For some reason I haven’t been consistent in writing reviews for this series of books. I think it’s somewhat because I read this books a while back and now I’m back to reading this next book in the series. There is also another series titled “Star Crusades Uprising” which with I might confuse the storyline. I believe both series contain a central character named Spartan.
If you don’t know about Spartan, then read these books. He’s one tough guy who has grown greatly since the first book. Actually, he’s now married to a Marine Colonel name Teresa who he met on a clandestine mission a long time ago. She had two children already and now they both have Jack. Jack has grown into a young man who because of Spartan’s considerable absence hasn’t grown up much like Spartan. Jack is a Marine but in this book he seems to be pretty much of a Private that doesn’t know what to do or how to do it. He relies on his training to go into automatic mode when necessary otherwise his Sergeant has to be on him most all the time or he has another Marine pulling him along. One characteristic he has got from Spartan is his ability to survive. To Jack’s credit he came through a horrendous battle at Eos where him and a very few Marines were left alive.
In this book, the story presents the Biomechs approaching Helios in a gigantic comet. Turns out this comet is a Biomech fortress that is more massive than anything every created in human space. It apparently houses massive amounts of Biomech military capability to include massive starships and massive troop transports. The Biomech intend to occupy Helios and all the planets in the system while killing all now Biomech life forms. The comet begins to split with each part heading for a separate planet. Each part is also massive, far bigger than anything the Alliance has and far more powerful.
Meanwhile, Spartan and his comrades are off fighting somewhere. I don’t think I really capture where they were but I think they are back in the Sol system fighting on Mars. I believe they are trying to finish off the last of the Biomechs in the Solar system but I’m not sure. Switching between locations during the book was kind of confusing although they tried to do so at the beginning of chapters.
This is a well written book. If you like the exploits of Spartan, you’ll get a good dose of him although he isn’t the main part of this book. The story is also about his sone Jack although he also isn’t the main theme. What does become the main them is the Alliance’s attempt to destroy the huge Biomech comet coming towards Helios and it’s outlying planets. Strangely, the book is name the “Battle for Helios” but the actual battle is just beginning when the book ends. I’m not sure how this will play out because it leads the reader to believe that the good guys have no answer for the Biomechs massive orbiting space station.
I did find a number of typos in this book. Usual it involved small words that were missed typed or not used correctly. This kind of distracts from the reading but definitely not as bad as some books. Still, this book needs some closure editing.