This is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read everyone of his Star Force Series and Undying Mercenaries Series. If you haven’t latched onto those books, I highly encourage you to do so. This writer knows military science fiction.
In this new series, we’re finding an Earth that is trying to recover from some hard times. In the recent past, the Sun had a gigantic solar flare or something like that and just about destroyed everything on Earth. It did knock our technology almost back to the stone age. At that time, Earth had already been to the planets and had found gateways to the stars. We had colony ships landing on numerous planets in far away galaxies. Then the Cataclysm, as the solar event came to be named, destroyed most of our starships and shutdown our gateways to the stars. Earth then had more problems to solve at home than worry about lost colonies.
Now, Earth has risen from the ashes, but we’re still not ready to venture out as we did before. In fact, due to budget cuts, the existing small space force is crumbling. There is no money for new building new ships or hardly any for regular ship maintenance. The politicians believe that Earth is cut off from the larger galactic community and therefore has no need to worry about space.
Yet, a surprising discovery out near Jupiter takes the Star Guard pinnace Cutlass to investigate. Commanded by Lieutenant Commander William Sparhawk, this small ship has definitely seen better days. Commander Sparhawk is also a different breed of your normal Star Guard officer. His family is from the political side of the Earths governing body. His father is a Public Servant which almost equates to something like a planetary senator or similar. His father has a great deal to do with the funding or lack thereof for the Star Guard. He is absolutely opposed to the Star Guard and he detest his Sons decision to seek a commission in the Star Guard. And to top this, Commander Sparhawk’s current superior officer doesn’t care one wit for Sparhawk. He would prefer that Sparhawk resign his commission and go work with his father.
But, the Cutlass is giving the mission of investigating this mysterious object. So out to deep space it goes not knowing that its discovery will change everything and everyone. What they find is very interesting and deadly. It appears that while Earth has been under the assumption they were alone in the solar system, that has been far from the truth. Even some humans may not be entirely human!
This book is written a little strangely. I’m not sure how to explain it, but there’s a stuffiness to the writing. Commander Sparhawk seems to explain everything his does in great detail. He is either very inexperienced (true) or he’s trying to instruct the reader on how a starship Captain thinks through his actions. His actions with his crew make him sound as if he’s some kind of aristocrat not socially on their level which may be exactly what the author intended. The book isn’t hard to read, it just reads kind of weird, in my opinion, some times. I did enjoy this book and I’ve already bought the next book in the series, “Dreadnought”.