Escape to Earth is another series that I tried because of Kindle Unlimited and the ability to obtain books for “free”. You might recall my previous post on a similar trial with the series The Human Legion – Marine Cadet?
I guess lets start with my biggest gripe with the books in this series … that’s unfortunately the writing itself. It’s very stilted and seems forced and while some of the characters are interesting you can’t really engage with them due to the language. The idea itself isn’t bad & the concept as a whole is somewhat intriguing (I’ll describe that further below), but there isn’t really a flow to the story and while I’ve read through all of the books in this series, that’s primarily because they were free as I don’t think I would have paid for all four books.
Escape to Earth – Running from Fate
As the first book in the series, this is where some of the most intriguing ideas and concepts are put forward and while some of these elements continue to play out in subsequent books, they aren’t given as much weight there.
In the Fellowship a rule exists that a “primitive” planet cannot be contacted unless they develop a stardrive or forcefield. However when a warrior from one of the races battling in the galaxy is forced to flee, his escape pod determines that the only way he can be kept safe is for him to hide. His hiding place however just happens to be one of those planets – a planet called Earth!
Transformed by his escape pod so that he mimics a human in shape and form, the Welkin warrior becomes Lukas – a blonde haired, blue eyed 6 foot tall Norweigan. Smarter, stronger and faster than other humans though, his now human body is impacted by strange and unexpected impulses that cause him to act and react in strange ways. He also learns all about Love and because of these changes to his system he finds a new home for himself on Earth – one that he is willing to do anything to defend!
Escape to Earth-Fighting for Space
Continuing on from the first book, Fighting For Space has the human’s and their fleets now competing on almost equal footing with the Fellowship despite being overwhelmingly behind in terms of fleet sizes. However if nothing else, this book and the ones that subsequently follow make the point that “quality has a quantity all its own!” as while they might not have the numbers, they are more than able to make up for this lack.
What doesn’t really seem to be considered however is the fact that 3 dimensional combat is significantly different to 2 dimensional and this would be even more evident in Space where the enemy has the ability to attack from a multitude of different directions – simultaneously. While Saxon does cover the improvements in technology, he doesn’t spend an undue amount of time on it & it really has the feel of some of the older pulp classic E.E. Doc Smith books where every chapter had another new invention that was better, stronger, faster etc… than the one before. While somewhat exacerbating, it did help to move the story along, however its one thing when its the alien making all of the advances … its somewhat more annoying when the geniuses are the humans themselves as it always brings up the point – why didn’t they do it before?
Regardless there are many different space battles, but perhaps most importantly this book introduces the real villain of the series which is the attack on our Galaxy by another Galaxy entirely!
Escape to Earth-Defending Holy Ground
Continuing on from the previous book, Defending Holy Ground has fleet battles numbering in the million ship range. While the technology advantage is still on the humans side, the fact that literally a whole Galaxy is contributing forces to the attack vs. a single planet to the defense … well regardless of how good their quality is, in this case, overwhelming quantity wins out.
While some of the fleet battles (at least in size) evoke memories of some of the earlier books by David Weber and its similarities to old classics like Master of Orion the passion isn’t there for the characters and the multitude of ships that are destroyed.
Humans while no longer a defenseless species are still primarily on their own in this fight and bear the bulk of the work. I think to some extent this would bring up questions of resources as they realistically could not put up fleets of the size they do, with the numbers they have left but its a small point.
Escape to Earth-The Legacy of a Conqueror
Finishing this series, we’re introduced to Lukas’ son and he is the primary character in this final book. Realizing that humanity can never truly be safe until they take the fight to the enemy Lukas and crew nominate his son as the Conqueror. The leader of all of humanities forces in their battle against the attacking Galaxy.
With telepathic abilities in addition to super strength, intelligence and speed the only fear is that he might grow to love his new found power too much, however being Lukas’ son and guided by the Sentinels he is able to maintain his humanity enough to find an alternative solution to genocide in several key battles earning humanity even more allies before the climactic battle against the Leaders of the evil Galaxy.
Overall Review
Some good ideas and interesting concepts, but unfortunately the bad writing tends to outweigh them. While worth reading through Kindle Unlimited or another forum that allows you to “purchase” books for a nominal or free price, I probably would not pay for this series if I had to.