Steven C. (SteveTheDM) - , reviewed on 2/21/2011 + 204 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

So let me start off by telling you not to worry about reviews of this book that include spoilers. I won't spoil here, but I will say that Weber ended this book with one of the most blatant deus ex machina ploys I've ever read. And --- because I knew it was coming --- it really didn't bother me.

So, read the other reviews here that contain spoilers. Those spoilers don't detract from the story at all, and instead actually provide a kind of incentive to *keep* reading, as you wonder when this thing that everyone complains about is going to happen.

But to the book. This one is another of Weber's military science fiction novels, this time with aliens coming to devastate the earth, and human beings essentially becoming guerrilla fighters to drive them away. I *love* Weber's military books, and this one gives him a setting that's truly different than the other books he's written so it really feels fresh.

His aliens are plausible---powerful, but not so much that any fighting is unlikely, and he portrays them with a mind-set distinctly non-human. (And part of the fun of this book is how much humans are non-alien.)

I really enjoyed this one, even though the ending was such an unfair twist.

4 of 5 stars.

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