Wow! I really like these books! They are just about exciting as anything I have read in quite awhile. It seems like our hero is on the go from start to finish in this book and that means he’s always in trouble and fighting something.
Last time we left Rade Galaal he had become a full fledged MOTH. In book one, titled “Atlas”, we enlisted in the UC Navy, made it through basic training and after many attempts to talk him out of it, our guy finally made it to MOTH training. Then he died! Well, he almost did trying to get through that rigorous training regime. He survived and marched on through everything. Always by side were Alejandro and Tahoe, his life-long buddies. He had also found a girl, lost her and then found her again and lost her for good. She is a Navy asset, just like Rade and must do her duty. When the Navy picked a volunteer to remain behind and destroy the slipstream gateway, Shaw did her duty as Rade and his ship went through the very same gate.
Rade was also given the callsign of “Rage” which fits he fighting style. He doesn’t quit even when the odds are against him and he seems to always find a way out. His platoon is now getting ready for a highly classified mission to directly confront the enemy and see if they can cause it’s destruction. The enemy is the black skull ship we saw in the first book. It contains the crab horde which are attached to those gigantic slimy slugs that seem invincible. There mission is not far away, unfortunately, one of Tau Ceti II-c’s moons has just been invaded by a skull ship. The population is being destroyed with the majority of the friendly robots, androids and artificials turning against humanity. The MOTHa are being sent to stop the invasion once and for good.
Things don’t go well for Rade in this book. He’s not going to find Shaw, not for a long, long time. He’s lost his best friend, Alejandro, and he could lose more friends on this next mission. But he’s a MOTH and that means he’s a man that has no thought of stopping, or does it. How much can a man truly put up with before he finds his breaking point? Even MOTHs are human, very human. Rage is going to be tested along with a fellow MOTH. Their survival depends on each other and even the tormentor both had to suffer under. Still, she might be the most important capture for humanity in this entire war.
We also get a glimpse of Shaw and what happened to her after destroying the slipstream gate. She’s turning out to be one tough cookie. She’s landed on the same planet Rade left and she’s managed to stay alive for eight months, so far. Now she needs more oxygen. Her subtle was crash landed by the AI who piloted it in while Shaw was in stasis. Things have gone south for her pretty much ever since the original crash. She believes she’s the only human left in this system which is eight thousand light years from Earth. There’s no going home. There’s no Rage for her.
I really like the way the author does the soul searching with these guys and now Shaw. They are really just humans although I think they have much, much stronger wills to live then the average human. They don’t stop when the going gets tough no matter what. Very few people will really fight when the time comes. Most would prefer to have others fight for them, but not the MOTHs and Shaw. I really like where the story is going. And the reason behind that statement is that I don’t know where it’s going. I was pleasantly surprised with the turns this book took. Some of the stuff that happens in this book I would never have thought would happen.
I’m already into “Atlas 3”. I can’t put it down any more than I could the other two books. Make sure you set some time aside, because once you start reading any of these books, you won’t want to put them down. I hope there’s a fourth book now.