Before you get started on this book, be advised that there are three previous books by Steve Hawk that tells the story of General Grant Justice, the father of Eli Justice whom this book is about. I wished I had know that so I could have read those first and then followed up with this one. Seems like I read the last book in a series before reading the first three. But, that isn’t the way the author wrote them, that’s just my impression. This one seems to stand on it own.
I really like books with this theme. There’s a young man, Eli Justice, in this case, who has something to prove to himself. He’s the son of General Grant Justice who happens to be the supreme commander of all Alliance forces. Eli, wants to prove that he can do something on his own, without being under the shadow of his famous Dads name. He wants to earn what he gets and not be treated special because of his Dad. So, he enlisted in the Alliance Defense Forces (ADF), but he enlists as El Jayson to hide his identity.
Well, as most of the stories along this theme turn out, the young man does pretty well on his own. In fact, even with the cards stacked against him, he proves he’s the soldier that he thought he was going to be. Since his father had a long career that got him to the position he is now in, Eli had the benefit of being around the military all his life. Instead of shunning that kind of life, he embraced it and began at an early age to train to be a warrior. He had a lot of help. Those around him saw the young Eli doing his pre-military training and guided him on the right things to do and encouraged him to read and study the art of war. All this pays off in basic training with Minith Sergeants as his trainer. They weren’t easy on any one.
So, we find we’re on the planet Telgora with our allies, the Telgorans and the Minith. Eli’s Dad is on the planet Waa, where Eli grew up and that planet is the home wold of the Waa people, the fourth member of the Alliance. All of these aliens seem to get along with each other even though they had fought a very bloody battle with the humans not long ago. The Minith had at one time, dominated the humans even on Earth and were using humans as their slaves. An uprising led by General Grant Justice, led to the creation of a Terran military force, that with the help of the Telgorans defeated the Minith and destroyed their home world. As is the custom of the Minith, once beaten by a foe, they must become subservient to the foe and consider them their masters. At least that’s the way it is supposed to be. Although Minith soldiers are used to train Minith and Human recruits, there is some discord within the Minith leadership over their subordination to the Humans. One General in particular believes it’s time to re-establish the Minith as the superior race.
What we get then is a very interesting story of how Eli Justice gets involved in saving quite a few lives and proving to his Father and everyone else that he is just like them, a solider that can do his job and do it well. I really like the character of Eli. He does seem just a little too perfect at his young age. I don’t believe many young men would prepare themselves for the military to the extent that Eli did. He was not only physically fit, but very knowledgable on military history and other stuff most young guys don’t even think about. He also seems to always come out a winner, no matter what! I think the author also repeated a few times to many that his father was a hero of Earth. That was understand in the first or second chapter of the book.
Still, this is a very good read. My only disappointment is that I didn’t know there were previous books about General Grant Justice that described his career. I’m sure those books were as well written as this one, but I feel like I’ve read the final book in a series, but never read the books that came first! Not good.