Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Nick Cole

Showing posts with label Nick Cole. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Dark Victory (Galaxy's Edge #12) 4Stars

Title: Dark Victory
Series: Galaxy's Edge #12
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Space Opera
Pages: 294
Words: 103K

Well, until I see body parts spattered all over, or the the complete wreckage of a ship, never trust that someone is dead until then. Those are wise words to live by. And I lived by them. And the authors lived by them, because the princess was NOT dead like was implied in the previous book. Instead, she gets picked up by slavers and taken to a slaver planet to be sold. Hurray! Because you know Keel/Ford/Wraith/NeoRechs (my goodness, just how many identities are the authors going to give this guy? He needs to find himself) is going to come kicking down the door to rescue her. And he does. With the help of Blackleaf and the ultra-kajillionaire. And the Savages make a real comeback!

We’re talking Savage Wars 2.0 right around the corner. It’s going to be brutal.

Ravi, now fully revealed as an Ancient One, does what he can to oppose the Ancient Evil that is trying to destroy our galaxy. Like many of the literary Mentors of the Light, he doesn’t appear to be doing a lot. But you know he’s set stuff in motion and letting it play out. Evil Red Yoda (Urmo is his name) trains up another Champion of Evil and lets him loose. Little Girl Jedi finds her mother and it turns out she is a Savage, one who is able to manipulate the same forces as Ravi, and her daughter. Things are really starting to escalate.

I fully enjoyed this. And that is all I want from these Galaxy Edge books, just to sit down, read and have a killing blast of a time.

★★★★☆

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com

Galaxy's Edge Season Two continues as a divided galaxy is navigated by heroes forced to chart their own dangerous courses.Wraith, seeking to acquire intel on the mysterious Kill Team Ice, finds himself teamed up with an unlikely Nether Ops ally. Zora and Garret, in pursuit of a lost friend, will have their loyalty to Captain Keel tested. And the strain on Nilo and Black Leaf continues to grow, with unexpected intensity.For all of them, the path forward is a crooked one, weaving through House of Reason loyalists, Bronze Guild bounty hunters, brutal slavers, Legion operators, and the mysteries now emerging from the empty and foreboding space beyond galaxy's edge. And each step along that path only seems to reveal a new, darker truth about what's coming for them.

Sunday, March 03, 2024

Legacies (Galaxy's Edge #11) 4Stars

Title: Legacies
Series: Galaxy's Edge #11
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Space Opera
Pages: 466
Words: 155K

I enjoyed this more than the first book, even though it starts off with killing off one of the main characters we were introduced to in the previous book. I was not a huge fan of that but it help bring the focus back to Wraith/Ford and then Prisma and her warbot minder, K88 I think its name is?

There was also a lot of jumping around in both character perspective and in time. We meet Urmo again, the evil yoda of this series. If I hadn’t recently read Imperator (back in December) I doubt I would have remembered who he was and I would have been left scratching my head about his brief inclusion to the story.

The main story is that Wraith has a bounty on his head from the Assassin’s Guild and he has to track the head of the guild down to find out who put the bounty out on him. But to do this, he has to pretend to be Tyrus Rechs, who is dead (and like, dead dead. Dying in a nuclear explosion will do that to even immortals, surprise!). So Wraith is dressing up in Rechs old armor and goes to the assassins guild to get the job to hunt Wraith, ie, himself. But it all goes pearshaped when the Guild catches on and sets an ambush for Wraith. But Wraith is good enough to survive and now he has a lead.

The other storyline is about Prisma and K88 and their adventures on a Savage mini-hulk that is tractor beaming in random ships and using the passengers to run random war game scenarios. They are hooked up with some Republic fighters and one of them is from the same project that Wraith/Ford was in. Ravi shows up in the flesh and helps them out. Prisma is hearing a woman’s voice in her head, someone who can use the power who is nobody she knows. Turns out it is a Savage and she has plans for Prisma.

At the same time, Wraith, who is doing that whole Rechs/Wraith thing, finds out that his dad was not his dad but an old army buddy and that he, Wraith, is a long lived military experiment meant to be the tip of the Legionaire’s spear. To survive when the House of Reason took the project over, he had his memory suppressed and his buddy pretended to be his dad so there would be no record of him.

All of this is happening at the same time. POV’s are switching every couple of chapters and the forward momentum is absolute non-stop and relentless. By the end of the book I was begging for things to just stop and be in a bit more of an orderly fashion. I can understand why they wrote the book the way they did, but it was exhausting to deal with. As much as I complained about Takeover not seeming to advance the plot from Season One, I couldn’t complain about how the POV’s were handled. This just felt messier. Add in the deaths of Carter (the character from the previous book) and the apparent death (and if not, the complete disappearance of) Leenah and I had some real issues with how they handled secondary characters. I mean, why waste the entire first book of the series on a character who isn’t going to be around?

I know I have complained a good bit but I was happy overall with the book. It’s taking much longer for the authors to make apparent the path this second season is going to walk and I want that foresight now. I’m just thankful that author Nick Cole can’t narrate this series by some idiot who can’t tell a good story. Ohhhh, I still get angry with how they handled the Forgotten Ruins series. And look at that, I’m STILL complaining. I think somebody needs a nap.

★★★★☆

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com

With his duty to the Legion satisfied, Wraith sets out to find a lost member of his crew―the young girl, Prisma. But not only does the journey bring with it more death and destruction―and loss―than he ever imagined, it revives the shadows of a forgotten past… and the only way forward is to follow the footsteps of the legendary Tyrus Rechs.

Meanwhile, as the galaxy struggles to steady itself following the fall of a corrupt and bloated Republic, dangerous threats vie for power. These enemies include both the exceedingly modern and the impossibly ancient, awakening at long last to emerge from the darkness between the stars.

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Takeover (Galaxy's Edge #10) 4Stars

Title: Takeover
Series: Galaxy's Edge #10
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Space Opera
Pages: 348
Words: 114K

Much like Legionnaire, book one in the first season of Galaxy’s Edge, Takeover is almost straight up milsf. Because I had more experience with both authors, that didn’t surprise me like it would have a year ago. Doesn’t mean I particularly liked it though.

This was a bridge book with two brand new characters who appear to have zero relation to the characters I came to know in the previous nine books. That connection better get made in the next book or I’m afraid that season two of GE is in for a very bumpy ride. This is not the way I wanted to restart the series. I wanted pure space opera and I didn’t get that.

I enjoyed my read but at the same was disappointed that it wasn’t what I was expecting. I don’t have anything else to say right now.

★★★★☆

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com

Every disaster brings an opportunity.

Goth Sullus and his empire have fallen.

With the Legion and the rest of the galaxy watching from the still-smoldering galactic core, Carter, a former legionnaire turned private contractor, and Jack Bowie, a Navy spy with nowhere left to turn, sign up to work for an enterprising private contractor looking to make a statement on the planet Kublar.

Plans are in motion dating back to the Savage Wars, and as the galaxy rushes to fill in the vacuum created by the fall of the Imperial Republic, the bodies are hitting the floor.

But every plan has a reckoning…

Takeover is the thrilling aftermath of the final, desperate execution of Article Nineteen and the looming rebirth of the Legion and the galaxy itself as the road to Galaxy’s Edge: Season Two begins!

Saturday, December 02, 2023

Imperator (Galaxy's Edge #4.5) 4Stars

Title: Imperator
Series: Galaxy's Edge #4.5
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF/Space Opera
Pages: 323
Words: 104K

Ahhh, this was fantastic to return to the Galaxy’s Edge universe again. The Star Wars That Could Have Been. I read the final book of Galaxy’s Edge: Season One (Retribution) back in February of ‘21. I then read many of the spin off series and the final Galaxy’s Edge book I read was Angles of Attack in August of ‘22. Since then I have been patiently waiting for Anspach and Cole to finish up Season Two of the main Galaxy’s Edge series and then had to wait for an opportune time to slide it into my reading rotation.

So imagine my surprise when I came across a Galaxy’s Edge book I hadn’t read it. It was labeled #4.5 and fit between books 4 and 5 (duh, but you can’t be too careful). So I decided to kick off my reading of Season Two with this prequel. It was a good refresher course all about Goth Sullus and his history and what he was afraid of the entire time. I also felt that it introduced The Big Bogeyman so that I remember who/what that is, which is what I’m assuming S2 will be all about. If I had read this when I supposed to, I suspect I would have forgotten most of this by now.

This is the story of Goth Sullus, aka Caspar Sullivan, the Man who would be Emperor with a power no one can resist. He has sought this power for the good of the galaxy though, as it just won’t act like it should, ala how Caspar thinks it should. We go from the time his parents were killed to the attack on him as Emperor by his own Elite. His search for the power leads him to a planet where a twisted Yoda-like character named Urmo trains him in the ways of the Crux.

This was not a linear story at all but at the same time it was. We follow three different time lines of Caspar’s life and each time line is linear, but how and when we jump from one to the other is apparently random. But the authors handled it in such a way that I never felt confused about which timeline I was in nor did I get story whiplash jumping from one to the other. They handled it admirably well.

Caspar’s life is ruled by fear, even once he becomes Goth Sullus, and that fear is what drives him, motivates him, spurs him on. It’s not a good fear either and it makes him become the man that is capable of being Goth Sullus. All in all, this was a great character study of a weak man who was given much power.

On a side note, I’ll be using the Details code for the synopsis so there will be no repeats of Season One where some of those books had six page long synopses. You will not have to scroll through that this time around. On my honor!

Finally, that cover. Oh, is that total Star Wars vibes or what?!?!? Ahhhh, it is a soothing balm to my soul. Here’s the big version:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/h345vxf9k8kn5qr9t64qt/Imperator.jpg?rlkey=pz9ewzhlj27xnmc6r9mvhf5zo&d

★★★★☆

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com

Warrior. Slave. Survivor. Emperor.

As a crumbling Galactic Republic falls to the relentless assault of a merciless foe, so begins the rise of an enigmatic emperor intent on saving a corrupt galaxy-spanning civilization from itself… and from something much darker that lies beyond the reaches of the known.

Just as the reins of power fall into his iron-fisted grasp, an assassination attempt by a hidden cabal within his own inner circle jeopardizes every plan he has set in motion for his Dark Legion, his Imperial Navy, and his ultimate conquest of the stars. But the assassins have no idea who they are actually dealing with… or what he has become.

Imperator is a darkly heroic epic that spans the boundaries of time, space, friendship, and one man’s quest for a power that never should have been found.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Strange Company (Strange Company #1) 2Stars

Title: Strange Company
Series: Strange Company #1
Author: Nick Cole
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 419
Words: 150K

~huff~ Well then. When I was reading the Forgotten Ruin series, I wondered which author to blame for the style it was written in, Jason Anspach or Nick Cole. This book answered that in spades. It fell squarely on Nick Cole’s shoulders. It was all his fault and this book was completely his fault, as he was sole author here.

Let me be clear. This was not badly written. It was not poorly executed. But it was written in a style that I detest and in a manner that I’ll only read over my own dead body from here on out. Much like Solzhenitsyn’s Experiment, this was my own Literary Experiment in Masochism. It was a complete success. Or failure, if you’re a normal person.

And that cover? I love that cover. A lot! If the book had been even 1/10th as awesome, well, it would have been awesome. Pooh.

This was some SF space version of Forgotten Ruin. We have our narrator who tells us everything except that cool action’y stuff we want to read about. Do you want to know the big secret lie that the nigh immortal rulers of the galaxy have been hiding and is about to be divulged to Strange Company? Too bad. You get the story of why a kid joined Strange Company. Who promptly dies on the next page. Now is that awesome or what? And can I get a “please repeat that gung-ho military as many times as possible please” while I’m at it? I can? Fantastic. Nothing is more awesome than a catch phrase used ad nauseum.

This has confirmed to me that Jason Anspach is the storyteller behind the Galaxy’s Edge duo and that Nick Cole is whatever he is. It also has shown me that if I start a new series by them and I don’t like the first book, that series will never change and I will never end up liking it. That’s not a bad thing to learn.

There is a second book, but I would rather cut my own throat with a rusty spoon, scoop out my esophagus with said spoon and then eat it than read that second book. Nick Cole gets no more chances from me.

★★☆☆☆

From the Publisher

Stack bodies, get paid, get to the ship.

“If you can survive Reaper Platoon in the Strange, then Ghost or Dog Platoons will get you for their own. Best to steer clear of the freaks in Voodoo, kid.”

Surrounded and outgunned, a group of private military contractors known as “Strange Company” find themselves on a remote planet at the edge of known space, and on the losing end of a bad contract. Orbital D-beam strikes, dropships bristling with auto-guns, missiles, and troops - even Monarch space marines in state-of-the-art advanced battle rattle - will try to prevent the company from reaching the exfil LZ and getting off-world.

For Strange, that means it’s time to hang tough and get it on with as much hyper-kinetic violence as they can muster to get clear of the whole mess. And what the Strange can’t get done by violent assault and crazy firefights, they’ll get done by the freaks of Voodoo Platoon - operators who have been changed by the Dark Labs into powerful and unnervingly unnatural asymmetrical weapons.

This is the Strange Company. Because in the Strange, it’s always really Strange. Join them - and get ready for full auto combat at the furthest limits of human exploration

All of My “Nick Cole” Reviews

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Book of Joe (Forgotten Ruin #5) ★✬☆☆☆

Title: Book of Joe
Series: Forgotten Ruin #5
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 211
Words: 75K

This is a book ALL about Talker and how he survived and helped Joe.

What. The. Feth.

I am now done with this series. Don’t care how cool the story is, because it is always in the background and I hate Talker. I hate him for hogging the book. I hate him for whining about how he’s not good enough to be a “real” Rangeroo. I hate him for writing about coffee instead of what’s going on. I hate him for describing a ruin for 2 pages while a massive battle gets 3 paragraphs.

So I am done.

Nick Cole has a duology that I’m going to try out next. I need a cool down from Team Anspach/Cole.

★✬☆☆☆

All My “Forgotten Ruin” Reviews

Monday, February 27, 2023

Lay the Hate (Forgotten Ruin #4) ★★★☆☆

Title: Lay the Hate
Series: Forgotten Ruin #4
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 209
Words: 76K

The Ranger-Roos are off on a big bad mission to kill somebody. Only, they get side tracked and kill somebody else and the stupid narrator, Talker, who is like the most important person to the group for his linguistics skills, jumps into a dimensional vortex/rift thingy to save another ranger so he pretty much is dead.

Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!! No more blathering idiot going on about coffee or blabbing about wanting to be a real Ranger-Roo. I actually did a fist pump when it was revealed that he was dead. It was very carthartic for me.

Of course, we’ll have to see if the next narrator is any better. I have a bad feeling Anspach and Cole (the authors) are just going to use some other nitwit to journal instead of, you know, actually writing an exciting adventure novel. Aaaaaand I just went on Amazon to see how many books were in this series and wouldn’t you know, one of the later books has Talker as the narrator again. Tarnation!

★★★☆☆

All My “Forgotten Ruin” Reviews

Friday, January 20, 2023

Violence of Action (Forgotten Ruin #3) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Violence of Action
Series: Forgotten Ruin #3
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 249
Words: 85K

Hey, would you look at that? There’s an actual story in this book! AND. I only counted 2 instances of Anspach and Cole (the authors) rimming the rangers. Talk about a relief.

So the rangers have to take down Smog the evil green dragon who is in an alliance with other evil powers that menace the kingdom of men. They take him out and rescue a bunch of captive elves and find the King of the Elves, who Last of Autumn is betrothed to. So no more googly eyes for the narrator at his elven lady love. Awww, so sad. Honestly, I was expecting her to die a horrible death, so at least this way she stays alive. Hard core military types are married to the Service and a wife comes in a distant second. Very few relationships can survive that.

This was the kind of story I was waiting for since the very beginning. Special Forces setting themselves an objective and then killing everything that stands in the way of them accomplishing that objective. I am definitely going to keep reading the series now but I simply can’t recommend it to anyone else. The first 2 books just destroy any chance of that. I’ve never been in this situation before, where the first couple of books are absolutely terrible and then improve dramatically. Usually I’m done with a series before that point (or it never does improve, which is what usually ends up happening).

I also can’t recommend starting here because then you’d be lost. Why is the Ranger Captain a were-tiger? Who is Last of Autumn and why is it so shattering to the narrator that they rescue her betrothed? Who is this evil Vampire SEAL? All of the big points get covered, so in that regards you could start here, but all those little things like what I mention, well, good luck. I guess this is for super-hard-core Anspach & Cole fans OR super duper military types who like annoying narrators. I’m glad I stuck through to this point but it pretty much ate up all the goodwill A&C have built up with me. They don’t get any more chances from me.

After the main story is a small “prequel” story that starts to introduce why everything in the Ruin is so Dungeons and Dragons. Long and short, a crazy genius woman, whose only good memories were of a summer when she got to play some D&D with other normal kids, goes off the rails completely and uses nanotech to start changing the world. It was complete “scyenze” but it sounded cool and was good enough for me. And since this is pure fiction and not “A Message From They Who Know Better Than Poor Plebian Me” masquerading as a story, I have no problem with said scyenze being used.

★★★☆☆

All My “Forgotten Ruin” Reviews

Friday, November 18, 2022

Hit & Fade (Forgotten Ruin #2) ★★✬☆☆

Title: Hit & Fade
Series: Forgotten Ruin #2
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 274
Words: 97K

The only reason this was better than the first book was because it was over 100 pages shorter and the final battle was awesome without the narrator going “Ranger X is gonna out-Ranger every other Ranger who is Rangering like a REAL Ranger would Ranger, which you would know if you were rangering like a real ranger too, scrub”.

I'm going to give the next book a chance. But if I hit the 50% mark and rangers are still out-rangering all the other rangers, blah, blah, blah, then I'll dnf the book and the series. Us regular Mil-SF readers don't got no time for butt licking. We want a good story.

★★✬☆☆

Forgotten Ruin (Book 1)

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Forgotten Ruin (Forgotten Ruin #1) ★★✬☆☆

Title: Forgotten Ruin
Series: Forgotten Ruin #1
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 477
Words: 171K

★★✬☆☆

Saturday, August 27, 2022

Angles of Attack (Galaxy's Edge: Dark Operator #5) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Angles of Attack
Series: Galaxy's Edge: Dark Operator #5
Author: Doc Spears
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 330
Words: 113K

Synopsis:

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com & Me

The galaxy follows a logical structure.

Legion Dark Operator Kel Turner believed that.

To know the order of battle and how an enemy unit was organized was to know its purpose and how to destroy it. That logic existed down to the smallest scale, down to what made up life itself. To know a molecule’s structure was to know its function—they were one and the same. It was no different for Kel. He was Dark Ops and Dark Ops was him. Down to his last cell and very soul.

But the covert action arm of the Legion is changing. And so is he. And if Dark Ops is no longer the same, how could Kel be Kel?

From fighting a gray war against a cunning adversary bent on genocide, to slogging through a jungle hell full of rabid dog-men, Kel won't stop until the mission is complete. He was his mission. But if the day comes when there would no longer be a Dark Ops for Kel, what would his mission be then?

Who would he become?

Once Dark Ops becomes public knowledge amongst the Legion, Kel realizes his time is done. He leaves the Legion and goes back to his girlfriend and her family.

My Thoughts:

This is the final Dark Operator book. It was chockfull of military adventure stuff and things were speeding along at about a million miles an hour. Then it just ends. The reader doesn't even get the ending from Kel's perspective, like the whole series has been. He leaves, leaves a letter and we get told all of it from Kel's superiors.

I seriously thought about giving this one star for that kind of ending. It was like a right hook out of no where and it was not a pleasant experience. It showed me that “Doc Spears” doesn't know how to write an ending to save his life. As such I'll probably avoid any more GE books by him (I don't think he's written anymore thankfully) and I definitely won't be checking out any non-GE books by him.

With all of that bellyaching out of the way, I can say that up until the ending, I was enjoying the ever living daylights out of this. There was boatloads of military action and Kel was kicking butt and slitting throats left and right. It was one of the best Dark Operator stories so far. And I think that is why the ending hit me so hard. It was like running at full speed and hitting a brick wall. That hurts a lot. Now if you were just walking, it would still hurt, but not nearly as bad.

This brings me face to face with the decision of where to go next with Anspach and Cole. Galaxy's Edge season two has 2 more books before it finishes up. The penultimate book doesn't come out until sometimes in September, so who knows when the final book will be published. That leaves me with A&C's other series, Forgotten Ruins. There are currently 6 books in that series and book 7 will be published in December. See, talk about being caught on the horns of a dilemma. I trust you will all commiserate with me in this most difficult of times.

* cue dramatic yet totally manly pose *

★★★☆☆

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Exigency (Galaxy's Edge: Dark Operator #4) ★★★★☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Exigency
Series: Galaxy's Edge: Dark Operator #4
Author: Doc Spears
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 297
Words: 104.5K

Synopsis:

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com & Me

A legionnaire’s only failure is the failure to do what’s right.

Kel Turner is a victim of his own success. His exploits and victories as part of Kill Team Three bring the attention of forces seeking hegemony over the Republic.

These shadowy power brokers know that a man like Kel represents a threat to their plans… unless he can be persuaded to join them. And if the operator declines his hidden enemy will stop at nothing to destroy him.

At a deadly crossroads, Kel is told to choose between love and duty. But his foes are ignorant that he has a third choice.

Win.

The dark operator is the master of all the tools of lethal combat. Kel will need them all to succeed.

Experience the epic fourth installment of the Dark Operator series and join Kel on a desperate, daring mission against an evil that runs deep in the heart of the Republic. Become a Dark Operator and escape the expected.

Kel tells his buddies and superiors about the blackmail and they formulate a plan to root out the mastermind behind this corruption of the Dark Ops. They succeed and the Head of the Senate appears to be behind things. They disappear him and suddenly Kel has a real chance at living the life of a civvie with a spacefaring family. The book ends with him not sure which way he'll go.

My Thoughts:

Yeah, THIS is what I expect from a Galaxy's Edge book. This showed how Nether Ops, those dastardly evil spawn of hell, got their start. And it showed them getting their butts totally kicked by the good guys! Now THAT is how a story is supposed to be told.

Near the beginning I was afraid Kel was going to try do the Lone Wolf thing and go against the Legion, but I should have known better. The author isn't an idiot and as such his characters aren't idiots just to propel the plot. Thank goodness for good story telling (again).

There is only one more Dark Operator book left and I suspect it will end with Kel either leaving the Legion for a family, or they all die and he becomes a hardened warrior out to KTF. I hope he gets his happy ending, he deserves it after what he's gone through in these 4 books so far!

★★★★☆

Friday, April 29, 2022

Rebellion ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Rebellion
Series: Galaxy's Edge: Dark Operator #2
Author: Doc Spears
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 283
Words: 104K

Synopsis:

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com & Me

For Sergeant Kel Turner and Kill Team Three, the wait is never long. Whether it’s on a core world snatching a delusional genius who knows too much, or on the edge forging allies among a complex alien culture, Dark Ops are the foot soldiers of the House of Reason’s galactic game for dominance.

Danger looms over Kel and his teammates like taxes over a Republic citizen. The promise is written in blood. Now they face a crisis that makes their worst firefight tame in comparison. Kel learns that sometimes there are no clear answers, manuals, or templates to follow. Isolated from Republic help, when the lives of thousands hang in the balance, a planet looks for a savior. Fortunately, when there’s a dark operator on hand, the odds favor the Legion.

KT3 kidnap a rich genius and disappear him. Then the entire book switches to them being on an alien planet that the Republic is woo'ing for the rare elements available. The Company has made a deal with the largest tribe, arming them with modern blasters and tanks, etc. Several Kill Teams are training this new army. The army rebels, the supposed leader declares herself the leader of the world and plans to wipe out every single human on the planet.

The Ambassador gets all the surviving humans (many were killed in outposts they were doing research at) into one city and begins evacuating them. But with a brand new army and guns and tanks, the rebel isn't going to let that happen. So she begins to march on the city, which is pretty much defenseless. Kel figures out a way to send an asteroid onto the army and destroy it without cracking the planets surface.

The book ends with an extremely powerful Senator making note that Kel is too resourceful for a Legionnaire and needs to be cut off.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed my time reading this but have realized that what I really like about the Galaxy's Edge universe is the original authors writing. Jason Anspach and Nick Cole write what I want to read, military space opera. Everybody else who is playing in this sandbox seems to be writing just military science fiction. I enjoy mil-sf, but not as much as space opera.

The beginning of the book felt like a short story inserted to pad the page/word count. I kept waiting for what happened then to have ramifications when they were on the alien world, but it never did. The beginning chapter/s (I forget if it was longer than a chapter or not) simply had zero integration with the rest of the book. It was very jarring.

Decent read but not mind blowing or anything like that at all. I'm giving this 3 ½ stars but really, I think that half star is just for the name Galaxy's Edge. If the next book is of the same quality and holds my interest the same, I'll be knocking things down to a more realistic 3star. Mind you, this isn't bad. It just isn't what I got in the original series.

★★★✬☆

Sunday, March 13, 2022

Dark Operator ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Dark Operator
Series: Galaxy's Edge: Dark Operator #1
Author: Doc Spears
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 355
Words: 130K

Synopsis:

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com & Me

Legion Dark Ops has always been a unit shrouded in secrecy.

Tasked with performing covert missions, its kill teams are filled with the best warriors from within the ranks of the Legion.

Kel Turner is one of the youngest legionnaires ever to be selected to its ranks. After many battles and trials, he is faced with the greatest challenge of his life - operating by himself on a remote planet at the galaxy's edge, a foot soldier for the policies of the duplicitous House of Reason, tasked with solving a crisis that would take ten kill teams to resolve.

Diplomats, spies, shadowy terrorist groups, and an enigmatic general work with and against Kel as he fights to save a society from itself. What can one operator do alone, separated from his kill team, fighting a war that has no name?

Once Kel has turned around the various police forces of the planet and done a lot of good work, he's asked to leave. Immediately. By the very man he thought was his friend on the planet, the titular head of security for the Families.

Once he reaches Republic Space, he finds out that that same man used the skills Kel gave him and his men to overthrow the Families and establish himself as Dictator. And all of this was known about and used by the politicians of the Republic.

My Thoughts:

This was MUCH better than the Order of the Centurion sub-series (which I dnf'd partway through). While still not engaging in a tone of space opera that the original series does, this managed to be a thoroughly enjoyable military SF romp. Part of my enjoyment, and focused me on what I didn't enjoy about Order, was that Kel is a pretty well rounded guy. I guess my problem with Order was that I was reading about guys who were breaking apart in some way or other, and the testing that Tyrus Rechs set up for even getting into the Legion should have weeded out fellows like that. Here, Kel is everything I expect to read about when reading about the Dark Operators, the top of the top of the Legion.

He's young, not stupid, but naive in terms of just how the galaxy works in certain ways. It takes him by surprise when the Security Chief takes over using a coup. He's really surprised when his best friend is killed by the Zhee and he finds out that the head of the Dark Operators helped train Zhee back in the day. He's a great mix of deadly, competent and naive.

The story was good too. Kell is on a world that is experiencing some civil unrest and is helping the security forces get a handle on things. As such there is a lot of military action but it is liberally leavened with social things like going out to eat or going to a party. For me, it was perfectly balanced between straight up Mil-SF and good old fashioned adventure.

I'm looking forward to the next one. And once I'm done with this 5book sub-series, I'll have to see what kind of back catalog Doc Spears has of his own original stuff.

★★★✬☆

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Stryker's War ★★✬☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Stryker's War
Series: Galaxy's Edge: Order of the Centurion #3
Author: Josh Hayes
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 197
Words: 63.5K

Synopsis:

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com

Feel the thunder!

Stryker Company always brings the fight, but when they relieve embittered and embattled Republic marines, they find an enemy unwilling to stand up and face them. Tasked with protecting the Republic's interests on a mining world, the legionnaires face roadside ambushes, double-dealing locals, and constant sabotage.

And the mission isn't as straightforward as they thought it would be.

As skirmishes escalate into coordinated ambushes and assaults, two squad leaders, Talon and Lankin, are forced to chase after the sparks threatening to ignite the entire populace into a full-blown insurgency. Denied the legionnaires and resources they need to contain the situation, a single platoon fights to complete a mission requiring all of Stryker Company. The outnumbered platoon must work their way from glittering coastal ports, through steamy jungles and dust-covered mines, to find an enemy hidden seamlessly among the indigenous populace.

The cost is high; the sacrifice great...but nothing short of death itself will stop the legionnaires of Stryker Company from completing its objective. In this stand-alone tale of combat, brotherhood, and sacrifice, these legionnaires will learn what it truly means to make the ultimate sacrifices for their friends.

My Thoughts:

This Order of the Centurion sub-series is straightup Military Science Fiction without a hint of the Space Opera that I enjoy so much from Anspach and Cole.

I had the exact same issues with this book that I did with Iron Wolves. The main character/s are a bunch of worry warts with possible mental issues all the while operating in a hostile environment with idiots for bosses. I'm sure this would appeal to military vets, as it seems to be aimed at that crowd but as someone who came in on the Star Wars'ish space opera vibe for the Galaxy's Edge, this is not for me.

As such, I'm abandoning this sub-series and will start another one. Sigh, my first letdown in this series :-/

★★✬☆☆