Whew! I can’t believe I have finished reading all 22 books. I started reading this series in 2015 with book 1 (of courseI) and now I’ve finished this final, long book. It was a thrilling series with lots of characters and many, many, many space battles. I can honestly say I never want to hear about Karacknids ever again!
This book begins after Jonathan and Georgia Somerville have returned from conquering the Silizzarus. They left Edward to oversee the agreement between the Human Empire and the Silizzarus that would guarantee the Silizzarus would stop melding in other civilizations progress. So far, they are sticking to the agreement. Edwards has enough firepower to destroy their entire world if they don’t.
So now Johnathan and Becca are to be formally married. In addition, Christine has decided to step-down as Queen allowing Jonathan and Becca to ascend to the Human Empire thrown as Emperor and Empress! This has to be done in order for Jonathan to carry out his pledge to his Father, the late James Somerville. His Father specifically told him to “stay the course”, which meant, he needs to eliminate the Karacknid threat to humanity and all its allies once and for all.
Without their Imperator, who James Somerville killed in his last act of this Second Karacknid War, the Karacknids are already fighting amount themselves to see who might become the new Imperator. They do not recognize Jonathan, as heir to the Human Thrown, as their new Imperator, although there are several clans of Free Karacknids that have already sided with Jonathan and recognized him as the true Imperator. Yeah, a lot of politics. Never the less, Jonathan has one goal and that is to invade Karacknid space and eventually capture their home planet Gayla.
He has put together a vast armada composing of not only Human Empire ships, but ships from over a dozen of alien allies. All have sworn to follow Emperor and Admiral Jonathan Somerville as did they follow his Father. They all believe that his goal is a sound one that has to be done if ever there is to be a lasting peace in the galaxy.
Jonathan has identified two border Karacknid clans that he sees a vulnerable to an attack by his forces. Yet, Jonathan isn’t just going after these two clans. No, he has another fleet composed of Eaglaton and Gramrians that are forming up to also strike northwest against two more Karacknid clans. This should confuse and put the overall Karacknid Empire in disarray for they have no leadership; only individual Clan leaders who can only bring to bear those ships they command. Jonathan believes his armadas are more than capable of defeating any Karacknid clan he might face.
He also has set into motion the building of a massive support effort at Earth and with every allied planet. They will continue to build new ships and manufacture more and more supplies, equipment and ammo that will flow to Jonathan and his armadas as they thrust through the heart of the Karacknid Empire. They will also be training new personnel to man this new ships because as they and everyone knows, Jonathan and his allies will have the burden of seeing many of their comrades killed in battle.
Now begins something that Jonathan’s Father had himself once accomplished. He and his fleet fought their way to Gayla and there James Somerville managed to kill Imperator Tanaka in Trava-klan, a personal one-on-one battle. Now, Jonathan wants to make sure that no Clan leader can ever claim the title of Imperator since to do so they must sit on the thrown of their capital city, Gayla. If Jonathan can capture and hold that capital and thrown, he will deny any other Karacknid the ability to claim they are Imperator. Eventually, he will force all fourteen or so individual Clans to recognize him as Imperator and begin teaching them a new way of life. Already Free Karacknids have seen that there is another way to live where their off-spring not be forced to die in pointless squabbles between clans. They also will see an Imperator that is not out to just glorify himself with the death of his people, but one that cares about his people and wants the best for them. That is a concept very few Karacknids have very experienced.
There will be many space battles in this book and it sometimes become an accounting nightmare in trying to track how many ships and missiles are being destroyed for fired at each other. Then you have the starfighters flying in each battle. These are the most expendable assets to the fleets but Jonathan doesn’t want to lose any more of these assets than does Georgia. But she will be flying right into the thick of battles. Her luck doesn’t always hold up and Georgia experiences something she never thought possible.
As you read through these books, the historian telling of these exploits also alludes to another war far into the future. This is something to do with the Antarians, but that’s an entire different war and a totally new series. This one has ended.
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==