One Battle Does Not Win a War!
That line should probably be a good replacement title for this episode in the Exodus Saga. The young Emperor has set the stage for a major battle which, if won, will certainly cripple the invading Casca enemy. There are many things happening at the same time in this book. Some are hard to follow. Some you know should have the Emperors attention but he’s busy enough without having to do everything himself. Still, with good people around, he shouldn’t have to but it’s apparent that he doesn’t have the most competent people where they should be. How does an Admiral come to be in charge of the “Donut” security without himself being securely screened? Those kind of mistakes can lose this war.
So, we have an inconclusive end to this battle and to the war. It doesn’t appear that the much needed victory the humans wanted has happened although they are not through with the battle even though the Cascas are running back to their base which has already been destroyed. So it looks like we’ll have to wait for the next book to really find out if this effort has really done a lot of damage to the enemy.
I’m not especially fond of books that leave you hanging. This one does and even during the battle, it’s a little hard to follow just who’s winning. There are so many numbers being thrown around that it’s impossible to know which really mean anything. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like this book, because I did, and I do look forward to the next one in this series.