What an amazing series this has been. I am completely worn out! It feels like I’ve gone through MOTH training, several missions, been shot many, many times, lost buddies, lost a girl and nearly died several times, but finally lived through it all! And I’m just a reader! If I may make an understatement, these books are exciting! It doesn’t seem like there is a moment in which you’re not under attack. I know there are several periods where you’re mission planning, recuperating in the Convalescent Ward or pumping iron and exercising in the gym, but those short sessions seem few and far between. You had better be in shape if you are going to be a MOTH.
In this book, we pick up where we last left off. Except we don’t start with Rade Galaal and his MOTHS. No, we start with Shaw. We kind of lost track with her in the second book towards the end. She was taken by a green Phant some where we know not. We didn’t get any indication of friend or foe, although what was done to Fan, her quasi-companion, in skull ship just above Geronimo, doesn’t bode well for her. Still, this Phant seems a little different.
Earth has a new enemy out in the Tau Ceti system. It has come from the Geronimo star system, eight thousand light years away. A skull ship has been spotted over Tau Ceti-IIc. The MOTHs had been sent in to help the SKs repel the attack. They failed. Now a second skull ship has appeared over Tau Ceti-IIb and they both appear to be staying. Terraforming both moons have started in earnest. Something must be done to stop this alien invasion, even if it’s impossible to do.
So, the MOTHs get once again called to do exactly the impossible. They will split into to teams with each carrying a nuclear device. That device must be carried to the depths of each moon and planted next to what is believed the hive mind of each skull ship. The estimate that they must travel at minimum 25 clicks down into each moon, fighting crabs, slugs and anything else that gets in the way the entire trip. Oh, yeah, their MECH 5s won’t fit in the tunnels they will have to follow. Right about then, I would request a transfer to permanent latrine orderly!
There is a lot of emotion spilling out all during this book. Of course Rade is still not over losing Alejandro and now he’s lost Shaw. He thinks he’s at the end of his rope, but some how finds the way to trudge on. Maybe he’s not really cutout to be a MOTH like he thought!
This does seem to be the end of this series. It was a very, very good military science fiction series, just the kind I like. For some reason, I was reluctant to start the first book, “Atlas”, because I had already read about Rade in the “A Captain’s Crucible” series. There he’s just a part-time character called on my a starship’s Captain for specific missions. I didn’t know how intense and exciting these books would be. I’m very glad I read them and I think you will be also.
Isaac Hooke is firmly on my best authors list now. I’ve already downloaded the first few books of his “Forever Gate” series and eagerly anticipate reading that entire series, if it’s any where near as good as this one.