A thousand years ago, an alien race attacked humanity and destroyed the earth. This book picks up just as humanity finally defeats the alien invaders after nearly a millennia of battle. Just as they begin to celebrate the end to a seemingly-endless war, a series of mysterious events leads to a new fight amongst humanity and its allies. The beginning of the book is… slow. Considering a thousand-year war just ended, the celebrations seem remarkably underwhelming, and the character intros are dull. I was this close to giving up on the book. Fortunately, it quickly picks up pace, and gets better and better.
The story follows Commander Erik Debogande of the space navy (is that what they call it?) and Commander Trace Thakur of the space marines as they try to discover the dark secrets behind the new battle. Initially, it seemed like this would be a fairly generic military Sci Fi, largely focused on the brave spaceship captain Debogande, and lots of space battles. The book certainly has plenty of that, and does a decent job with it (though I found the space battles in The Lost Fleet Series to be more interesting), but the real highlight for me turned out to be Thakur and her marines. She’s a much more interesting and badass character, and the battles on the ground were more exciting.
The story also focuses on the central mystery of what is causing the fights amongst humanity and its allies, and it’s a decent enough hook to pull you along and keep reading. The alien races are also intriguing, but the book hasn’t explored them all that much yet. The book finishes on a high note, with some terrific battles, both in space, and on the ground, and leaves you with some serious cliffhangers, so I guess I’ll have to get the next book in this series!
