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Unlike the previous installment this story has much more action. Aiden has assumed the identity of a Freeborn warrior, named Jorge. Freeborn warriors, unlike the genetically engineered Trueborn, are born naturally from loving parents, instead of being born from an artificial womb.
The book opens on the planet Glory with Base Commander Kael Pershaw in a discussion with his personal aide. Unaware of Aiden’s false identity, he is disgusted upon learning that he had easily defeated a Trueborn warrior in a brawl. The Commander despises the Freebirth under his command. After another fight results in the death of a Trueborn warrior, Kael Pershaw punishes Aiden by forcing him to wear the Dark Band of Shame. In spite of the punishment, Aiden’s unit are selected to carry out a rescue mission. Him and his squad deploy their battlemechs into a region known as Blood Swamp.
After locating the stranded warriors and their crashed mechs, their combined forces plan for an attack on a unit from a rival clan. The Trueborn warriors, having no experience piloting mechs through swamps, are humiliated that a Freeborn will command the operation, which ultimately ends in victory. So great was the victory, that the Trueborn warriors are entitled to compete for a Bloodname title, something only Trueborn are entitled to obtain.
Aiden, secretly a Trueborn warrior, interrupts the Bloodname ritual and reveals his true origin, demanding the right to compete. Kael Pershaw, compelled by a witness, sends the conspirators back to planet Ironhold to stand before the Grand Council where a decision will be made on the matter. Falconer Commander Ter Roshak is summoned to testify for his role in giving Aiden a false identity. Ter Roshak testifies that he was convinced that Aiden is the reincarnation of his former Commander, Ramon Mattlov.
Ter Roshak and Aiden’s defence is overruled, both men reject the decision and demand a Trial of Refusal, the right of any Jade Falcon warrior to contest a judgement by going into combat against some of the clan’s best warriors. The votes of the trial decide the odds of three to one against the accused. With the odds stacked against them, only cruel violent fate can reverse the decision.
Another highly recommended title, especially for fans of action driven stories. I encourage you to read it yourself and discover how the subsequent clan battles turn out.
Taking place on the planet Ironhold, this series begins with fresh recruits to the Jade Falcon military clan. The youthful hopefuls were bred through scientific methods meant to make genetically superior warriors. They’re known as Trueborn. The story follows Aidan, a Trueborn recruit and his group of trainees as they advance through the path to becoming Mechwarriors. Unfortunately for Aidan, his instructor is the demanding and cruel Falconer Joanna who takes an immediate dislike to him and takes delight in making his training as unpleasant as possible. As the trainees progress, inferior recruits are flushed out of the training program, pitting them against each other.
The Jade Phoenix clan is portrayed as being relentlessly aggressive in even the most relaxed moments. Major disagreements within the clan are settled in the ‘Circle of Equals’ where warriors would fight to decide an outcome. This book doesn’t have as much action as other Battletech titles, focusing more on clan attitudes and procedures and Aidan’s experience as he goes through clan training.
After training is complete, the remaining recruits face the six ritual combat trials. Succeeding will grant the trainees a position within the clan. During the Trial of Position, Aiden uses bold and risky tactics which almost pays off – actions similar to those portrayed in the first Gray Death Legion book to be frank – but his battle mech is disabled at the crucial moment, ending his chance of joining the clan. He is flushed out of Mechwarrior training and begins a new career path, but it won’t be long before destiny brings him back into the cockpit of a battlemech.
Overall, I wish I started reading Battletech much sooner. I can’t recommend it enough. There is a great blend of technology, action and clan culture. The book also has some artwork tucked into the pages, a glossary of terms used and schematic drawings for each battlmech type. If you like action, science fiction, or just a great story, you can’t go wrong.
This book is a great introduction to the “Clans” but if you’re interested in reading details about the Inner Sphere or want a bit more history of the Battletech Universe as a whole you should check out Scribd.
As mentioned in previous posts, Scribd has an excellent selection of Battletech novels. However they are somewhat out of sequence as I’ve discussed earlier and this book is considered #2 in the Legends imprint. This simply wouldn’t make any sense so I strongly urge you to read Decision at Thunder Rift by William H. Keith Jr. first.
Ready player one is the ultimate thriller to keep you glued to your seat for the entire show. The movie is based on a novel by Ernest Cline released in mid-2011 which is basically an action-filled adventure story of Wade Watts, the lead character in the book. The movie is a whirlwind of pop culture with most of the characters being derived from a nostalgic point of view. The soundtracks are also derived from an 80’s playlist which is sure to keep you rocking in your head. Unlike the book, which only includes characters from a nerd culture Cline is familiar to, the film is a combination of different cartoons, video games, and movies which relates strongly to the childhood of today’s middle age generation. If you were never a fan of video games and cartoons as a child, then you may miss out on some of the most exhilarating scenes in Ready Player One. Many people have criticized the excessive pop culture portrayed in the movie to a point where the film seems to rely on that aspect alone. This, however, is also the major thing that gets fans and sci-fi lovers glued to the screen, plus the action and thrill.
The Real World
The sci-fi film is set at a time when the world has gone through an economic-shattering war and epidemics that have left the general population mushroomed and stuck in a single place with nowhere else to go. The year is 2045, and most of the available public amenities are rare and strained. Some have to scavenge to get their share. The plot, however, does not delve into how the world got itself into such a state of annihilation within less than 27 years. With nowhere else to go and the desire of adventure burning, the OASIS is born as an escape to the harsh reality.
The Virtual World
The OASIS is
“a world where the limits of reality are your own imagination”
as Wade Watts puts it in the film. It is a virtual world where anything is possible. Here, everyone can become the best-imagined version of themselves.In the OASIS, every player has an avatar which is their character in the virtual reality. The OASIS is filled with numerous challenges and competitions which the players have to navigate through to win. The players either collect or lose coins during the game. If they lose and fall in debt in the game, they can end up being imprisoned or forced to work in real life. Of course, there has to be a quest which in the movie requires the lead character, Wade Watts, to stop IOI which is the company in charge of the OASIS from attaining monopoly and taking over the entire population. He has to follow the tips James Halliday, the real founder of the oasis, had left behind after his death to find the Easter egg and take ownership of the oasis.
Storyline
Ready Player one is mainly centered on the virtual reality that is the OASIS where most of the action goes down. However, the virtual and the real world have a shared destiny with actions in the virtual game reflecting on real life. On top of this, IOI is focused on controlling the whole population through turning players into debtors. The corporation goes so far as to target people in the real world if they think they are capable of disrupting their plans in the virtual reality.
Wade Watts is the awaited savior of the people from IOI. After James Halliday’s death, he desired only to do one thing, and that was to leave the OASIS into the hands of someone who would protect the people. Halliday had created a maze of challenges for anyone to ensure that only someone who was noble enough would retain ownership of the OASIS. Wade’s creativity and smarts are put to the test in virtual challenges where he must not only win but think outside of the box to get the prize. Wade has to compete in a New York demolition race with all sorts of obstacles, fight terrifying zombies and make his way through a field of snow and ice to fight a battle in an icy fortress. Ready Player one has all the scenes that qualify for the thrill, suspense, and adventure; some of Spielberg’s specialties.
Pain and Regret
In the movie, James Halliday, the founder of OASIS is filled with a lot of guilt and regret over his life decisions. Despite having made the greatest virtual reality network known to man, his life was an empty shell having lived it all developing the program. He gave no time for his lover, Karen and isolated himself from his partner Ogden Morrow all his life and in the very end, he realized his mistake.
His story pours a bit on the moral of the film which Wade had to learn by going through the challenges left by Halliday. We can see that the OASIS is great and the best escape the citizens of the world have although eventually, they have to unplug and go back to their stacked trailers. The people dwell so much on the OASIS that they forget to look after their real lives. This seems to be the point that Spielberg tries to reach out to watchers and players alike. In the end, having learned this, Wade Watts declares two days off every week from the OASIS to get people moving with their real lives and stop their virtual reality addiction.
Compared to the Book
Unlike most movies that deliver less than the original book, Ready Player one managed to improve on the book having brought more characters which gave it a broader audience. The aspect of cartoons and video games was also an improvement that proved fitting as the film had more scenes and characters most can relate to. Having Spielberg on board was probably the best idea they had because he brought out the electrifying thrill that people’s imagination can achieve coupled by the virtual reality’s “no bounds” challenges that stood before them. The movie didn’t divert from the book’s primary quest which was to preserve the OASIS from those who would use it to bring harm. I would say the movie was actually an upgrade of the book since the book itself featured a story that would be best explained in a thrilling movie; pop culture, characters and not to mention the unspeakable view of the virtual reality come to life.
Truth be told, I loved Old Man’s War … not necessarily the whole series mind you, but definitely Book 1. It’s long been a staple and one that I’ve gone back to every now and then. Unfortunately for me, however (and probably somewhat in the minority) I didn’t love Red Shirts which I thought had a brilliant concept/idea but wasn’t really executed well. I know that I’m in the minority on this one, but I’m willing to live with that! So going into this book, I was somewhat concerned … the Old Man’s War series overall was good, Red Shirts for me … not so much. So, how would this new series about the “Interdependency” stack up?
Overall really positively is the answer! This is basically Scalzi’s Dune. Several powerful houses competing for power and resources, an Emperox (Emperor) that controls a planet called Hub, which resides at the epicenter of The Flow, a trade network of one-directional interstellar wormholes that humanity found a thousand years ago, religion and politics intertwined, etc. The idea is extremely interesting and the workaround for getting past the speed of light itself via the “Flow” is one that kind of makes sense? It seems like wormholes I think but I like the concept and idea that all routes lead to Hub and they end at End. I loved the fact that the final planet – End – is called that … it makes sense and is a very human thing to do isn’t it? Using The Flow we branched out into the galaxy and started living in some areas that were not so hospitable. Each colony is dependent on the others for resources they do not have available locally. So what happens if this network doesn’t always function the way it has in the past? What happens if Hub isn’t always where all paths in The Flow lead?
Some negatives for me
The fact that the other “stops” available via the flow terminate at planets that cannot support life – well that works and doesn’t work for me. I see why John did it in the context of the rest of the series, but it seems a bit off that out of all of the different terminations none except End have a planet that can support human life? Again for the sake of the story and the whole Interdependency, I’m willing to give it a pass but if we’re being totally honest, the Interdependency itself wouldn’t work … I mean if humanity can be so pragmatic to name the final stop of a network connecting multiple planets together “End”, they wouldn’t allow themselves to become dependent on only certain groups to support them. I get the whole monopolistic thing, but let’s be honest shall we, the first thing we’d do when we got to a new planet is figure out a way to be self-sufficient as quickly as possible! I think if there is one thing we can all agree on is that humans innovate and cause problems a lot more than they toe the company line!
What worked?
What set this story apart, however, is the characters. Cardenia, Kiva and Ghreni are all extremely well realized and detailed. They each have their own quirks and the simply stick in your head. I loved Kiva’s language and her acerbic wit. Ghreni and his Machiavellian tricks are oh so obvious but at the same time so well done and Cardenia – well lets just say that she completely charmed me!
Scalzi has done it again. The Collapsing Empire marks his strong return to space opera with a fresh start in this series opener, introducing readers to a new universe, new characters, and a whole new set of rules. At first, I was a little apprehensive about whether I would take to it as fondly as the books in the Old Man’s War sequence, but all my skepticism went out the window as soon as I finished the book and found myself once more filled with that familiar sense of marvel and excitement.
I’ve often found that new authors (new to me anyways) have a great first book and then tend to flag in the second or third book in a series making it really hard to continue reading. It’s a real pity as I often find myself coming to care about the characters and I really want to know what happens to them but when it stops becoming enjoyable and is simply a grind … well, lets just say that I tend to move on. An example of this is the Silver Ships series – the characters … any realism they had in the earlier books just disappeared and their risks and challenges were too easily beaten. As I’ve been burnt a couple of times, I was wary going into Book 2 of the Warp Marine Corps after the exceptional book 1, but, boy – am I glad I did!
Book 2 continues the story of Captain Fromm and his merry band of ne’er-do-wells, however, this time instead of focusing on a small battle in a single city our canvas is that of a whole planet – Parthenon – which is the focus of a thrust by humanities enemies. Fromm’s previous battle was one of the few “wins” for humanity in the shadow war against the humans. Now that things are out in the open and we learn that humanity is officially under attack by 3 different polities the importance of holding Parthenon is even greater.
Fromm has a much larger force available to him, but the focus is still on the group we met in Book 1 – Decisively Engaged – however, some new weapons are introduced and this time the enemy is not a bunch of savages, but another Starfarer nation with equivalent weaponry available. The combat is brutal and extremely well described but perhaps even more importantly he covered the essentials in a realistic manner. Weapons here aren’t “super weapons” – they are the gradual improvements and his explanation of why Battle Mechs aren’t in prevalent use while sad is probably very true!
In addition to the battle on the ground, there is significant starship combat here which is one thing that was sadly lacking from the first book and by the end of the book a revolution in space warfare that changes things dramatically. However, this change while potent also heralds some new and potentially worrying future developments for the Universe at large. Book 3 expands on this in even greater depth but I’ll get into that in a future post!
While I’m definitely more of a fan of the Military SciFi genre, Fantasy titles still have a very large place in my heart. Especially when those titles are written by some of the more exceptional authors in the field like Jordan (sadly deceased), Sanderson (alive, kicking & publishing like a dervish) and Butcher.
Jim Butcher is actually best known for his magical detective-noir novels – the Dresden files – which I have not read, but I have heard are really good. I was introduced to him via his Codex Alera series – the first of which (Furies of Calderon) is reviewed here – which I loved. His characters were extremely well thought out and written, the magic system was first rate & the motivations of the villains were very well thought out and conceived. Overall it was excellent series and one I’ve enjoyed through several re-reads so I was really excited to see his new series available via the Overdrive app & my local library!
My initial thoughts were that Codex Alera was somewhat simpler to understand – a Roman legion was propelled to another land via a gate of some sort and here they survived and adapted. They didn’t come with magic but they learned to “tame” the local furies and came to preeminence in their local area.
Aeronaut’s Windlass is a little bit more confusing – something happened (which by the end of the book is still not clear) & humanity lives on “Spires” that were created by the “Ancients”. These stone pillars have been inhabited for hundreds (if not thousands) of years and wood is an extremely rare, expensive and in-demand resource. Airships, however, ply the currents between spires which are powered by gems of varying sizes and power. These gems not only serve as the engine for the airship but also power the cannons that are used in duels between different ships. Smaller gems are used for individual weapons in the form of gauntlets & it seems that while they are rare, they are common enough that all guards have them – basically in this universe, these gauntlets act as a replacement for the guns we’re used to.
The story in a nutshell
Aeronaut’s Windlass takes us to one specific spire and a group of people that you could best categorize as the American’s or British with their dependence on free trade and commerce. This group has developed not only their primary spire – where the nobility resides – but also a more commercial hub that is fast becoming the richest place in the world.
When another spire decides to attack, a group of young guardsmen are thrown into combat with a disgraced former captain to save their homeland from the foe. The captain – cashiered from the navy for cowardice is anything but and while the guardsmen might seem a disparate lot – they have everything they need within themselves to make the difference … especially when you add a mad sorcerer and his apprentice to the mix!
Unfortunately, the “enemy” is not idle either – a company of marines, a traitorous captain, and a witch might seem a large enough threat by itself, but when you add in venomous monsters that can kill with a bite, creatures with carapaces that can reflect all but the strongest of shots and monsters the size of a mountain to the mix … well, let’s just say that the odds don’t look good!
Fortunately for our hero’s – they have Rowl and his kin!
What I liked and didn’t like
I loved, loved, loved Rowl. Having the cat as an actual speaking character in the story was excellent. He was believable and perfect and I absolutely adored his parts of the story. I actually really liked all of the characters, to be honest – they all had decent motivations and reasons for their actions and were all believable. Perhaps the only character I didn’t really understand was Rook … having him in this story almost seemed unnecessary and his inclusion seemed to just be required as a placeholder. He didn’t really bring anything to the story either positive or negative aside from perhaps explaining why Grimm was a disgraced Captain.
I guess if there was anything I didn’t really like – it would be the magic system … Codex Alera – the system made sense. Same with the Wheel of Time and the Way of Kings and Mistborn. Here nothing is really explained about how the gems work and why they do. If they are “grown” in a vat, why are the ones grown by the Lannisters so great and couldn’t anyone do it if they are as valuable as they are? Why is humanity living in the spires in the first place? What is “etheric” energy and how does it work? Why are the creatures and monsters so mutated and dangerous and where does the wood for the ships come from if it is so expensive? Lots of questions and I hope that they get answered in future volumes.
If you want military SciFi you need to look no further than the Warp Marines! As you probably know by this time, this genre is one of my favorites and I’ve written quite a few posts about the books that I’ve enjoyed over the years – some of them are below:
- THE EMBER WAR – RICHARD FOX
- EMPIRE OF BONES – TERRY MIXON (planning a re-read of this one soon)
- SPACE BATTLE GOODNESS! – DISCOVERY OF THE SAIPH
- MY TOP 9 KINDLE UNLIMITED MILITARY SCIFI PICKS
While I’ve yet to make my top 10 list of recent Military SciFi titles, the Warp Marines are fast moving up to the top of that list & book 1 – Decisively Engaged – gets you hooked right from the beginning. There is no slow build up like Weber prefers with his Honor Harrington series, this one gets down and dirty right from the beginning and the action only gets more frantic as time goes on.
Story in a nutshell
Warp Marines takes us to a universe not too dissimilar to our own. First contact, however, is not something we’d want to repeat as our initial exposure to the universe at large can only be described as cataclysmic. When one group of aliens (the “Puppies”) escaping from a battle inadvertently leads the other to Earth, the “Snakes” decide to introduce humanity to Starfarer culture by bombing them back to the stone age. Clean bombs & not nuclear, simply mean that the targets are surrounded by a globe of force while the temperature gradually increases within that globe – hot enough to melt steel. Fortunately for the survivors – less than half of Earth’s remaining population – the Puppies are able to defeat the Snakes before they can complete their destruction & feeling guilty for leading these hostile aliens here, they decide to help bootstrap humanity so that they are able to survive any further incursions from the Snakes or any of the other hostile races in their galactic neighborhood.
While the remnants of humanity might be few, they are not idle or indecisive. The new American president institutes a program to rapidly build a space-based presence to ensure that any future alien attacks are stopped and while he’s not able to build a fleet of sufficient size to fully protect and englobe the Earth, what he is able to build is a fleet with defences that are new to the galactic scene. One that has the rest of the spiral arm start referring to humans as … Warp Demons.
Sounds pretty cool right? Well, that’s actually just the prologue … the rest of the book contains significantly more in the way of small unit tactics and advanced weaponry and it just continues to build up in terms of tone and tempo.
Characters
All of the characters are quite well conceived and written and their motivations are really well described and delivered. The aliens, however, are a bit cardboard and one sided. They are basically bad and we’re good and there is no gray area in between. The Queen of the planet our hero finds himself on is very much based on the Empress Dowager Cixi and the whole Boxer rebellion-esque story is prevalent and annoying as its not really new or unique. In fact another military scifi book did it earlier and it was very similar.
What I liked and didn’t like
The similarity to the boxer rebellion is definitely something I didn’t like. I would have liked some more interaction with the different groups of aliens also as only one side of a story gets tedious and monotonous. I also would have liked more space battles and especially those with larger fleets. However the small unit tactics and overall grit within the story itself was really well done. You could feel the fear and pain the Marines were going through and you lived it with them. It was really well done!
Terry has written a couple of books that I’m quite fond of (namely his Empire of Bones saga, reviewed here, and here) so I thought this one was worth a try too – and while it’s not perfect, there is enough in it that I’m probably going to pick up book 2 when it’s eventually released.
Now if you recall from some previous posts, I have been using Kindle Unlimited – well that changed earlier this month so this was a full cash purchase. The question I’m sure that’s uppermost in your mind is was it worth the $6.50? Well, without being too wishy-washy … Yes and No. 🙂
See the idea here is that the Earth is about to be bombarded by high-intensity solar radiation … this will act somewhat like an EMP and short circuit a significant percentage of our non-hardened electrical and computing equipment. Unfortunately, seconds prior to the bombardment a rogue nation state decides to attack the US. The US in retaliation shoots some nukes at them, which sets off a chain of events with nukes flying all over the world and destroying any remaining infrastructure that the solar radiation doesn’t get! Basically, the whole world is screwed!
Our hero and main protagonist (Tom) however just happens to be a bit of a gun nut (lucky right?) and while he’s not a survivalist, he happens also to be a (successful) author of post-apocalyptic fiction which not only ensures that he always knows the right thing to do, it gives him more than enough liquid capital to buy his way out of a few troublesome spots. Also fortunately for Tom his contacts at the gun show he’s attending include an ex-army sniper and a retired member (Moshe) of the IDF (Israel Defence Force) and his daughter. Tom is again really “lucky” as not only is Moshe someone that knows their way around weaponry – he owns a gun shop and is able to outfit the expedition that Tom is building to return to his home. Moshe also happens to know a doctor! Isn’t Tom lucky?
Sorry, I know that I’m laying it on a bit thick there, and while that is intended, it’s frustrating when everything is lining up in such a perfect manner for our main character. You’d expect some troublesome issues to raise their head, but aside from the fact that he had a bit of a case of the shakes after killing his first looter, Tom and almost everyone else seems perfectly willing and able to gun down anyone that gets in their way. While it’s an admirable attitude and probably something that would develop over time – the fact that Tom is able to do it in the first 15min – 1/2 hr after the bomb’s start dropping pushes the bounds of belief a little. In addition, his ability to persuade everyone else to go along with him also doesn’t help! Finally and probably the thing that annoyed me the most was the fact that Tom ALWAYS seems to know exactly the right thing to do. He never seems to get surprised by someone else’s actions and can always plan around what they are going to do.
Now that the negative is out of the way – let’s talk a little bit about the positives. The overall idea itself is quite interesting and while it feels a bit rushed the whole thing does work. The action sequences though are definitely standouts in my opinion and make this book. While the minutiae of the different types of guns are a bit boring, their capabilities are quite interesting. I’m interested in seeing where Terry goes with book 2 and beyond and while I’m not expecting Tom and crew to be decimated, I would like there to be a bit more realism to their struggles.
Over the years I’ve read a couple of books and series that have started out well, but over the course of multiple books, gotten quite a bit “less good” and somewhat tedious. Unfortunately, Intergalactic Wizard Scout is one of these in my opinion.
While the writing itself is nothing to write home about, the main character and his companion are somewhat interesting, but over the course of the series, they become nothing more than caricatures and with the introduction of some (annoying) supporting characters in book 2 it becomes even more of a slog.
Normally as you know, I would give a synopsis of each book in depth and detail but with this series that’s difficult as by the end of the series I really didn’t care and, to be honest, I’ve been struggling with (what I think is) the final book for weeks…
Wizard Defiant
In Wizard Defiant we’re introduced to the Intergalactic Wizard Scouts. Basically a group of super soldiers with the added ability to utilize magic like abilities in their battles – they are bad-ass and humanities only bastion in an increasingly hostile universe.
Richard & his wise-ass high-tech battle computer/suit Nickelo are cadets at the academy being trained as the next generation of Wizard Scouts & while Richard has the normal complement of troubles as a new cadet with regards to his drill instructor (who hates his guts for some unknown reason) there is another twist waiting for him.
To be honest, this switch is what peaked my interest as the book transitions from SciFi to Fantasy when Richard is sent on a mysterious mission by the “One”. Sent to help an elf princess in her search for a magical talisman he is exposed to goblins, orcs and other demons in his quest. While his skills are primarily science-based, Wizard Scouts are able to access the magical dimension, but Richard is still only in training and his skills are definitely not yet at the level they need to be.
Wizard Cadet
Richard has made it to the next stage of his training at the Scout Academy and is finally being sent on missions for the Alliance. However, the One is still sending him out for its own reasons & this time while he’s on a mission to retrieve a defecting scientist he is dispatched by the One to fight a horde of zombies also.
Unfortunately, this is where the series gets a little bit stupid in my opinion as while he’s attempting to retrieve the scientist, he comes across the aliens two adopted (super-genius) children. These kids are not just smart – they are super smart and completely overshadow Richard. However, they are also really annoying and from this point onwards the series just went downhill!
One positive though is the introduction of the phase hounds … they were quite cool and fun, but at the same time the fact that they were essential to the rest of the story removed some of my enjoyment. It’s better in my opinion when a character “levels up” and is able to take on increasingly complex challenges – Richard unfortunately, seems stuck.
Wizard Scout
I guess this book introduces us to the underlying story in a bit more depth? We get an insight into the struggle that the One was created/formed to combat as well as the more prosaic enemies that Richard and the other Wizard Scouts are facing. Of course, we’re also introduced to the typical political shenanigans where different parties are competing for resources. In this case, the resource is the “gas” that makes the wizard scouts the force they are.
We do find out some interesting personal details about Richard & his family which were unexpected.
Wizard Omega
I haven’t finished this one yet so will have to update it at a later stage – however here are the details from the book jacket:
Wizard scouts were once the elite, deep-recon forces of the Intergalactic Empire. But now they are a dying breed. Or are they?
A black dreadnaught has been raiding star lanes near the outer fringes of the Empire. Is it just another pirate ship? Or is it the key to reviving the wizard scout corps? And what about the discovery of a mysterious anomaly reportedly found by cantankerous asteroid miners? Does it have something to do with the black dreadnaught?
Wizard Scout Richard Shepard, the last of the legendary wizard scouts, is sent to investigate. Aided by the crew of the recon ship, Defiant, Richard must circumvent an increasingly convoluted political landscape in his search for the truth. But what is truth? And can Richard handle the truth – if he finds it?
Faced with a decision which could mean the life or death of millions of helpless innocents, Richard must make a choice. What his choice will be, no one knows; least of all, Richard.
I’m giving Resident Evil The Final Chapter a 3.5 out of 5. It wasn’t as good as some of the others, but it did finally end the story, or at least I think it did, and after six films that counts for something. With a title like that it feels like it’s meant to end the series, and by the last scene all the main baddies do seem to be dead. I’m honestly still not sure they won’t find a way to bring somebody back, but if this is the finish, it wraps things up more tidily than I expected it to.
The thing I keep coming back to is what it left out. The last film ended with Alice and her friends about to fight a huge battle for Washington, and I would definitely have wanted to see that. Instead The Final Chapter opens with Alice alone in the ruins of the city, and everyone else from that cliffhanger has been dealt with off-screen. I’d been waiting for that battle, so skipping it stayed with me all the way through the film. Everything else has to work harder to win me back after that, and some of it does.
Back to Raccoon City
The set-up is a good one. The Red Queen contacts Alice and tells her what’s left of humanity, which isn’t much, and says there’s an airborne anti-virus in the Hive under Raccoon City that would kill every infected thing on Earth. Alice has 48 hours before Umbrella wipes out the last human settlements, so she has to cross the country to get there. On the way she loses and escapes Dr. Isaacs, who’s alive after all, since the one she killed in the third film was a clone. In the ruins of Raccoon City she finds a fortified group of survivors, including Claire Redfield and a young woman called Abigail, and Umbrella steers a horde of the dead to besiege their fortress.
It’s been a long road from the first film, and going back to the Hive and the laser corridor brings the whole thing full circle, which is neat. Milla Jovovich has been doing this kind of role since The Fifth Element, and she carries the series as the one constant through all of it. Alice has been powerful, powerless and powerful again in that time, and here she’s back to fighting with her own two hands. I’d also point back to the second film, because a lot of the loose threads it started are tied up here.
Explaining the Red Queen and Alice
What I liked best is that they finally try to explain the Red Queen and Alice. Umbrella caused the apocalypse on purpose, so that the elite could sleep through it in cryosleep and wake up to a clean world. The Red Queen turns out to be modelled on Alicia Marcus, the daughter of Umbrella’s co-founder, who’s dying of an ageing disease. And Alice herself is Alicia’s clone, made with her memories stripped out. That gives the whole series an origin story it never had before, and it’s the part of the film that worked best for me.
The finale is another trip through the laser corridor, with final battles against Isaacs and Wesker, and the Red Queen deletes Wesker. Alicia’s last act is to give Alice her memories back, and Alice releases the anti-virus, which spreads across the world and kills off the undead. She should die too, since she’s carrying the T-virus, but she survives and rides off on a motorbike with a lot of the world still left to clear. So I do think it closes the story, and I’m happy to take it that way.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5. It wasn’t as good as some of the others in the series, but it did finally end the story, or at least I think it did. I liked how they tried to explain the Red Queen and Alice, and I’d definitely have wanted to see the battle for Washington that the last movie ended on. If you’ve followed Alice this far, it’s worth seeing it through to the end.
This was another book that was very easy to enjoy. Station Rage has action and intrigue, beginning with some history of DS9 and the Cardassians, building into scenes of espionage and eventually into guerrilla warfare on the station.
On the space station, Deep Space Nine, in an unexplored area, Starfleet discovers preserved remains of several Cardassian warriors from Cardassia’s distant past. Captain Sisco, worried about having a diplomatic dispute with the Cardssians, orders the area sealed off, but the horrors lurking within have only just begun to emerge. Garak, an exiled Cardassian and the only alien of his kind welcome on the station, recognizes the legendary High Gul among the bodies, a celebrated military tactician from Cardassia’s past upon whom countless myths of courage still surrounded. What appeared to be corpses were actually live beings trapped in suspended animation for a far longer duration than the technology was designed, still waiting to be revived.
Before long, the station is occupied by determined and highly experienced soldiers that have an intimate knowledge of DS9’s technology. The Cardassians, running on eighty year-old intelligence, assume they are still at war and perceive Starfleet as a hostile occupying force. After the systems of DS9 begin to malfunction, Captain Sisco deduces that a hostile force in on the station and he orders all non-Starfleet personnel to evacuate the station and begins sweeping the station for intruders. The aliens setup an elaborate trap for Odo, the station’s shapeshifting security chief, by trapping him and lacing his body with explosive materials, leaving him unable to change form without risking detonation.
Nearing the end, the action picks up when a single Cardassian vessel arrives, demanding Starfleet to hand over their intruders, Sisco’ refusal leads to the station being fired upon by the Cardassian ship. Sisco and his crew rush to the USS Defiant to defend the station from the attacking ship, but are intercepted by the intruders and are drawn into a phaser shoot-out. Captain Sisco is hit by a deadly blow and Kira is kidnapped by the invaders and forced to assist them in launching the vessel. Kira’s revulsion of Cardassians is again brought to the surface when addressing the High Gul aboard the Defiant. The High Gul’s character is likely the best parts of this book and his dialogue here with Kira is excellent. He is able to mold Kira’s attitude of Cardassians by being truthful and making it known that he is from a time well-before Cardassia’s genocidal campaigns on Bajor.
Kira’s prejudice is gradually broken and she agrees to help them pilot the starship and engage the attacking adversary from the High Gul’s past. The ensuing ship-to-ship combat was very satisfying. The Defiant faces off with no engineering crew, making each command critical. One wrong move could easily cripple the Defiant. After defeating their attacker, the story quickly wraps up on a somber note.
Overall, this is very much the type of book I like to read. This was a very action-oriented story. I highly recommend Station Rage to anyone with the slightest interest in science-fiction. If you enjoy an intriguing story with action, stealth, station-wide emergencies, phaser shoot-outs and a gripping space battle, then take a look, you won’t be disappointed.
This is a novel by James Blish, a notable science fiction writer who began releasing stories in 1940, before that, he was a member of the Futurians, along with Issac Asimov, which was a group of science fiction fans that spawned many editors and writers. It started in the late 1930’s, based in New York City. James Blish also coined the cosmological term ‘gas giant’.
This story was the first original Star Trek novel, earlier stories being comics, show adaptations and a children’s book. The story starts with McCoy, Scotty and Kirk discussing the philosophical ethics of teleportation, reflecting on whether the person who disappears is really the same person on the other side. Scotty proposes an experiment, to find out once and for all. Kirk is notified by the bridge that the peace treaty, imposed by the Organians, has abruptly ended and the Organians home world can’t be reached, raising fears that the planet may have been destroyed (From episode: Errand of Mercy).
Scotty makes modifications to the main transporter to test his theory and Mr. Spock volunteers himself as a test subject. The experiment results in the creation of an exact cloned copy of Spock. From here, the story takes the scenario seriously. Kirk makes a good point shortly after the incident, by saying that there can only be one first officer, the clone making an obvious obstacle to the chain of command.
The Enterprise enters the Organian system to investigate and find that the planet is being affected by Klingon technology, intended to end the peace treaty by interrupting their psychic abilities.
Captain Kirk, Scotty and Mr. Spock beam down to discover the reason for the peace treaty being neutralized. With Klingon battle cruisers converging on the planet, Kirk orders Sulu to take the Enterprise to Starbase-28.
Below on the planet, Organia has changed drastically from their last visit. The surface littered with a rocky landscape and dark grey coloured skies and fog. This resulted from the psychic disruption of the Organians, they evolved beyond the need for bodies and other physical comforts, their world was made from their thoughts.
With some difficulty, they find the Organian high council and are led to the Klingon device, where Spock and Scotty disable the field by dismantling the components. The Organians reestablish control of the planet and impose punishment upon the Klingons.
To conclude, for such a early novel in this series, this was very entertaining and excellently captures the style of the original series. This is an example of a story for Star Trek, written by an author who was inspired during a much different age of science fiction. The discussions about technology are a bit dated, for example, but succeeds in driving the story, regardless. The author did a great job of representing the main characters, a favourite moment being when McCoy uses his medical expertise to identify which of the two Spocks is the replicate.
As well, this book has a bit of mystery which kept me guessing as to where the story would lead, so I’ve decided to leave out those details from this review. For such an early novel, I really enjoyed reading it. It does a great job of capturing the style of the show and representing characters. The scenario of might be a bit played out at this point, I even saw one commenter even compare it to the problematic third season, but the story takes itself seriously enough to forgive that comparison.
I recommend this novel for anyone with an interest in science fiction, it was easy to flip through and really captures the spirit of the original series and feels like another adventure of the old crew.
While this series of books is numbered differently based on where you look, I think if you were to read it in the correct sequence you should follow the path below.
- THE SLAVER WARS: ALIEN CONTACT BY RAYMOND L. WEIL
- MOON WRECK: THE SLAVER WARS (BOOK 2)
- MOON WRECK: FLEET ACADEMY (THE SLAVER WARS 3)
On quite a few lists books 2 & 3 are labeled as the Moon Wreck series, making this one (First Strike) book 2 instead of Book 4 which gets confusing. Stick with my numbering however and the story works better! 🙂
This story starts out with two Hocklyn Slave Empire warships jumping in space very close to the Human Federation of Worlds home systems and finding a human mining colony. A Federation ship discovers them and realizes the Hocklyns are ahead of schedule in finding them. The Hocklyn thought they had exterminated these humans hundreds of years ago. The discovery causes alarm back in the human Federation.Author Raymond L. Weil takes his readers several hundred years into the future with First Strike. In the previous book in the Slaver Wars series, Jeremy Strong and his band of friends find the Hocklyns and launch a new era in human paranoia. Yes, there are other alien races out there, and they want to kill us all. It wasn’t pleasant news. Jeremy and his friends decided to go into cryosleep, joining legendary Admiral Hedon
Author Raymond L. Weil takes his readers several hundred years into the future with First Strike. In the previous book in the Slaver Wars series, Jeremy Strong and his band of friends find the Hocklyns and launch a new era in human paranoia. Yes, there are other alien races out there, and they want to kill us all. It wasn’t pleasant news. Jeremy and his friends decided to go into cryosleep, joining legendary Admiral Hedon Streth. They’ll be awakened when needed. First Strike is that time.
First Strike is somewhat self-explanatory as this time the Humans are taking the war to the Hocklyns. As the cryosleep chambers holding the remaining original survivors start to fail, and the dreaded enemy continue to close in on the Earth, the only option is to actually take the fight to the Hocklyns. Not only will this help give Earth the time it needs to continue building its defenses, it will also allow the fleet an opportunity to see how their new weapons compare against those of the Hocklyn Slave Empire.
While books 2 & 3 were somewhat smaller in scope focusing more on the individual vs. the whole underlying story, this one is almost the exact opposite. It takes us back to space and back to big space battles too! Lots and lots of space battles!! 🙂 Weil ramps up the pace for this book and keeps it high. He doesn’t have any problems killing off his characters. Death and destruction permeate the battles. The humans take the fight to the nasty reptilian Hocklyns, who want to annihilate the entire human race. There’s no negotiating. The admiral shoots first and lets higher powers sort it out. It’s a black and white cautionary tale. And it’s quite entertaining.
The book is of course not just one battle after another. The humans get a few new allies. A mysterious race is briefly introduces which I assume will play some role further on. We get to know some of the Hocklyns more in-depth and some of them are more than likely to continue to play a major role in future books. Then there is the mysterious relation between the AIs and the humans. Why do the AIs seem to fear the humans and how is it that they seem to even know about humans already before the Hocklyns attacked them the first time?
This book can really be said to be the starting point of the real action of the series. The first book was really mostly explaining the background of the entire set of previous and future books, both the Slaver Wars and The Moon Wreck series. As I mentioned before there are plenty of space battles in this book. The humans are indeed giving the both Hocklyns and the AIs the finger big time. That being said, it is just the opening salvo of a long war.
This story takes takes place between the movies Star Trek 5 & 6, detailing the proceedings of peace talks between the Federation and the Klingon empire that came to a front in the beginning of Star Trek 6. The story begins with a deep space encounter, eight years earlier, between a Starship and an imperial cruiser.
In 2287, the Enterprise crew are attending a peace conference on Starbase 49 with the Klingons. Kirk is greeted by Koloth, the former captain of the IKS Gr’oth, whom they had a shaky truce with in the episode ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’. Koloth explains to Kirk that he has knowledge of Starfleet prisoners being held in a Klingon facility, on a remote planet, deep within Klingon space, and that their continued imprisonment is against the Klingon code of honour.
The story also follows events in the Klingon prison, where the prisoners endure brutal conditions and sadistic guards while being forced to mine for dilithium crystals underground.
The peace conference continues, but suffers complications after a bombing occurs, narrowly missing some of the conference’s VIPs. During a scene aboard the Klingon’s flagship, another explosion causes damage to one of the ship’s warp nacelles, almost resulting in the Klingon’s firing upon the Enterprise in the confusion. This leads to a scene with Scotty and a Klingon engineer performing a space walk on the ship to remove another explosive.
Towards the end, Kirk, Koloth and Sulu stage an attack on the prison and rescue the Starfleet prisoners. They are then tracked through the planet’s dense jungle by Klingon forces, led by a rival of Koloth, named Korax, resulting in a phaser/disruptor shootout atop a high plateau. They manage to hold out against superior numbers and are rescued from the planet by a Klingon ship captain, named Jardak. Jardak, disgusted by the prison’s breaking of the code of honour, arrests Korax and orders an orbital strike on the prison, killing the remaining staff and prisoners.
Repulsed by the brazen killings, Kirk challenges the Klingon’s code of honour, angrily referencing how his son had been killed in the recent past by a decorated Klingon captain (Star Trek 3). This scene with Kirk voicing his deeply buried anger over his son’s murder was well written, explosive and dramatic, reflecting the many times in the series in which Kirk advocates moral decency. The book wraps up soon after this scene with Kirk & McCoy reflecting on the morals, or lack thereof, of the Klingon code of honour.
This was another great novel with a lot of intrigue and some good action scenes. There’s some variety among the story’s settings and characters, helping to keep scenes fresh. I felt that the writing style was a bit overly complex and that it could stand to be slimmed down, somewhat, also some characters don’t have much presence, such as McCoy and Chekhov. Overall, however, quite an enjoyable read that fits in well with the events during the Star Trek movies. Recommended for intermediate or advanced readers.
Loved it!
OK that’s it – you can stop right here if you want the pure unvarnished truth about my feelings on this book. However if you want to know why … well, continue reading! 🙂
I think you all know by now that I’m a bit of a geek and a SciFi nerd. I’m no NASA scientist but I generally am able to catch the obvious elements that detract from a story and while in some cases they don’t ruin a story – they pull you out of the universe that the author is trying to create. In this case however, I’m very happy to state that not only did that NOT happen – I actually found myself wishing for this level of detail in some of the other books and series that I’ve read. The science and advancement postulated simply makes sense and it is something you would EXPECT to see. Let me give you an example –
See what I mean? Something like this makes sense – I mean this is just an extension of Google Goggles isn’t it & while I have always thought of a bridge matching that of the Enterprise (as I’m sure you have to), if you really think about it, that doesn’t make too much sense when it can all be virtual. By the same token – having a “Holodeck” really doesn’t make too much sense either when each individual could have their own virtual environment.
This book continues in the same vein with ships utilizing planets and other satellites for speed boosts via slingshot instead of a sub-light drive or other futuristic technology. Robots and cyborgs are prevalent in the marine contingent of the ships’ forces but again here to the weaponry is a simple extension of our current armament and not some laser or plasma weapon. It’s good – this verisimilitude keeps you in the story and with the characters and I can only applaud the author (Isaac Hooke) for making that extra effort!
The Captain’s Story
So you’ve heard my enthusiasm for the book, but you’re probably wondering what’s it all about? Well – I’ll be honest … once again the blurb on Amazon really doesn’t do the book justice:
Let’s be honest … you probably wouldn’t pick that up unless you were truly desperate for something to read would you? Let’s see if we can spice it up a bit!
Captain Jonathan Dallas leads a small task force on a critical mission against hostile SK (Sino Korean) forces. However when a research vessel under his command disappears his investigation uncovers a much more serious threat. A hostile alien race has captured his ship and while his superiors believe that these ships are merely SK forces in a guise not seen before, Dallas knows that he has stumbled across a significantly more dangerous foe. If his armada continue their planned attack into SK territory, not only will they be starting a war between human forces, they will also leave themselves open to a war against an unknown alien foe – one with their own agenda.
What do you think? I think it makes it a bit more interesting and intriguing? Not perfect perhaps but definitely better than the one earlier – in my opinion anyways!
CHARACTERS & STORY
Some really good and interesting characters here. Dallas was really good & believable and his motivations were well described too.
WRITING & LANGUAGE
As mentioned at the start – this part of the book was for me the best. It simply worked and you could see that the author made an effort not only to ensure that they minimized the use of jargon, but that their overall technology worked. I really liked it.
PACE
Good too – this isn’t one of those massive fleet battle books that I’m so fond of as the largest encounter I think was restricted to about a 1/2 dozen on each side. It was well portrayed though and the other elements of the story also made good sense.
Star Trek – Enterprise, Daedalus & Daedalus’s Children
I tried to enjoy this story, but it was an unpleasant experience for me. It starts with the Enterprise NX01 crew investigating an anomaly in a distant system. They visit the system to study the anomaly and they suffer a swift invasion by the system’s inhabitants and the crew are arrested. Trip and Hoshi manage to avoid arrest by launching away in a small, highly advanced Suliban cell ship and are picked up by an opposing faction of inhabitants who reveal that the system is in the middle of a long standing war. The capture of the powerful Enterprise threatening to tip the scales of the conflict to a rapid conclusion.
Much of the story has a lot of padding and are drawn out, there’s some good scenes where Trip shares his engineering expertise, but lots of time spent discussing how the alien food makes them sick. Here lies my first major problem; our main characters are haunted by illness throughout the story. This ever occurring deterioration of their health creates a lot of unneeded negativity for the reader. I disliked this, it often put me off my breakfast.
Later in the story, Trip and ‘The Guild’ faction launch a mission to rescue rebel fighters. To Trip’s surprise, he finds his old Engineering professor, Victor Brodesser. Dr. Brodesser was thought to have been lost along with all hands on the experimental starship, Daedalus. There’s some intrigue when it’s eventually revealed that the Enterprise crew is trapped in a parallel dimension. This accounts for the survival of the Daedalus crew, out of which, Archer’s wife was among.
Around the beginning of the second volume, we follow Captain Archer and his crew, being held in the opposing faction’s prison, from which they make a daring, inevitable escape. Scenes like these were honestly pretty impressive, the opening scenes were good and Trip has a couple of gripping scenes, but I feel like these gems are rare islands in a seeming ocean of bland, uncomfortable material. We learn that Archer’s alternate dimension wife had been married into the ruling family of the dominating faction, and passed off Archer’s son into the bloodline.
Right here I can’t help but feel like this whole thing has been a forced, belaboured attempt to emulate Star Wars. When you stop and take it in, that’s what you’ve got, just a cheap, drive-by Star Wars-ing for no real reason that they can conveniently never come back to. It’s different to some degrees, but I really fail to see why these similarities are necessary.
So guess what happens, just guess. They rescue the Enterprise, they fix the diplomatic problem, they go back to their home dimension and leave the alternate dimension version of Archer’s son in the alternate dimension, where he belongs. Wooptie-doo!
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t care for these books, even though I read through both volumes. I tend to agree that Star Wars is one of the greatest stories ever told, any attempt to change or adapt or borrow from it is obvious and shameful. Not recommended.
Probably the book I enjoyed the least in the series as while it continued the Slaver Wars story very closely & kept our favorite characters close, it had too many elements that just simply didn’t make sense and were completely illogical.
As I’ve just mentioned this one has the same core key characters however the focus is more on their offspring as they have progressed with the advancement of human science after the discovery of the survivors on Ceres from the previous book Ceres from the previous book.
This time the focus is all about the first human interstellar vessel and its launch into space. While the coverage of that part of the book is really good and in all honesty I think makes sense with the testing that they are conducting. What doesn’t make sense is the plot to take over the ship and settle in another part of the galaxy.
Simply put anyone with even half a brain would realize that a population size of the ship of that size isn’t simply enough to create a viable colony. In addition considering that they didn’t have a destination planet in mind the chances of finding a place to set up such a colony without intensive research just doesn’t make sense!
While I realize that some conflict is necessary this just seemed forced and didn’t really do anything for me in terms of the real underlying story.
The special four or five with the addition of Katie definitely has a big place in the future of the series and I could see why they were introduced, but here too some of these characters really don’t do a significant amount and are just hangers-on.
Having completed the series at this point (up until the Lost Fleet series of books anyway) I can tell you that it’s well worth continuing so even though you might feel that this book is dragging and find the same flaws that I did I can only warrant that it is worth the pain and effort.
What I liked and didn’t like
Let’s start with the worst 1st!
I think have made it quite clear that the whole conspiracy angle was something that just didn’t sit well with me. The sad fact is that any space program and especially one with the importance that this one must have, a psychological survey is part of it and to miss that part of it just seems obtuse.
In addition, even if the megalomaniac could sneak through the site survey they can’t be as stupid as they are portrayed here and be someone with such cardboard feelings! The villains are just too black and white with threats of rape and abuse seeming obtuse!
What do I like?
- Well, I did enjoy the fact that the humans on series continue to develop their technology and the Kocklyns Slaver Empire also continue to advance in terms of the size of the empire.
- I actually quite like the character of Jeremy and also enjoyed the fact that the survivors on Ceres had placed some covert assistance on the expedition.
- I liked the character of Ariel although here too I think that she was portrayed a little bit too childlike and innocent although Katie, by contrast, was quite a good character.
- Kevin and Angela, however, didn’t really do anything for me & to be honest throughout the series, they are more filler than anything really important.
Final thoughts
Overall the weakest in the series but it does have some key elements and some key characters that are worth meeting. A quick read if you have the time, but you could almost skip it and still enjoy the remainder of the series.
Having gone to school for Television Writing, I have a decently sizeable social circle of snobby boob tube connoisseurs. One would assume that some discourse surrounding Syfy’s The Expanse would be generated in the vicinity of my presence (A.K.A. Facebook)…
But no one’s talking about it!
I suppose it should come as no surprise. Who the hell has Syfy on their HD Box plans? (It’s a joke Syfy, please don’t send me your army of bodacious female Korean hackers!)
Regardless, The Expanse is a great show overall. Hard to follow at times, especially to those who have not read the same-titled source material by James S.A. Corey (insert-embarrassed-emoticon). Beyond that, however, the show has some legitimate qualities that place it in the realm of “give-it-a-chance”ness. All it would take from the viewer’s part is an expansion of their expectations.
Mélanged Genre
Wikipedia describes The Expanse as a “space opera/ mystery science fiction”. I would say that this unholy trifecta of genres– space opera, noir, science fiction— while an intimidating mix, is an accurate take on the show’s voice. After all, as we have all come to know in our late night essay-writing moments, if it is written on Wikipedia… it must be so.
Without giving away spoilers, the show takes place in the vast reaches of space 200 years into the future and has elements of “whoddunits” as the three protagonists– more on them later– try to unravel the conspiracy that threatens to initiate a solar system-wide war. In an era where each of the following—Dune, Star Trek, Fire-renity, Xeno-Gears-Saga-Blade, Gundam, Star Wars—has a dedicated audience, this title merits its own. The Expanse falls under the sensibilities of what made those other titles so alluring—the possibilities of space, of the known-yet-unknown and articulating all these in a compelling mystery.
And it works.
Good story telling but not Great
By no means should the replacement of “Good” over “Great” detract potential viewers from giving the show a chance, as “Good” might potentially turn out to be “Great” after all.
The Expanse has a very intricate tri-protagonist way of telling its story. The audience follows three characters with awesome names: 1) Josephus Aloisus Miller (played by Thomas Jane), a cop born in one of the Asteroid Belt colonies who investigates the disappearance of a rich girl-turned-terrorist for the oppressed, 2) Crisjen Avasarala (Shoreh Aghdashloo), a peace-goaled big shot on Earth serving as one of the U.N.’s political figures (officially dubbed, “Deputy Undersecretary of Executive Administration” but let’s be real… neither of us know what that means), and 3) an officer of a space ice freighter by the awesomest name of… (eyeroll) James Holden (Steven Strait) whose story arc will not be revealed here—lest you want the first episode to be spoiled. Suffice it to say, his arc is directly connected to the plot points of the other two and it involves bad things happening to those who make the right decisions.
Perhaps due in part to the show’s tri-partite viewpoints, what really speaks volumes to the story telling style is that not everything is revealed in a convenient sequence of expository scenes. I would argue that, while necessary world-pertinent information is revealed early on, a lot of the plot-pertinent information is revealed in the middle of the series. Traditionally high-stakes act breaks are then more identifiable in the earlier and later episodes.
But what does this mean? For one thing, the viewer is left to do a lot of latent thinking, a lot of connecting the subtleties between episodes that may not have appeared significant at first glance.
In other words, viewers must go beyond traditional story telling and work a little for their prize. There is in essence, a great story here, but it must be “found”. Believe me when I say, “Every scene has its purpose,” even the ones involving the uncle and nephew (for those who have seen the show).
Believability
I was neither a Science nor Astronomy major, so if you happen to be either of those, best to ignore this following spiel… lest you yearn that I be shamed for my attempts at haughty space-oriented discussion. In that case, go for broke!
Nevertheless, the way I see it, The Expanse beats some of the other abovementioned Space Opera titles in the believability department.
Two things in the world of The Expanse. First, people born on space colonies outside of Earth actually grow to look like malnourished giants with hollowed bones. I don’t know whether this is a scientifically reasonable assumption to make but I do know that environment plays a significant role in shaping processes of human growth and evolution. Humans shouldn’t have the good fortune of looking like Asian pop stars like they do in the Gundam space colonies.
Secondly—and possibly the most important argument in this entry—the Asteroid Belters’ Patois! The show has received a lot of criticism for this added depth. But how cool is it that 30% of the actors in this show were pretty much forced to speak a creolized English with which they were most likely unfamiliar? Can you imagine the whiny arguments that took place between actor and director?
“Cut! Do it again!”
“Wah gwan bredren? Me so dinnae do again ye piece’a gobshite, ye!”
Point is, languages in isolated areas do appropriate from the root language and shape it into something different over time, perhaps as a means of collective redefinition. Ireland, Scotland, Jamaica, Singapore—despite the degree in linguistic differences in these areas, the residents still speak… well, English. It’s the same for the Patois in the Asteroid Belt. Although, why this isn’t Miller’s quotidian lingua is beyond me.
What are you waiting for?
Okay so, I am fully aware that despite the lack of explanation, the space colonies and ship vessels in The Expanse need a LOT of energy to sustain themselves (what is their source?), not to mention large horticultural sectors to keep their oxygen-reliant organisms alive… but… … sssshhhhhh… let’s just… just… yeah.
So the show is still not 100% believable, not 100% cohesive, not 100% anything, really.
Because science fiction.
What I can appreciate about this show is its daring boldness at making its world a tiny bit more believable, its story a bit more challenging, and its voice a bit more muddled and unconventional. At least in comparison to some of the other titles in its genre(s).
So what are you waiting for? Get lost in the world, get confused in the Patois, and waste more time than usual in making links to its divergent story line. Those who find it difficult to take this last extra step… the show just finished its first season, so binge watch away!!!
Er, I mean, wait till your subscription-based streaming provider acquires it in its library… yes…
Continuing on from the quite interesting Slaver Wars: Alien Contact, Moon Wreck takes us in a completely different direction than the one I was expecting. This time, we’re not exposed immediately to a resurgence in the war against the Hocklyn Slave Empire – instead we’re exposed to an Earth not too far in the future from today. In Moon Wreck we have private industry taking us out into space instead of NASA and it is one of these missions that stumbles across the hulk of a destroyed spaceship. A ship from the Federation of Humanity!
I have to commend Mr. Weil on his misdirection – the first book (The Slaver Wars: Alien Contact reviewed here) in the series started as a simple multi-empire battle between Human’s and their alien enemy but by the end of the book had transformed into a Battle Star Galactica like flight from a rampaging horde to a long lost and forgotten sanctuary called Earth. In Moon Wreck, by contrast, the story is not really of those survivors but is instead somewhat smaller and simpler in scope. The story this time, is more of a treasure hunt and perhaps a search for understanding. It’s probably something we’d all like to see and are all hoping for – a quick leg up into space!
A private space mission to the Moon finds a single survivor – the AI Ariel – on a damaged spaceship and it is left to her to instruct humanity on the coming conflict. With some compelling characters that help tie the books together into a cogent whole, this one while not as action packed as its predecessor does a really good job of continuing the story started in that book and keeping us in the Universe.
Overall Thoughts
I expected this book to continue the story started in Alien Contact, but instead (as we learn) the survivors of that flight were themselves decimated by the lowly germ (ala the War of the Worlds). When this flu virus decimated their population on Earth the survivors had to flee again and while a small contingent managed to survive, it definitely impacted their plans to inform humanity and continue the struggle against the vicious Hocklyn and their AI overlords.
What do you get when you combine BSG with Stargate? Perhaps somewhat surprisingly from the title and from other books this author has written, you get exactly this exact combination from The Slaver Wars: First Contact. Now it definitely doesn’t start down that path … in fact the early chapters of the book are more of a standard Military SciFi story similar to other books reviewed on this site:
Now I don’t want you think in any way that this is a bad thing … after-all they do say that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” … & if you’ve read any of the other reviews on this site, you know that I love those series’ that are seemingly based on the Master Of Orion game & its massive space battles which is what I thought I was getting when I first started reading the book. It took a drastic and dramatic change in the latter half of the book though and set us up for a quite compelling series of books to come which was an extremely pleasent surprise for me!
The book starts with a fleet in deep space looking for details about the size of a vicious alien enemy that had just recently decimated a series of Human colonies. We get a very large and extended flashback about the actual first contact itself as well as a look at the battles that took place before we’re once again returned to this fleet and its search for the enemy. While I wanted to get to the action quicker, I actually appreciated this flashback as it gave a very good insight into the character of the leaders of the human fleet and to some extent the motivations of the invaders also.
Returning to the present, the fleet manages to dispatch some cloaked scout ships into the heart of the alien Empire and it is here that they learn the disturbing truth. Not only are they facing a Slaver Empire thousands of planets strong, it is controlled by vicious AI’s with their own, unknown agenda.
Returning to the Human Federation, this fleet finds itself the only remaining viable force left as in their absence the Slavers had returned to the Federation and decimated all of their worlds leaving only a handful of civilian and naval vessels unharmed. The survivors however learn a secret however – one known only to a handful of people in the Federation. Tellus was not really their homeworld – they came from a planet far away called Earth!
Fleeing from the
CylonSlaver tyranny, the lastBattlestar GalacticaFederation Fleet leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest… a shining planet known as Earth.
What I liked
- The fleet battles were very well written – while the weaponry as mentioned below is not really on par with what you’d expect and in some ways pulls you out of the story, the actual conflicts between ships are described well.
- I really liked the Admiral and his crew. Quite a few of the supporting characters are also well written and I hope to see quite a bit more on them or their progeny in future stories. There is no immediate romance, but a gradual building up of affection over time which makes sense.
- The enemy – again lots of similarity to other similar foes from both Television and fiction – is interesting and believable. They seem to have their own story also which it would be interesting to get more information on in the future.
What I didn’t like
- I’m a bit on the fence in regards to the originality here. I have to admit that the way it was done was good – in fact the whole introduction of Earth v.s. Tellus was not only unexpected it, in some ways made sense. However, it almost didn’t need to happen at all … another excellent series in a similar vein is the Exodus: Empires at War series. Here Earth is decimated by a larger alien fleet and humanity flees to escape the purge only to have to face those same enemies thousands of years later. While I’m not suggesting that Mr. Weil would have been better served to copy Doug Dandridge, my point is that there are other solutions to get to the same place.
- It’s been pointed out by some other reviewers and I won’t belabor it here, but the weaponry seems to be significantly underpowered considering the overall technology of the fleets in question. Nukes in the multi-kiloton range and lasers as primary weaponry do not really give the fleets the firepower they deserve.
- While I know there needs to be a stupid politician – it’s almost a necessity in books of this nature it seems! – again you almost didn’t need that to get to the same point? While the military is (of course) perfect and blameless, a little bit of snooping on the part of the enemy would have got them to the same place?
Overall Thoughts
I know I’ve harped on a bit about how this book riff’s from some of our most popular fictional universes, but overall it was a good, fun read that I quite enjoyed. I’m really looking forward to seeing how we eventually kick the Hoklyn’s and their Overlords back to the center of the Universe and I’ll be picking up the next one in this series soon!