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Title: The Darkside War
Series: Icarus Corps #1
Author: Zachary Brown
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: YA SF
Pages: 241
Format: Digital Edition
Series: Icarus Corps #1
Author: Zachary Brown
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: YA SF
Pages: 241
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
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The aliens have
conquered us. They destroyed Washington, DC, made examples of other
capitals of the world and now occupy Earth. And they are the good
aliens.
Devlin's parents
are the leaders of the Protest Movement. After millions died in
violent protest, it was thought that only non-violent protesting was
the way to go. Unfortunately for humanity, “protesting” is a 4
letter word for the aliens. Devlin is caught in a sweep and unless he
joins the aliens new hybrid armed forces, his parents will be
executed on world wide television.
Devlin goes to
military academy on the darkside of the moon. The bad aliens make a
sneak attack and it is up to the recruits to get a message to Earth
to warn them. They succeed but find out that there are what appear to
be humans working for the bad aliens and that the bad aliens have
blockaded Earth's system and we're on our own.
The book ends with
Humanity swinging into a full time war footing alongside the good
aliens instead of under their boot.
My
Thoughts:
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This was everything I was afraid Red
Rising was going to be. (RR turned into a good, fun book
thankfully). Imagine that the Millennials now run the world and
aliens invade.
I just kept shaking my head in disgust at what was being written.
This was deliberately Young Adult (but with a boatload of profanity)
in tone but even still, the whole mindset of the characters were so
“today” that it hurt. I was thinking, Robert Heinlein wrote a lot
of juvenile books with young protaganists but they were still
competent human beings. These kids in this book? Bunch of special
snowflakes. I mean, the main character punches a girl while wearing
power armor because she steps between him and another guy who hate
each other. I don't care what anyone says, unless your life is in
danger, you don't hit women, period. A man is so much physically
stronger and as such needs to keep himself under control. The
profanity level is also another indicator of just how out of control
these characters are. If you as an author are going to write
simplified SF, then that type of language has no place in it. These
weren't military recruits swearing because that was the mythos but
because they were selfish, stupid kids who couldn't control
themselves for 1 minute.
Then the whole “Peaceful Protest” thing. This assumes that the
people/aliens you are protesting against actually care about what you
think. Once again, it is a completely modern YA idea that everybody
cares about ME because I'm so special, blah, blah, blah. I realize
that Earth was completely bent over by the aliens and that millions
died in the occupation, but my goodness, where is the Underground
military? You'd think they'd have their young people infiltrate the
alien/human army and learn about the aliens and their weaponry, etc.
But nooooooooo.
The final issue I had was how much Devlin simply “changes”. He's
a spoiled kid at the beginning and now is some sort of leader in the
new army at the end. He goes through a LOT during the bad aliens
attack and in warning the Earth has chances to really grow up, but it
wasn't written in such a way that I believed he did grow up.
The idea for this book is great. Even when I was done reading, I was
really tempted to keep on going with the series. ( Reading
Over The Shoulder reviewed this last year but never reviewed
the later books. Considering they haven't posted since September, I'm
also wondering if they're just done with blogging.) After writing
the above though, I realized this is a book that simply contains too
many things that rub me the wrong way.
Not recommended and I won't be reading any more by “Zachary Brown”,
whoever that cowardly piece of excrement is. If you're going to use a
fake name, don't bloody advertise that you're using a fake name and
that you're actually a really good writer with awards under your
belt. Especially if you're going to write such a sub-par piece of
simplified puff.
★★☆☆½
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