Well, this book surprised me. I didn’t realize that it’s actually a prelude to a previous Jasper T. Scott series titled, “Ascension War”. That series was pretty intense and introduced a kind of horror theme to those books. Part of that theme was brought about when the crew got infected with some kind of alien virus that went about changing human DNA. That series dealt with the USS Forerunner, an early colonization mission to a very distant planet. This series deals with what happened on Earth while the Forerunner was out doing it’s thing. There’s not as much horror in this book, but I still don’t feel comfortable reading about how weak humans are. This is another books where we’re invaded and apparently just give up.
Yes, strange spaceships start showing up over Los Angeles where our main character, Chris Randall, is or was a body guard/driver for a very wealth family in this part of California in the year 2150. He’s been very good at his job although there hasn’t been much in the way of danger with this particular job. Still it was a job until it wasn’t! And that’s what just happened, he was fired by Ms. Pearson! She says that his services can be provided much cheaper by the two new security robots that they have bought. I guess robots now are frequently appearing as near human-looking and doing lots of jobs humans used to do. The Pearson’s already have several house bots so the security bots will fit right in and Chris Randall is out. He’s had the job for 10 years and now it’s over.
He has a wife, Bree, and two small children plus his mother lives with them in their small house that needs work. Bree works in a casino and both have pretty long and tiring schedules. Chris had just picked up his wife and is getting ready to go home from the casino when all heck breaks loose. Something in the sky’s over LA are attacking everything. This is the start of the invasion. We don’t learn much about these invaders until later in the story. Most of the book is about Chris and his families attempt to stay safe even while everything is getting blown up. He does decided to vacate their small home since it appears to be in the danger area for the invasion. While everyone else is panicking, he tells his wife and his mother to pack everything and the kids into his truck and they head for the hills. All the power has gone out in the city and with the missiles bombing LA, things are going up in smoke and it’s not safe to be around in the dark.
So, now you’ll read about where the Randall family goes to be safe. It’s not that hard to figure out since his “former” employers were very wealth and had a nice cabin in the mountains and with all the destruction he’s seen, he thinks it unlikely they will make it to the cabin. And if they do, he knows there are several other very expensive cabins in this mountain region which could hide his family with whatever is coming. Only the Pearson’s do make it up to their cabin and so does some other people. Some of the encounters aren’t going to turn out too peaceful and the invaders are now landing forces.
Eventually, Chris has an encounter with the aliens and it turns out these are they Kyrons which you can also read about in the other series I mentioned above. While he is pretty good at protecting people and property, he’s just one guy and it turns out the Kyrons can make themselves invisible. This doesn’t help Chris in the least and results in something terrible happening to one of his children. You’ll need to read to find out what.
I know the story on the other end of this with the other series about the Kyrons. I’m not sure I care to read two more books about Earths struggles against the Kyrons. Earth has already given up, apparently with much of a fight. It seems the invasion started and four days later all of humanity had surrendered! That’s not a story I like to read about. Sure, the invaders are much more advanced than us, but we know they can die just like humans do so why not fight for your freedom. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, except Chris Randall does fight back until he can’t. It’s strange that he does admit that he was in the military at one time and left as a Corporal. That’s not a very high rank to have been in the military for any number of years and I’m not all that sure he would have learned his warrior skills that well, but he does alright fighting when he does have to do so. Good story, but not one I’m really interested in reading further.