I’ll start out by saying that I do like these books, but they seem to be written for young adults. That’s not bad, but I’m very far removed from that age category so I need a little bit more adult writing. Oh, I’ll probably continue reading these books, but if I find something better, I’ll not be reading these. It’s been awhile since I have read a book about Fleet Admiral Jeremy Strong and the “Special Five” as they were called. Now I understand why.
This story is about the current and coming conflict with the Externals. This is a very large civilization of former Originators who took it upon themselves to enhance their bodies and minds far beyond their normal evolution. The “normal” Originators found that doing so turned these enhanced Originators into megalomaniacs! These enhanced Originators began to want to control everything and every one. It got so bad that the normal Originators broke off with these enhanced Originators and even went so far as to confine these enhanced Originators in their own star system with some kind of warp drive disruption field. The enhanced Originators started calling themselves the Eternals because they now had close to immortality. They also vowed to break free of this star system one way or another and then conquer everything.
Well, the Eternals have keep their promise. They did manage to break out of their star system and have been increasing their empire over the last two million years. They now have something in the order of a thousand star systems under their control. They have just not began wondering what happened to the original Originators and have decided they need to find and secure one of the Dyson Spheres which were the home of the initial Originators. Except now, the Dyson Spheres were the home of four races, the surviving Originators and their AIs, the Altons, Carethians and the Humans. They were not going to find the capture of a Dyson Sphere an easy task.
So, this is about the fighting between the good guys and the bad guys. It seems that the bad guys have a lot more starships than the good guys, but the good guys always seem to win or come out ahead. Fleet Admiral Strong and his people have developed some very strong weapons that the Externals didn’t know about, but they learn quickly that they cannot just throw thousands of starships against a fortified Human controlled target. They lose a lot of ships that way.
Then there’s the fleet Admiral Barns is leading whose objective is to find the lost Originators. They know from previous encounters with an Originator battleship, that other Originators have hidden until such time as a cure for a sickness they came down with can be found. Well, Jeremy’s people have the cure now they have to find the Originators no matter how few still may be alive. You’re in for a surprise when these lost Originators are actually found.
This book was pretty good. A lot of starship fighting. The only drawback was the editing. There were a lot of strange sentences with stuff repeated over and over. I don’t know how many times Jermey and his wife discussed the building of an exploration vessel, but it must have been repeated twenty times throughout the book. Also, the Externals seem to have to remind themselves that they are the superior race and should dominate all others. I think they also forget who they are because they are always saying, “We are the Etermals”! These books get longer just by repeating conversations that were just held in the last chapters. It’s very annoying!