Whoa, boy! Did I pull a boner! Don’t read any further if you like to read books in a series in the order they’re supposed to be read! This one is way, way out of order! I didn’t even know there were twelve other books in between this one and the first book! Yeap, I read Book 1, “Escalation”, of this new Part 2 and then I read this book, Book 14! Yikes! So, don’t read any further if you want to know the story as it was supposed to be told.
Since I did read this book, though, I’m going to go ahead and write this review. If I wait until I finish the other tweleve books I missed, I might not be around to write this. Not that it’s a bad series; it’s actually pretty good or I wouldn’t have read the first 15 books or part 1.
Even strangers is the fact that I didn’t blink when Nathan Scott starts off the book aboard a starship with the Ghatazhak guard talking to him as he approaches a large conference room. As I remember it, the last time Nathan Scott’s name was used, it was in conjunction to his surrender to the Jung and his resulting execution! The last book, or the first one in this series, indicated that Nathan Scott had actually survived that ordeal, but had lost his memory of who he was or what he was about. I didn’t even think there was some missing components to this story.
Apparently, there is a lot of missing stuff, but since I don’t know any of it, here’s what happened in this book. Nathan needs to build a fleet. He starts doing so by asking for help from the various civilizations in the Pentaurus Cluster. They reluctantly pitch in, some wholeheartedly, others, not so much. Still, his fledgeling organization is starting to take shape as the new, resurgent Karuzari. There has been some previous fighting in the books I haven’t read yet, because there is a lot of destruction in the Pentaurus Cluster.
That damage was caused by a rebel Jung leader called Lord Dushan and his Jung clan. They have been pushed back into their original territory, but are just waiting until they can again cause trouble. Nathan Scott plans to be ready when that time comes, but first he needs to travel to Earth to find out some information about this Lord Dushan and the way Jung clans work. This short trip almost costs him his life and does cost the life of one of our main characters!
So, this story does stand on it’s own, but I think we need to read the other twelve books in order to get the full story. I think it’s interesting, not only the story, but the fact that I just started this series up again, with book 14!!!!!