ky soon finds herself, and her fiancée, and allies who traveled from off planet to join the search when Ky was missing, wanted by Slotter’s Key Immigration because new laws mean her citizenship has lapsed and because their visas have expired. Forced to stay in the home of Stella Vatta to avoid detainment, they continue seeking the locations of the other imprisoned Miksland survivors.

Stella is approached by Benny Quindlan baring a message from the head of his family swearing to kill Grace, Ky, Stella , and Stella’s young niece and nephew as vengeance for Grace’s actions during the planetary civil war that unified Slotter’s Key under one government, with signs that the incident on Miksland is tied to still active remnants of the old Separatist movement. Eventually, Ky and her allies launch a multi-front operation to liberate the remaining Miksland survivors, but Stella, unaware that her guests have left, finds herself facing assassins in her home while they are gone.

In the aftermath of the rescue, the new commandant of the Slotter’s Key Military Academy, replacing the commandant killed during the Miksland crash, who is a key member of the Separatist conspiracy, flees. Ky is named as a temporary replacement, but she soon discovers that in the event of a crisis, the military cadets are supposed to deploy to reinforce the defenses of key government installations and officials. But the plans for such an action are woefully outdated and, with Separatist forces closing on the capital city, Ky is forced to race to update and implement the defense plans…

I give this book 7.5 out of 10. The characters are interesting as are some of the conflicts and factions, but the story spends far too much time planning and in setting legal problems with not nearly enough action IMO. When I reached the part with the Separatist attack on the capital and the cadets deployed to aid the defense, I was looking forward to a grand climatic battle, but instead we got a short battle scene with little time spent on the viewpoints of the frontline soldiers for my taste. And I wish they had included at least a little space combat in the story. Maybe a training sim, or the Separatists deploying a small armed ship or two.

James Review -- The Dreaming Stars

This week I decided to review Axiom: The Dreaming Stars by Tim Pratt. 

The story begins shortly after the previous book ends. Captain Callie Machedo, the remaining members of her crew, and the survivors from a wrecked sleeper ship they recovered, are in hiding, widely believed to be dead. They are hiding because they are the only humans who know about the Axiom, ancient and highly malevolent aliens who are in stasis but left numerous projects running while they are unaware. The Liars, the first aliens humanity made contact with, were once slaves to the Axiom, and they include a small sect known as the truth tellers. Most that know of them, including the majority of truth tellers, believe their goal is protecting the galaxy from their former masters but their actual purpose is preventing outsiders from interfering with Axiom projects.

Machedo’s crew is also trying to treat Sebastien, one of the sleeper ship passengers whose mind was altered by Axiom technology, leaving him a violent megalomaniac. During a secret trip to obtain supplies and new medications to treat Sebastien, Machedo receives word from Lantern, one of the few high-ranking truth tellers who truly oppose the Axiom, that it is safe for her crew to come out of hiding. Lantern also requests that they investigate the Taliesen system where contact has recently been lost with a truth teller cell.

Machedo crashes her own funeral, meeting her ex-husband Michael.  Michael’s family owns the Almajara corporation, and a number of the corporation’s personnel have vanished in the Taliesen system, so Machedo’s crew is hired to look into their fate. The investigation leads to a swarm of Axiom nanomachines consuming anything in its path for resources, only sparing the White Raven, Machedo’s ship, because it carries Axiom technology, thus leading the nanomachines to believe the ship is crewed by servants of the Axiom. The swarm is slowly making its way towards the system inhabited world where it will consume the planet. Upon entering the station, the nanomachines are linked, too; they discover dozens of Axiom playing a form of virtual reality 4x game. Players in the game can start tournaments, and whoever is in first place when the tournament ends becomes Emperor until the next tournament. The Emperor gains many perks including control of the nanomachines.

Sebastien claims to have recovered, so  he and Machedo infiltrate the game in a desperate attempt to gain control of the nanomachines before it is too late. But when Sebastien requests to be left in the game after the swarm is shut down, can he truly be trusted?

I give this book 8 out of 10. It has a wide variety of both ethical dilemmas and physical problems for the characters to face. Also, some of the challenges are mostly unique in my experience, However, I feel the story could use more combat sequences, especially when characters are active in the Axiom VR game. Also, the final solution to gain control of the nanomachines seems a little too easy to me. 

James Review -- The Gods of Sagittarius

This week I decided to review The Gods of Sagittarius by Eric Flint and Mike Resnick. 

The story begins with two main plotlines that eventually meet and join. One begins with security specialist Russell Tabor being assigned to guard absent genius Rupert Shenoy. Shenoy is one of humanity’s greatest minds able to develop revolutionary idea but in some moments but he is quite literally capable of forgetting where he lives over the course of a day as well. Shenoy wishes to journey to the planet Cthulhu in an attempt to research the Old Ones, incredibly ancient and powerful aliens that he believes once ruled much of the galaxy or universe.

However, the journey does not start smoothly. First, the party’s ship refuses to activate after being told that the group wants to travel to Cthulhu. Then Andrea Melander, one of Shenoy’s aides, is stricken by an unidentifiable medical condition. Eventually, the party manages to reach Cthulhu where they travel to the planet’s primary human habitation, a prison. There they review security footage of an incident where something invisible killed and ate three prisoners. After this, the party begins searching for more clues but Basil Stone, Shenoy’s only remaining assistant, is struck down by an unknown force, but Shenoy finds a clue that makes him believe that either the secrets to the magic of the Old Ones or the Old Ones themselves can be found on the planet Cornwallis IV otherwise known as Chuxthimazi.

There they make contact with the native inhabitants Paskapa who quickly live up to their name by chagrining exorbitant fees for anything. While there, Tabor gets into a fight with police while defending Shenoy whom the police were planning to calm via beating with clubs. He finds himself thrown in a cell with Jaemu, a murderer belonging to the Vitunpelay species, who claims to have information on the Old Ones. The two forge an alliance to escape prison then set out to find Shenoy. Jaemu reveals that there is something linked to the Old Ones in the highly militaristic Mank Empire.

The second plotline follows Occo, a shaman of the Nac Zhe Anglan and her familiar Bresk. The Nac Zhe Anglan include a number of religious creeds with the differences in beliefs usually tied to whether the Old Ones were good or evil and their fates during an ancient war with an evil force. Occo finds the home cloister of her creed destroyed, and after examining the site, she determines that the attackers were either using Old One weaponry or a close copy. She declares herself a Gadrax, a form of quasi-legal outlaw unrestrained by many of the restrictions imposed on all her people’s creeds, seeking vengeance. She gains permission from the Envacht Lu, the order responsible for punishing the story from being creeds that violate the Dessetrai Pact, laws designed to prevent surviving Old Ones, or survivors of their destroyers, from discovering Nac Zhe Anglan as well as defending the Nac Zhe Anglan from hostile species, as long as she provides progress reports on her quest when able to do so.

The first step of her plan is to seize the Warlock Variation Drive, an Old One artifact held in a well- guarded storehouse of such artifacts belonging to another cloister. She pretends to join a highly dangerous religious rite occurring nearby, deliberately wrecking her ship then crashing into the storehouse. Once inside, she finds the drive, an organism rather than a device. It displaces her into a number of increasingly dangerous predicaments before she somewhat masters its use. Eventually, her journey takes her to Cthulhu then to the Mank Empire.

After the parties join forces, they must still face the defenses of the Old One Depository, whatever is inside, and the Morganites, charlatans secretly the power behind the Mank Empire who have long sought beings to brave the depository for them.

I give this book 7 out of 10. It has some great world-building and interesting characters and situations, but there are also some parts that are very slow. Also, I wish the conclusion felt more like an ending instead of seeming like just an opening chapter to a bigger story. Finally, the story needs some battle sequences badly. There were lots of interesting puzzles faced by the characters, sure, but I feel like a good fight or two would have stopped the story from feeling so boring at times.

James Review -- Enderverse: Children of the Fleet

This week I decided to review Enderverse: Children of the Fleet by Orson Scott Card. 

The story is set after the end of the Third Formic War. Dabeet Ochoa is a young genius who never knew his father. However, he is told by his mother that his father was an officer of the International Fleet. He sends every form of application he can to get into Fleet School, formerly Battle School, which now trains children to lead colonization missions and scouting expeditions rather than training them to command war fleets.

After the applications are sent, Ochoa finds himself being interviewed personally by Hyrum Graff, once head of Battle School and currently the Minister of Colonization. During the interview, Graff reveals that the woman who raised Ochoa is not actually his biological mother which leaves the young man reeling. And shortly after the interview, Ochoa is kidnapped by a group representing an unknown nation. The international peace caused by the Formic threat is fraying rapidly in the aftermath of their eradication, and Ochoa convinces the men holding him that the best way to fulfill their goal of getting the International Fleet to intervene to end fighting on Earth is to let him go so he can help them raid Fleet School.

His captors agree but make it clear they will retaliate against his foster mother if he fails to aid them. After arriving at Fleet School, Ochoa holds himself aloof from the other students, and many dislike him because almost all of the other students had space experience prior to Fleet School which they feel make him a liability since he does not. However, Ochoa soon discovers that pieces of the refurbished Battle Room walls can be removed. He begins working on making structures from these pieces, but the process takes too long to be useful during Battle Room exercises with just one person. Zhang He, another student, notices Ochoa’s actions and becomes intrigued, offering to help him. When this doesn’t cut construction time enough, Zhang sets out to recruit a small band of students. However, eventually Ochoa receives word that the attack is coming, and after revealing the truth to the rest of the construction band, they set out in a desperate attempt to stop the assault.

The book also includes sections containing IM style chats regarding events in the story and essays submitted as assignments in the school.

I give the book 8.5 out of 10. I liked a lot of the new characters and thought the essay sections helped readers know more about the mindsets of the students involved. Also, I liked a deeper look into the motivations of the attack on Fleet School and what happened on Earth after the alien threat was ended. However, I felt the "Ochoa’s father’s true identity" twist was a little too predictable and that the story really needed more action sequences. Finally, there were multiple points where the synopsis on the back of the book contained false information, and I really hate when books are published without such mistakes being found and fixed.

James Review -- Vicky Peterwald: Dominator

This week I decided to review Vicky Peterwald: Dominator by Mike Shepherd. 

The story begins with the protagonist en route to her wedding, which goes well despite an assassination attempt during the journey. However, Vicky’s father fails to attend, and intelligence soon indicates that he has been left penniless by the manipulations of the Bowlingame family, which Vicky’s dead and wicked stepmother belonged to.

Vicky leads a fleet to Greenfield, the capital of the section of the empire officially ruled by her father but now ruled by the Bowlingames. Vicky knows instantly that the message explaining why her father is unavailable is a lie, because he is supposedly hunting bears in an area where the breed of bear in question no longer lives. She leads a team to her father’s incomplete palace to find that not only is the structure unfinished, but electrical service has been discontinued in the depths of a harsh winter. Emperor Peterwald isn’t there, but three cooks who are the last loyal members of his staff and whom Vicky considers to be her aunts are there. The cooks are rescued, then Vicky launches raids against the homes on the various high-ranking members of the Bowlingame family on the world. Emperor Peterwald is rescued, but he is on the verge of starvation due to the shortage, and low quality, of the food provided for him and his loyal staff members, and it is unknown if he will ever fully recover.

Soon after the fleet returns to Vicky’s territory, a fleet loyal to the Bowlingames raids a small world loyal to Vicky, and in response, Vicky’s forces begin a counteroffensive. Their first target is the world of Dresden. When they arrive, Vicky’s forces find the High Dresden space station seeded with an array of boobytraps. And even when the traps are bypassed, the Bowlingame forces reveal that much of the planet’s civilian population has been taken hostage and surrounded with a variety of explosives.

Using a storm system as cover, Vicky’s forces land a strike force including the Grand Duchess herself. However, they soon find a badly-damaged bridge which will allow only a small team to pass, a team that must include Vicky because her computer Maggie is the best hope of safely disarming the bombs around the hostages. And in the end, Vicky’s team finds themselves in a desperate battle against overwhelming odds with the fates of the hostages on the line…

Also, throughout the story, Vicky and her computer Maggie face a number of struggles tied to Maggie's growing self-awareness, including a tragedy when Maggie’s plan to intercept an enemy missile salvo destroys a number of friendly small craft.

I give this book 8 out of 10. It has a number of interesting planning sequences, and I like the issues Vicky and Maggie face regarding Maggie’s growing sentience a lot. The main problem I have is that space combat has always been one of the author’s strongest areas in my opinion, but there is almost no space combat in this book. The missile attack I mentioned above is pretty much it, and the author could have easily fit a few more small space battle scenes in without disrupting the book’s plot.

James Review -- Peacekeeper: A Peace Divided

This week I decided to review Peacekeeper: A Peace Divided by Tanya Huff. 

When the story begins, former Confederation Gunnery Sargent Torin Korr is leading one of the Confederation Justice Department’s new strike teams, elite units formed to deal with the threat posed by armed criminals and former soldiers turning to crime in the aftermath of the war between the Confederation and the Primacy. During a raid on a group of arms dealers, however, Kerr’s team finds a pistol. Due to how easy they are to conceal, handguns are banned by the Confederation to the point of attempting to wipe all knowledge of how to create them from member civilizations. Investigating the weapon soon leads to a theory that one of the Confederation’s largest weapons manufacturers may be linked to a human supremacist group plotting to seize power from the Elder Races that lead the Confederation.

Meanwhile an archaeological team on planet 33X73, a restricted world, is studying a long-fallen civilization and finds plastic in a latrine despite this civilization apparently never having developed plastic. This leads to rumors that the plastic is in fact the corpse of one of the bioplastic beings responsible for the war between the Confederation and the Primacy, and soon a group of attackers arrives to force the archaeologists to find and hand over the rumored anti-plastic weapon even though no such weapon has been proven to exist.

Kerr’s strike team is sent to rescue the surviving scientists, but due to the presence of Primacy members among the hostile force, this mission becomes the first planned joint operation combining Confederation and Primacy forces. On top of the difficulties in merging soldiers from two distinct-- and recently opposing--forces into one, it is soon revealed that one of the Primacy team members has kin among the attackers. Matters become worse when one of the Primacy soldiers is captured, mistaken for another who the attackers believe can aid their mission. And during the desperate mission to free the prisoners the true secrets of 33X73 will be discovered…

I give this book 7 out of 10. I like the characters and the overall story, but there are many sections I wish had been covered in more detail, and I would have liked to learn more about the Primacy’s culture. Also, I feel the Confederation handgun ban and its apparent effectiveness are so absurdly unrealistic that it utterly cripples my ability to suspend disbelief. Even if all legal handguns were banned, as long as there is any gun manufacturing industry, it is far too easy to make the jump from other guns to handguns for such a ban to be even remotely effective, or worth the effort, to attempt to enforce in my opinion.

The Game Called Revolution Free this Week

The first book in my first series is available for free on Kindle this week. Until 9/22, to be exact. Join Jeanne de Fleur and the knights of the Ordre as they fight to protect France from an evil conspiracy.

https://www.amazon.com/Game-Called-Revolution-Infini-Calendar-ebook/dp/B0049B2CRA/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537327552&sr=1-8

James Review -- Kris Longknife: Commanding

This week I decided to review Kris Longknife: Commanding by Mike Shepherd. 

The story begins with the execution of the rebel leaders captured at the end of the previous book. Kris Longknife then shifts her attention to the ongoing Iteeche civil war. Even as she struggles to recruit new ships for her fleet and training crews, she also works to find a way to minimize bloodshed in a culture where civil wars have led to the mass slaughter of civilians for thousands of years. She must also find ways to change many other traditions and attitudes that have stood for ten millennia.

After laying her plans, she launches an attack on Zargoth, the system that served as the staging area for the recent rebel attack on the Imperial capital. After easily securing space around the rebel world, she sends her aide and distant relative Megan Longknife to launch an operation against the bunkers used by the world’s leadership. After defeating the various security measures and eliminating the rebel leadership, efforts to secure the world and rebuild its infrastructure begin, but soon the efforts face sabotage from rebel loyalists that threaten to leave millions of Iteeche civilians without access to food supplies and basic services.

After Zargoth is secure, the combined Human/Imperial loyalist fleet moves on to their objective: an assault aimed as the first strike of a campaign against the rebellion’s major battlecruiser production centers. The offensive begins with an attack against the production center furthest from the imperial capital, but rather than finding the hoped-for lightly guarded system, Longknife’s fleet finds itself facing thousands of rebel warships…

I give this book 9 out of 10. The climatic battle was great. Also, I greatly enjoyed the deeper look into Iteeche culture and how it affected, aka hindered, their military as well as a peek into the mindset of some of the rebels. My main issue is that the look into the rebel point of view came too late. Basically, for the most part, you only see points of view for rebel characters in the final battle, and I feel adding some more into the Zargoth sequence would have been very interesting.

James Review -- Destroyermen: Devil’s Due

This week I decided to review Destroyermen: Devil’s Due by Taylor Anderson. 

The story has multiple plots within it, The primary plot focuses on the Grand Alliance’s efforts to defeat expatriate Japanese General Hisashi Kurokawa who has recently seized a number of high-ranking Alliance prisoners,including the pregnant wife of Alliance military Commander in Chief Matthew Reddy. However, Kurokawa has also gained control of the League of Tripoli battleship Savoie which badly outclasses anything in the Alliance fleet. And to make a bad situation even worse, aerial reconnaissance missions soon reveal that Kurokawa has obtained a number of League fighter craft which equal or outclass the few P-40 Warhawks still possessed by the Alliance. With time becoming critical, the USS Walker launches a desperate gambit along with much of the Alliance navy to defeat the Savoie, while a small commando unit launches an attempt to rescue Kurokawa’s prisoners…

One of the subplots follows a Grand Alliance army pursuing a defeated Holy Dominion force. But the allied army soon finds unpleasant surprises after the commander of the Dominion force is replace by an unknown and far more dangerous commander. Another follows the Alliance sailing frigate USS Donaghey on its continuing mission of exploration as well as battles against both Holy Dominion and League of Tripoli warships.

I give this book 9.5 out of 10. I love the variety of battle scenes in the story. Also, I like the characters in the various plots, and I found the sequences where characters are thinking to themselves fascinating, especially the later ones from Kurokawa’s viewpoint. And there’s just enough humor to keep the story from being too dark for my tastes. Really, the only thing I wish could have changed is expanding some of the scenes and adding a few more scenes in the Donaghey plotline.

James Review -- Alien: The Cold Forge

This week I decided to review Alien: The Cold Forge by Alex White. 

Dorian Sudler, an expert at finding personnel that are costing the Weyland-Yutanti Corporation more money than needed, and firing the personnel, is sent to station RB-232, also known as the Cold Forge. The cold Forge is a remote space station where three of the corporation’s most highly classified and dangerous weapon research and development projects take place. One of these is Glitter Edifice, headed by Doctor Blue Marsalis. The project is intended to find a way to use genetics to control the Xenomorphs, whom Marsalis has nicknamed Snatchers because she feels "Xenomorph" is too imprecise. Marsalis, however, has a secret side-project she is running. She is bedridden due to a devastating genetic illness that is killing her, but she has discovered a very short-lived genetic material created when a host is injected with a Xenomorph egg, and she hopes that if she can recover an active sample of this material, she can use it to develop a treatment for genetic disorders like the one she is suffering from.

But Marsalis’s primary ally at Wayland-Yutanti has been arrested for embezzlement and, soon after Sudler reaches the station, Project Silversmile, a highly adaptive neural net computer virus, breaks loose. To prevent the destruction of the Xenomorph samples, Marsalis is forced to take the Marcus android body she can pilot via neural link to prevent their destruction, with the android body sustaining massive damage in the process.

Soon, one of Marsalis’s accomplices, who was injured during an accident linked to her side project, reveals what Marsalis has been up to. This leads to Sudler ordering her restricted to quarters, but soon the saboteur responsible for unleashing Silversmile strikes again, and this time the virus unleashes the Xenomorphs from their cages. Sudler, who has decided the Xenomorphs are the ultimate lifeform, sets out to arrange the extermination of the station’s crew. This leaves Marsalis struggling to use her android body to stop Sudler, while desperately trying to evade the Xenomorphs long enough to escape the station using her human body, which is unable to walk.

I give this book 7 out of 10. There were a few too many times where things that I felt didn’t make sense happened seemingly just because that was what was required to move the story in the direction the author wanted. And I thought Sudler was a horrible villain character who was given little or no apparent motivation beyond the urge to see others suffer and some weird bond he felt with the Xenomorphs. But I liked most of the other characters that received development in the story, and the new details about how the Xenomorphs work were interesting. However, I also found the mystery of the true identity of the saboteur wasn’t handled well and that the identity was too obvious. As soon as things started going wrong, I had a suspect in mind but was hoping for some twist to prove me wrong or something that would make me suspect someone else, to no avail.

James Review -- 1635: The Wars for the Rhine

This week I decided to review 1635: The Wars for the Rhine by Anette Pedersen. 

The story begins with Charolette von Zweibriichen preparing to leave her home, officially to seek aid for her husband, who has left to fight against forces allied with the United States of Europe. In reality, she is worried that if her husband and his heir die in battle, her unborn child will become heir to her husband’s lands, making them targets. 

A report arrives that her husband is dead but a report contradicting it arrives before she flees. The report and contradiction before she leaves cycle repeats multiple times until finally a report of her husband’s death arrives that isn’t contradicted.

She gets away but soon finds herself a prisoner of Archbishop Ferdinand, an ally to her husband who now wishes to use her child to gain control over the area her husband ruled. After her child is born she escapes, along with her baby, and enlists in the militia of Bonn, a city in the path of an offensive by allies of the USE. After she meets Melchior von Hatzfeldt, the general commanding the city’s defenses, they hatch a desperate plan to prevent the attack, a plan that may have massive implications for the region…

Meanwhile, Prince-Bishop Franz von Hatzfeldt is trying to decide how best to adapt to the new laws of the land where he leads the local Catholic church, which has fallen to the USE’s allied forces. While on a journey to Bamberg, the Prince Bishop finds himself combating the schemes of Father Arnoldi, who has been using his authority and forgery to claim lands and wealth, as well as kill those in his way. Eventually, this leads the Prince Bishop and his cousin Wolf into a battle to rescue two young women who are about to be executed by Arnoldi’s allies who had captured the women by mistake while trying to carry out Arnoldi’s order to capture and kill a different pair of women.

I give the book 9 out of 10. It has a variety of interesting characters and different forms of battles and conflicts in the various areas visited in the book. Rather. I should say the protagonist characters and their allies are interesting. The main weakness I found in the story is that none of the characters, whom I feel are the primary antagonists, had much in the way of personality. They were pretty much cruel and evil for the sake of greed and thus had no real redeeming qualities. I half expected them to start twirling mustaches when they appeared. While this doesn’t ruin the story for me I generally prefer villains to have some goal motivation beyond greed and lust for power.

James Review -- Freehold: Angeleyes

This week I decided to review Freehold: Angeleyes by Michael Z. Williamson. 

When the story begins Angie Kaneshiro is a veteran of the military forces of the Freehold of Grainne who now works as a temporary crewman on various freighters working her way across human space. But eventually the United Nations declares war and invades Freehold. Kaneshiro makes her way home only to be forced to escape a badly-damaged station, rescuing a young child in the process.

Eventually Kaneshiro encounters the Jack Churchill, a Freehold cruiser, in neutral territory. She reenlists and the vessel soon finds itself in battle against a pair of UN ships after returning to the Grainne system. Kaneshiro realizes that her knowledge of various stations throughout space could be invaluable to Freehold intelligence, but after her CO refuses to allow her to leave because her variety of skills makes her a valuable crew member, Kaneshiro has to go AWOL to reach her destination.

After doing so, she is attached to a team of Blazers, elite Freehold commandos, operating from a requisitioned freighter. The team moves through space gathering intelligence, sabotaging UN facilities, and aiding others in such efforts. But after the unit is betrayed Kaneshiro is captured and tortured for information by UN forces.

The team rescues her and continues its struggle, destroying one UN warship and capturing another, along with being forced to shift to another freighter. But with the UN dragnet closing in, the team is left desperately seeking a way to remain alive, free, and operational long enough to participate in the war’s final operations…

I give this book 8.5 out of 10. While the opening makes it clear that Kaneshiro survives and anyone who reads the series knows the outcome of the war due to this being the third book telling the story of the conflict from different perspectives, the possible fates of the other team members provide a great deal of tension. Also, I like the characters a lot, though there are a couple that I wish we could have learned more about. And there are a wide variety of crises faced by Kaneshiro both before and after she rejoins the military. However having a single point-of-view character is also a weakness in my opinion because there were several points, especially late in the story, where I wished I could see what was happening away from Kaneshiro.  

Book Review -- Tales From Beyond Tomorrow

A couple of months ago, John Paul Catton asked my acquaintance Nick Ottens for a review of his novel Tales From Beyond Tomorrow, and Nick asked me to do the honors. It took me some time to get around to it, but I’m glad I did. What are you in the mood for? It doesn’t matter because you’ll get it with this release.

Mr. Catton is British, so I'll put this in terms he can understand. This is a blinding book. I was chuffed with it.

In all seriousness, this is a really well-done series of short stories. Each one is almost completely different, so if you didn't know better, you'd swear it was all written by different people. He writes in a variety of different styles, meaning you're sure to find something you like here. My personal favorite is a World War I story that could easily have been taken from Doctor Who. There are also stories about a Mod futurist detective, cutthroat cannibals, a videogame doll house, and so much more. I don’t claim to understand everything on offer here (particularly the videogame doll house), but I don’t have to. If you're a sci-fi fan, you've got to give this a read. I officially classify this a hidden gem; I hadn’t even heard of Mr. Catton until this, but I have a feeling he’s going to become quite well-known. Lord knows he deserves to.

Still not convinced? Then I have three words for you: Stigmata Skin Graft. Now you have to read it to find out just what on earth I’m talking about.

https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Beyond-Tomorrow-Catton-John-ebook/dp/B00O5A1JZQ/ref=pd_rhf_ee_p_img_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=M15YEBRGNQYZWGG1EBF4

James Review -- Star Wars: Battlefront II: Inferno Squad

This week I decided to review Star Wars: Battlefront II: Inferno Squad by Christie Golden. 

The story begins with Iden Versio serving as a TIE Fighter pilot on board the first Death Star. After barely surviving the Battle of Yavin, Versio returns to Coruscant where her father, Imperial Admiral Garrick Versio, assigns her to Inferno Squad, a new elite unit intended to prevent leaks such as that which led to the Death Star’s destruction.

Following a test where each member draws up a plan for their first assignment, the younger Versio is assigned to command the unit. After a few missions hunting down information being used to blackmail Imperial officials and such, Inferno Squad is sent to infiltrate the Dreamers, a remnant group of Saw Gerrera’s Partisans. While most of the unit goes undercover, Versio joins the Dreamers as herself seemingly disgraced after pretending to be angered by the destruction of Alderaan. At first the infiltration goes well and the Infernos work to spark conflict between Staven, the leader of the Dreamers, who has no qualms about targeting civilians, and his advisor known only as the Mentor, who wishes to minimize collateral damages. But soon some of the Infernos begin to form friendships with Dreamers. Also, while Inferno Squad has permission to attack Imperial targets as needed to maintain cover, the members must decide how much damage they are willing to inflict on their fellow Imperials, soldiers, officials, and civilians alike, to achieve their goal.

I give this book 8 out of 10. I enjoyed the general idea of the story and the characters but I felt there were a few flaws. I felt that the true identity of the Mentor was made obvious to those familiar with canon Star Wars lore far too early. I also felt that some more disputes between Staven and the Mentor would have been interesting. Also, with space combat included in Battlefront II from the beginning, I expected at least two or three space battles in the book. There was a short one at the very beginning, but none afterwards. In particular, I would have liked to get to see the Corvus, Inferno Squad’s corvette in combat. 

James Review -- The Lightship Chronicles: Defiant

This week I decided to review The Lightship Chronicles: Defiant by Dave Bara. 

The story begins with Captain Peter Cochrane being present at the death of his father-in-law, Grand Duke Henrik Feilberg, along with his wife Princess Karina and her brother Benn. Before he dies, the Grand Duke reveals that the renegade Prince Arin--who led the attack which severely damaged his homeworld, killed his mother, and inflicted the injuries that eventually killed the grand duke--wasn’t Henrik’s biological son, being the result of artificial insemination done without his mother’s consent. He also asks that Cochrane swear to kill Arin.

The story then shifts to six months later. Peter’s command, the lightship Defiant, is sent to try to reestablish diplomatic relations with the human colony on Sandosa--recently rediscovered after being cut off for centuries due to the civil war that led to the collapse of the old empire. And Cochrane also soon discovers that the diplomatic staff includes his ex-fiance, who has become good friends with his wife, who is a junior officer on the Defiant.  

After discovering that Sandosa’s new government apparently doesn’t contain any descendants of the first wave of colonists, Cochrane decides to investigate one of the planet’s mines and discovers that the descendants of the original colonists are being used as slave labor. With standing orders to liberate any facility using slave labor on sight, Cochrane attacks only to be hit with weaponry far too advanced to be native to Sandosa.

After a Union occupation force arrives, Defiant is assigned to attempt to locate the Lightship Impulse II, commanded by Cochrane’s former lover Dobrina Kierkopf, after contact was lost. Before the mission the Historians of Earth, who supply and control much of the advanced technology used by the Lightships, upgrade many of Defiant’s weapons and unlock her torsion beam, a device capable of destroying anything with a magnetic core, including planets and any human ship or space station. 

After arriving at Drava, the world Impulse II was assigned to investigate, Defiant discovers that the world’s mining colony has used a gravity beam to force Impulse II to crash land before deploying attack robots manufactured in the colony in an attempt to seize the ship. Cochrane personally leads an attack force to assist the Impulse II and after both ships leave the world he uses the torsion beam to destroy Drava, ending the threat posed by the army the colony is building.

I give this book 9 out of 10. There were far fewer clichés that I disliked in this one compared to the first book and I found a lot of the details and the plot, both of the novel and the Historians, interesting. Also I enjoyed the battle sequences in this story a great deal. However, I’m annoyed that the back cover gives some false details in its synopsis of the story. Also, there’s one character from the prior book that I don’t think really benefited the story by appearing in this book, especially since this character is mentioned in the epilogue with an IMO significant change that to me came out of nowhere. But I greatly enjoyed the book and the author is starting another series that is either a sequel or prequel to this one, or perhaps set in an alternate universe of this story and I’m looking forward to it a great deal.

James Review -- The Span of Empire

This week I decided to review Jao Empire: The Span of Empire by Eric Flint and David Carrico. 

The story begins with an exploration fleet from the alliance between the Jao, humanity, and the Lleix  exploring the Orion Arm seeking possible new allies. But they’ve only found the ruins of civilizations destroyed by the Ekhat. After discovering and destroying an Ekhat outpost, the fleet returns to base and decides to shift is explorations to the Sagittarius Arm following an uncharted trail of stars to the Arm unexplored by any Alliance members.

Shortly after arriving, they encounter the Khurush in their home system. But despite the fleet broadcasting a message of peace, hostilities break out. Eventually it is decided to disable one Khurush ship in hopes of capturing and beginning talks with the crew. The Khurush commander is killed and his son, Kamozh ar Mnuresh, surrenders in the hope that the rest of the crew, all retainers of his clan, will be spared. Even as the various allied personnel try to forge a bond with Mnuresh and his followers, they make contact with a new power, the Eleusherar Path, which includes some Khurush.

This leads Mnuresh to explain the xenopophia of most of his people. Centuries before, the Khurush had been visited by another species, identified by the Path as the Veldt, who claimed to come in peace. The Khurush welcomed the Veldt but their guests soon launched an invasion. When the Khurush Resistance began to claim victories against them, the Veldt retaliated by launching asteroids against three Khurush cities, including their capital. Shortly after the bombardment, the Veldt ships exploded, and when the war was won the ruler of the Khurush forbade his people from contacting other species.

The Path reveals that they are the enforcement arm of the Eleusherar Array, a loose alliance of thousands of worlds with only one common law, attacks that threaten the habitability of a world are forbidden, except for retaliation against worlds that have broken that law. But as talks between the Path and the allies continue, it is discovered that the Ekhat, while they can’t use Jao Frame Points, they can identify systems added to the Frame Point Network used for faster than light travel by the Jao. And soon a massive Ekhat attack fleet begins to arrive, leading to Mnuresh making a desperate plea to his people to join the allies and the Path in a desperate battle to prevent the annihilation of the Khurush worlds…

There is also a plotline following a young commander who first discovered the ruins of the outpost destroyed early in the book. This covers her training and rise to the heights of power in Ekhat society.

I give the book 9.5 out of 10. I greatly enjoyed the battle scenes. I also liked the exploration of the various cultures introduced in this book, and of the Ekhat culture as well. However, I wish we had learned more about the history of the Eleusherar Array and Eleusherar Path. Also, there are a few points where I feel that the jumps between the Ekhat plotline and the main plotline were occurring too frequently.

Movie Review -- Avengers: Infinity War

Good God, what a movie we have today. All roads have led to this. It's Avengers: Infinity War.

The story picks up right where Thor: Ragnarok left off. Turns out that ship they encountered at the end belongs to Thanos (Josh Brolin) who wastes no time tearing into them. He kills off one or two long-time characters before making off with one of the Infinity Stones. His plan is to gather all six of them and use their omnipotence to wipe out half the universe.

Thus begins an epic quest as a Who's Who of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the movies, not the TV series') assemble to fight this unprecedented threat. Normally, I would list off who plays whom, but they're are just so many I don't feel like it! Seriously, just about everyone from every MCU movie from the past decade makes an appearance. In fact, it's easier just to tell you who's not in it (Hawkeye and Ant-Man). Together, this veritable army of Marvelness bands together to keep Thanos from getting his grubby purple mitts on the Infinity Stones. But even the largest collection of superheroes ever assembled will have a hard time against this bastard and his powerful minions. Can our many protagonists succeed? And more important--who will survive? The answer may rock your world.

This is the biggest, baddest comic book movie of all time. With a ridiculously huge cast and a run time of two and a half hours, few expenses were spared in the making of this. I used to think the Expendables movies had impressive star power, but they were nothing compared to this. This is the Wrestlemania of superhero flicks. I wasn't sure it could hold up to the hype, but holy crap does it ever. It's got tons of heart-stopping action, loads of comedy, a superb soundtrack by Alan Silvestri, and one of the best villains ever. Thanos isn't your cookie-cutter bad guy; he's complex and displays genuine emotion. He believes wholeheartedly in his cause and that makes him extremely dangerous. DC needs to study this film carefully to learn how to do extended universes. Justice League is a joke in comparison.

It was also great fun seeing the various factions of the MCU come together and meet each other for the first time. Iron Man thinks Doctor Strange is a clown, while Thor thinks the Guardians of the Galaxy are morons. It works out great.

And the ending. Wow. It completely changes the MCU and I sincerely did not see it coming. How on earth are they going to resolve this? I guess we'll have to wait for the next one to find out. 

Bottom line: Stop whatever you're doing and go see Avengers: Infinity War. It blows all other comic book movies out of the water.