Tenth Planet 3 Final Assault by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Tenth Planet 3 Final Assault by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The final book of The Tenth Planet trilogy breaks cleanly into two sections. The first, occurring roughly a month before the orbit of the Tenth Planet brings the aliens back in reach of the earth, is focused primarily on getting the human race ready for one last titanic clash with the aliens. Its culmination is a speech by the president of the U.S. that is viewed as critical to get people to stop rioting in terror and start working constructively to save the planet. It’s a good speech, I just wonder why the president waited six months to give it.

 

The second half focuses on the assault of the aliens and all of those preparations that humanity has been making for the last book and a half. There’s a lot of tension, made more so by getting into the head of the alien leader who is frankly a very sympathetic figure. He’s trapped too. If he can’t harvest energy from the earth (which he does through a nanotech that destroys all biological material in a massive region (the first pass took out most of the Amazon jungle) and converts it into energy) his whole race will die. This is a nice touch to the story, because this isn’t good versus bad, it’s two “goods” clashing here with neither side having any choice but to fight.

 

I won’t give away the ending other than to say that both sides show they are flexible and creative in their tactics. I will also point out that the aliens don’t seem nearly worried enough about humans sending missiles after them after the Tenth Planet passes the earth. With 2006 years before the next pass, I would put my money on humanity finishing off the aliens while they are all in cold sleep waiting for their planet to come near the sun again. But had they realized it, it probably wouldn’t have greatly altered their tactics. Their window of opportunity to fight the humans was simply too short.

 

All in all, it’s a very fun trilogy.