Original review posted Thursday, April 4, 2013

Book Description: Simon Dodds has had his wings clipped. Shot down over the luxurious holiday planet Mythos and separated from his wingmates, he is quick to discover that the once-popular sun-soaked paradise has been transformed into a nightmarish war zone, swarming with armies of seemingly unstoppable black-suited soldiers. The Pandoran war machine is on the move, preparing to advance The Mission and deal to the rest of the galaxy the same fate it did the Mitikas Empire.

Unaware of what fate may have befallen his friends, the young pilot attempts to make his way through the dangerous streets of the war-torn city of New Malaga, as he waits for the CSN to rush to the rescue.

But from out of the chaos emerges something far more terrible; and if Dodds can somehow survive the next 24 hours, he might finally see beyond the lies he has been fed and hear a side to the story that no one wants him to: what really happened to the Imperium, who the black-suited warriors are, what the ATAFs were built for…

… and what his purpose in all of it is. Whether he likes it or not.

There are three sides to every story.
But sometimes the truth is the hardest side to believe.

Review 3 of 5 Stars

This is one of those books that I’m kind of torn about.  Some of the story is really good, but then other things kind of drag me out of it such as how some of the characters act.  For seasoned military people they seem to have a pretty high disregard for following orders (after a very slight bit of coercion from fellow teammates) and one in particular seems a little squeamish to be a crack fighter pilot. Another thing is that as I read through it, the major machine adversary has my brain screaming about replicators from Stargate in the background. There are times in the story when I’m really drawn in and at other times it seems like the author is just dragging things out for word count and I find myself wandering off.  The good news is that I was able to finish it so it’s not horrible and I’m even kind of curious how it all may end in the third book. I just don’t know if I can trudge my way through the third book just to satisfy that curiosity.  So I’ve given it three stars.  There are parts I really enjoyed and parts that completely snapped me out of the story due to the lack or realism.  Military science fiction has to have just the right mix for me and I’m not sure that the characters in this book are up to the task at hand.