Into the Battle: Rise of the Republic, Book 2

The first 80% was very similar to the first book in the series - good story/action; held my interest. For me, the side discussions are parts that I just skip over but I know many people like them.What absolutely, positively killed it for me was the story line associated with the introduction of the all knowing, ancient aliens.Per se, introducing another alien civilization wouldn't be a problem. But, what a load of c**p came with this one. And, it completely changed the type of book from an action/thriller to -- I don't know - an 'ancient aliens' show on the history channel.The author clearly has some agenda in the beyond stupid story of why the ancient aliens had lost track of humanity [that lives on Earth]. The reason the author gives is that these super advanced race [that are capable of traveling hundreds of light years in a minute], could not destroy a comet headed towards earth that started traveling towards earth from LIGHT YEARS away. This distance means the comet was traveling towards earth for thousands of years! They were able to destroy much of the comment but not the ice core! What!!Then, wait for it, the reason the aliens lost track of humanity was they thought that all humanity was wiped out when the comet hit [but not really] the earth. You see, 12,000 years ago there was a sphere of water surrounding the earth [WHAT?!]. When the comet approached earth, it hit this sphere of water and impacted somewhere in Russia - causing all the water to fall on the earth [WHAT?!]. All the water flooded the earth and wiped out almost all of humanity and all the dinosaurs [WHAT?!!! dinosaurs 12,000 years ago??].I know it's science fiction, but it has to be at least plausible. For instance, if there was a sphere of water surrounding the earth, how did light from the sun get through? No light, no life. How could there be water surrounding the earth? If it were too high, it would be ice, not water. If it were low enough to be water, it would have been in the atmosphere and would have fallen down under the pull of gravity. EVEN, if, as impossible as it would be, there were a sphere of water surrounding the earth a comet [or anything] hitting it would not bring the whole sphere down.And, this specific proposition wasn't necessary - surely the author could have created another scenario for what caused the ancient aliens to lose track of humanity.

The story has a lot of potential, and might go places if properly fleshed out.Parts of the book read like a magazine article. The authors skipped a major battle which introduced the penultimate enemy and instead focused on talking about new ships. It seems that the story is more focused on the inter-personal relationships among the main characters than on anything else. The most ridiculous part was communist China leading the Old World and America leading the New World. I was waiting for the cowboy in the 10 gallon hat to come riding in on his white horse to save the day.After reading a number of Sci-Fi books here on Amazon, I just can’t seem to take the current generation of Sci-Fi authors seriously. Especially those who self-publish. They seem to give only superficial thought to the story their writing, the stories are usually full of the latest internet social trends (in this series, the current love affair that Americans seem to have with China, previously it was with Russia,) their stories lack anything new and imaginative, just a rehash of all the Sci-Fi ideas already out there and they seem to just throw concepts at the wall and hope something sticks.I miss the days of Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov et al. The authors these days simply aren’t even in the same city as those greats.

Earth in under attack by a species called Zodarks. Physically superior to humans and willing to sacrifice themselves to achieve victory. Only are genetically enhanced special forces augmented with are robotic warriors are able to engage them successfully. Earth has aligned themselves with a alien species of extremely high intelligence and technology superior to ours as well as the Zodarks. They are called Altatairians. Our alliance with them is mutually beneficial to our survival and theirs. This novel is set well into the future. Non stop action is an understatement. Enjoyed immensely!! My highest recommendation!!

Many times, spaceships 'stopped' next to an orbiting station or ship instead of matching orbits. Ships hid in the 'clutter' of the asteroid belt, when in reality you usually can't even see another asteroid because they are so spread out. One station is said to be 'between' Mars and the belt, when in reality the different orbital velocities of Mars and any station further from the Sun than Mars would periodically find Mars and the station on opposite sides of the solar system and Earth often closer to the station than Mars. Towards the end, there's a description of Earth 4000 years ago that makes no sense. So while the story is nice, you keep getting shaken out of the story by these issues.

I do love the story lines but the more I read the More irritated I become The writing sometimes is great and other times it's just atrocious. The characters speak like teenagers. One thing that was particularly annoying is the cons t use of names during conversations No one and I mean no one continuously says the name of the person they're talking to during the conversation. The military situations the tactics I ridiculous It's obvious neither writer has any military experience nor Have they consulted with anybody who is military on tactics and operations Now considering I read military science fiction for the military part . How poorly that was betrayed was just too much to take so I quit reading the series

This series has everything SF readers want. Great plot, terrific battles, tons of tech and aliens. Really looking forward to the next book in December .

The generic part of my review:Read it in a few hours, which doesnt surprise me. I love this author's other works (Read the Red Storm series 2x over and now on my 3rd read of it, and blitzed both the Monroe doctrine books).As the Red Storm series, it's a little derivative, to be honest. I'm halfway through the third book, and the first book is the best so far. As with the Red Storm series, there was a good focus on the *logistics* of colonization, rather than the purely action packed sequence, which I personally found quite interesting - particularly in the Red Storm series.However, the work is pretty similar to other series I've loved. Which is no bad thing, I'm reading it rapidly, but there's nothing particularly novel or unique here. I think it's very comparable to the Odyssey series by Evan Currie, Expeditionary Force by Craig Alanson, or even some of the lesser ones like the Saiph series, Mosar, and a bit mixed in there from the Sleeping Gods series.With all that being said, it lacks the character of Skippy in the Exforce series, and its basically like Odyssey replayed with a bit of Exfor mixed in. And it's clear the author is aware of some of these other series, for example some of the naming of the aliens is straight out of Exfor which I cant believe is a coincidence.Anyway, its fine, a fun read, but not much more.Specifics to this book:Pacing goes down hill quite quickly. You hop and skip past months without even being conscious of it, some epic battles could have been told to add some drama but are told from the 'after the fact' perspective. Magical aliens apparate and give humans all this great technology. It's almost like if Craig Alanson had taken ExFor in a slightly different direction without Skippy.Anyway, it's enjoyable, but not great.edit: Also, the bit about the dinosaurs really threw me. Like, wtf was that? Is this guy a creationist? Just a bit bizarre and not really helpful to the story.

Well, I will continue to say that most of the story was interesting and engaging with some pretty galling continuity, and other, issues (I reviewed the previous book and said I would consider buying the second).The only human group of note are the Chinese (besides the amazing muricans) who head these boneless spineless group. It seems that the writer is just following the current trend or gobbling up all the propaganda he is being fed. If he had written this up to the fall of the USSR it would be the “Russian commies” that would control the entirety of the world bar the brave Americans. The only people capable of fighting for their own freedom… roll eyes?Later would be terrorist masterminds (of the “turban wearing persuasion”, now the Chinese. How it all happened? God knows… only that the EU’s evil empire had become the primary military and economic power on earth to be mysteriously gobbled up by the Chinese and kept under lock and key…— spoiler alert —-I had complained on my previous review of the American exceptionalism. The only true brave and noble people in the planet.It doubles down now. All the planet wants to run away from the enemy except the “muricans”. That’s right they are the only ones with a backbone. Well, that is pretty annoying at this level of Idiocracy but as it plays a smallish part of the book I continued. That would be bearable as the story progresses to a galactic field?… perhaps.There are the time frame and continuity issues. One year after conquering Rhea, and getting a visit by a dreadnaught that, at the time humans took Rhea was not being built… and took 3 years to build plus one to fit out… I am sure that there will be an interesting explanation on the time dilation in the Sol system.But what made me stop reading the book (unsure if it is a pause or a hard stop) was the nonsensical story a person with poor educational background would spout… a comet caused the biblical flooding killing the dinosaurs… let that sink in. Men and women using tools and talking Sumerian walking along with… dinosaurs. It would be funny as well if the writer was to say that he believes that Earth is 6,000 years old. A Bible nutcase is my name for someone IGNORING science and spouting nonsense and deciding to write science fiction. It would be better it it was in the fiction only (no science) or fairy tales.The complete breakdown of American education for all to see bare. Problem it is affecting others too.

So, you have probably read the first book and if you are anything like me, might think that the second book is worth a go.My main issue with the first book was pacing, the story timeline had no sense of continuity, you never know if the next chapter is 1 minute, 1, day, 1 month, 1 year, 1 decade after the last. Never the less it’s a decent story and you want to know what happens next.Book 2 starts off in much the same way, flawed but readable, BUT...... (SPOILERS)Just as humanity is facing real challenges and you feel certain that some clever plot line, maybe ingenuity, a bit of luck etc. will allow us to fight and win another day: the author goes into super lazy, can’t be bothered with this story any longer mode and short circuits everything good in the series by needlessly introducing a friendly super advanced race who upgrade our technology and integrate humanity into their wider war effort.Gone is the plucky underdog, gone are the complexities of long supply lines and limited resources, gone is any reason to read the rest of book 2 or book 3.

As the second in a new series, and a new setting, for a pair of authors that haven't done Sci Fi before, I continue to enjoy this series.The characters are, on the whole strong, the relationships seem believable, and the aliens are happy to be alien - Even the friendly ones have their own motivations, and that sets up some nice tensions in the action and conversation moving forwards. The technology and technobabble is a nice mix of semi grounded and Arthur C Clarke (Any sufficiently advanced technology can seem like magic), and the battle sequences are conveyed well and clearly.Thoroughly recommended, and now I just want book 3!!

After reading the first book in the series I was in two minds about starting the second. Like the first novel, I personally find that the writing style is too simplistic. We find out in this book that Admiral Hunt has 2 children. His son Ethan, becomes an integral part of the story later but his daughter is mentioned only once in passing where they spend a Christmas together, but she is not given a voice, so we don't know much about her. There does not appear to have been much in the way of independent editing either. The action sequences were not too badly written, although why you would fit a rudder to a space based missile is beyond me; directional thruster would have been more appropriate. No one ever seems to be able to accept in these Sci Fi books that the mass of a ship determines it's momentum and that to change direction you either need engines both back and front or you have to flip the ship over and blast your engines in the opposite direction. It is impossible using rocket based technology for ships to 'swoop in' on anything. Gravity plating would be one way around this, but is seldom used in books. One thing I found disappointing was that no attempt was made to get inside the minds of the Zodarks and explain a little of who they were and why they were fighting up until we met the Alterians. After the initial meeting with the Alterians, the alliance is formed incredibly quickly and the government's of Earth seem to out great faith in what they are being told. Oh, and it jarred a lot when the authors equated the meteor that caused the great flood of Noah with wiping out the dinosaurs, creatures that lived and went extinct millions of years before Homo Sapiens appeared on Earth. At one point the date was given as 12,000 years ago and then it suddenly became 4,000 years. The timeline was also a bit problematic for me in that all of this advanced space travel and Mars colonisation was happening only 80 years after the last great war that nearly devastated the World. I think there would still have been a lot of Earth base re-building going on before exploration of the Solar system took place. Some of the names given to the aliens were also a bit laughable. I mean Orbots is obviously an anagram of Robots, but to call your Alterian allies names such as Pandolly and Handolly, just makes you think that you are reading a children's book. James Rosone, the author, is selling the Kindle Version of this book for £6.99. Sorry James, but this should be in the bargain basement £0.99. There are better military Sci fi series out there and I won't be rushing to read book 3. On a conciliatory note, the authors bio page mentions that he suffers from PTSD from his service in the military and that writing helps him deal with this. What I would advise James is to keep on writing, but perhaps take on board some of the comments made by reviewers about some of his theories. Can I also suggest that you employ a good editor and if you already have one, consider changing them.