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Title: Iron & Blood
Title: Iron & Blood
Series:
Expansion
Wars #2
Author:
Joshua
Dalzelle
Rating:
3.5
of 5 Stars
Genre:
SF
Pages:
362
Format:
Digital
Edition
|
Synopsis: |
The Darshik have declared war on the Federation and taken over the star system Juwel and its single human occupied planet of Juwel.
A force of Marines reached the planet's
surface but none of their supplies did. Jackson Wolfe must run the
barricade that the Darshik have set upto deliver vital supplies if
the Federation wants to keep Juwel under their control.
A taskforce, under the control of
Edward Rawls, is tasked with providing support to Jackson to give him
fighting support. It was supposed to be led by Celesta Wright, but
she has been pulled to transport the Federations top diplomat to
another meeting with the Ushik.
Rawls' cowards out, leaving Jackson
high and dry. The Ushin ship is destroyed by a stealth Darshik ship
so Celesta heads back to support Wolfe. Everyone fights and kicks the
Darshik's butt. They also discover a huge construct on the planet,
which appears to be a Quick Terraforming Device, ie, it will only
take 10 years to convert the atmosphere to something the Darshik can
use.
The Federation Wins. And it is revealed
that the Ushin and the Darshik are the same species but controlled by
very different ideologies.
|
My Thoughts: |
I hate to say this,
but I think that Jackson Wolfe is back into the storyline. While the
plot was split between him and his protege Celesta, it “felt”
like he had a greater part. Dalzelle really tried, in the previous
book, to create another “hero” character with Celesta Wright but
he just didn't have the same handle on her that he had on Jackson
Wolfe.
Don't get me wrong,
I really like Wolfe. He was what drew me into Dalzelle's writing with
his Black Fleet trilogy. But a really good author can create
another character and still keep you invested. I think that Dalzelle
is a good author but has not yet reached that “really good” peak
yet. I was really hoping he'd break that barrier and that Celesta
Wright would be someone who could carry the story on her own
shoulders. She was more of a really good supporting character this
time around.
The space battles
were pretty good. Having the super-stealth Darshik ship was awesome
and I really liked how the characters reacted to having such a threat
around. There was a tiny bit of ground based battles with the marines
and some Juwel militia against the Darshik, but it wasn't much. I'm a
ground forces kind of guy, so more on-planet fighting would have been
nice. However, the main characters are all starship captains, so
ground fighting is not going to be a thing.
Right on the covers
of these books it says it is a trilogy. I suspect that there will be
another trilogy after this to wrap this storyline up. You just can't
start an interstellar war in book 1, scratch the surface of it in
book 2 and wrap up things in book 3. That might have worked with the
Phage in the Black Fleet trilogy, but that was a different
series. But I am looking forward to the final book in the Expansion
Wars trilogy, whenever it may come out.
★★★☆ ½
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