Throw in a couple of huge battle stations and it just gets better. That’s what happens when you sling fleets of capital ships against each other. The combat is great and of almost epic proportions. Tyler Barron is himself and he is kicking arse as usual. It is battleship against battleship, fleet against fleet, commander against commander. This takes place in the 5th book, Cauldron of Fire, but unlike the preceding one, in this book the focus is back to military strategy, tactics and action. In these two books Tyler Barron and his Dauntless first have to sort out the mess that the political machinations in Echoes of Glory created and save what is rest of the proud warriors of the Alliance. They do not really manage to get to a five out of five rating but they are mostly solid four out of five star ones. At least that is the excuse I’m using for bundling these two books together to compensate for my chronic failure to avoid building up a backlog of books that I’ve read but not reviewed.Īnyway, this series is, possibly with the exception of Echoes of Glory, really my kind of military science fiction. These books do kind of go together a bit more than the rest of the books in the series. This is a review of both book 5 and book 6 in the Blood on the Stars series. To read one or two of these books is a stretch even with my quality filters set to low but the writer's worldview and lack of effort are just too much. genes and culture have disappeared and so have any pesky non-English names (again except the evil French themed empire). So we know nothing about the old empire except that every trace of Indian, Chinese, Eastern European, Western European, Mediterranean, South American, African, Arab, etc. Even all names are English or French, the two major enemies or Latin names (I still laugh at that whole Roman thing). Last but hardly least, it is too painful to read the nonexistence of non-whites in this universe. No need to read political science or history. The powerful being the economic rulers, not a gaggle of political frontmen (senators, etc.).Īmerican media has glorified that reality openly for more than a generation. Policy makers in an obviously capitalist society answer only to what is in the best interest of the powerful, as long as it can be sugarcoated as benefiting the society as a whole. Their main opponent is any stock dictator with a few systems under his belt and a successful dictator grandfather (borrowed from the North Korean model?).Įmpires making policy because of poll numbers is hilarious. The quirky little Roman themed Alliance is just weird. That's the quickest example that comes to mind. The damage done to the Soviet Union by the revolution, purges and world war 2 still marks their economy. The economic ruin of one empire doesn't get shrugged off in six months of television appearances by an evil leader. The idea could be fruitful if effort is put into it but it wasn't. The two large empires are bad copies of Honor Harrington's universe sliding into a roughly Reagan-era media myth of the Soviet vs U.S. The lack of direction of empires at war is unbelievable. The action is totally predictable and the characters run through their emotions and dialogue like a poorly directed community theater group. Blood on the Stars will continue with The White Fleet. And, even if Barron and his people succeed in their mission, they will be trapped behind the enemy fleet, cut off and alone.ĭauntless is book six of the Blood on the Stars series. The fleet will be with them, all the might the Confederation can muster, but success hinges almost entirely on Dauntless’s desperate attack. They must sneak around the vast forces of the Union fleet, into the heart of the massively-defended system, and somehow destroy the pulsar. They will go to the Bottleneck, the system where the Union is preparing the final assault. The generator can hide a single vessel, so Tyler Barron and the crew of Dauntless reunite to take their aging battleship once more into the breach. It is not as powerful as the pulsar, but it just may be enough. The Confederation has its own ancient device recovered from the Badlands, a stealth generator. There is a chance to avoid annihilation, a small one. The clock is ticking quickly toward midnight. The Union is preparing for the final invasion, one that cannot fail with the great artifact at the head of their fleet. The pulsar…an ancient weapon of unimaginable power, one that threatens the Confederation with total destruction.
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