We’re back with Shelby Proctor, or Professor Shelby Proctor which was something she was never called back in the old days. We once knew her as Commader Shelby Proctor, the highly skilled scientist that helped Captain Tim Granger defeat the Swarm. As it turned out, Admiral Proctor actually went on to kill the last of the Swarm carriers which ended their presence in our galaxy. Captain Granger, meanwhile, drove his ship the ISS Victory into a black hole that closed the access to our galaxy for the rest of the Swarm. It takes a very long time for a ship to pass through a black hole. Even now, thirty years later, Captain Granger’s ship is just approaching the event horizon and being stretched beyond any reasonable means of surviving this journey.
During that thirty years after the Swarm defeat, Admiral Proctor became Fleet Admiral Proctor, defender of Earth and all humanity. She managed to convince all the other human civilizations that war among themselves was stupid and she also convinced the known alien races found during the Swarm wars, that attacking Earth or humanity was not going to be worthwhile. So as peace settled over the galaxy, Shelby Proctor retired from the Fleet and now teaches at small University, in Whitehaven, Britannia. She is sixty-eight years old.
Then, as it never happens to anyone in this world, she gets a visit by none other than the current Fleet Admiral, Admiral Oppenheimer. He tells her that there is a new threat in the galaxy and he doesn’t know how to stop it. So, he asks Professor Proctor if she would mind coming back into the IDF and checking out this threat in a way that would make it go away! And now the fun starts. This new threat seems to be one single ship. A previous IDF ship was sent to investigate what it was doing and, well, it didn’t go too well. So now it’s up to Admiral Shelby Proctor to save the day, again!
The book was very good. It had many exciting parts, but also some very dull periods where everyone just thought about what was and wasn’t happening. They theorized how to overcome this new enemy while Admiral Proctor went in search of her Nephew. Sounds kind of strange for her to do this during a galactic emergency, but she did. Also, it doesn’t appear that the IDF (International Defense Forces) have really advanced much in thirty years. While her new ship seems to be capable, it just doesn’t cut the mustard so to speak. Oh, yeah, her brand new ship is the ISS Independence.
So we get another three book series with some continuity in that Shelby Proctor and a few other characters carry over from the Tim Granger books. There’s a lot spoken about Captain Timothy Granger. Seems there’s a faction of humanity that’s made him into some kind of deity. Yeah, they have a church, pastors and all the other things you’d expect, even starry-eyed devotees that even thing Shelby Proctor is some kind of Saint. You’ll be interested to hear her thoughts on this new Grangerite religion.
I think I’ll be reading the next book. I didn’t get the kind of ultimate doom from this one as I did in the past. While this new threat seems dangerous, it doesn’t seem to last much. More is coming. At least that’s way Captain Timothy Granger tries to tell Admiral Proctor!