Exodus: Empires at War, Part I (Exodus: Empires at War #1) ★★★☆☆

 

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Title: Exodus: Empires at War, Part I
Series: Exodus: Empires at War #1
Author: Doug Dandridge
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 255
Words: 103.5K

Synopsis:

Thousands of years ago, humanity began exploring the galaxy. A nascent empire was born. They encountered the Cara'carn, an alien empire that held itself to be pinnacle of life. The Cara'carn began a systematic slaughter of every system, world and moon that humanity had cultivated. Finally, all that was left was Earth. With 7 Ark ships, each equipped with a prototype FTL drive, humanity had to hope that at least one of the seven would escape and allow them to start over in an area unknown to the Cara'carn.

One ship did succeed. And they succeeded so well that Humanity became the dominant force in that galaxy and became a true Empire. Cara'carn became the bogeyman for the majority of humanity but the Empire never forgot that they had been driven away by a superior force. As such, they did their best to prepare for the inevitable clash when the two Empires met again.

This book chronicles the first encounters between the two Empires.

My Thoughts:

This was decent space opera. Dandridge did almost lose me because of the massive amount of POV's that he decided to use. I understood why he needed to use so many, as trying to get a good picture of an Empire that doesn't have instantaneous communications necessitates that, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. And if he continues to use such a plurality in future books I can guarantee I won't be continuing. But that's neither here nor there.

I really wish I had more to say, but “decent” sums it adequately. Nothing really bad beyond the POV's stood out to me and nothing really good stood out either. There is nothing wrong with being a “decent” story, it just makes it hard for the reviewer to say anything.

That being the case, I'm going to talk about the cover, because hey, why not? The layout reminded me VERY much of Mike Resnick's Starship series. Not exactly the same but so similar that even though I had finished the Starship series back in '13, these covers still reminded me of them. Starship was published from 2005-2009 and the Exodus: Empires at War series by Dandridge didn't start up until '12. So either they used the same cover artist (which is quite likely) or Dandridge pulled some skullduggery. While I always enjoy some good skullduggery, I'm going with using the same cover artist because nothing in Dandridge's writing suggests an evil mastermind genius.

★★★☆☆