This is a hard book to rate because the first third of this book is some of the worst crap I have ever read (see rant below for details). The rest of the book is passable with a pretty good ending. I like the set up so I forced myself to keep reading past the crap and will go on to the next book in the series.
The Rant [SPOILERS]:
The book starts really stupidly with 4 schmucks infiltrating a high security area by simply putting on women’s clothing and climbing in a helicopter. Never mind that that should not have been remotely possible with all the security people and an AI monitoring them. But the security people are all incompetents since, even though they received training night and day, not one of the security people could handle the situation without the one person absolutely everything is dependent on risking his life by walking into a hostage situation.
The MC, Jake Thomas, is the sole surviving person authorized to access the AI and the AI is the sole hope of humanity. So for him to risk his life in any way is absolute stupidity per the author's own story line. In short, the opening scene of this book is one of the most moronic things I’ve every read. The author apparently felt the need to show his main character was a bad-ass so desperately that he couldn't be bothered with little things like showing his main character to be a complete moron or staying true to his own story.
Not satisfied with level one bad-assery the author next has the MC lead a raid into post-apocalypse LA even though there are specially trained security people for this very mission AND THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF HUMANITY DEPENDS ON THE MC's SURVIVAL. The MC is in a fight for the very existence of humanity and has space ships. Why is this happening at all?????? Why doesn’t he just torch LA from space????? Sure, we find out that the LA people the MC is after have families but that is the very reason the LA people shouldn’t steal weapons from the people trying to make the world safe again. AGAIN, THIS IS AN APOCALYPTIC SCENARIO- you don’t risk the existence of all humanity just to find out how bad the people WHO STOLE GUNS AND ROCKET LAUNCHERS FROM YOU are. Unfortunately the MC taking stupid risks not justified by the rest of the story is a fairly common occurrence in dystopian novels. I don’t know if authors are just unwilling to follow their own scenarios through to their logical conclusions or if authors don’t believe readers would like it. At this point I don’t really care. The author is ruining his own story by turning his MC into an idiot that can’t recognize human survival depends on his staying alive. Plus the incompetents he’s working with who, in a world ruled by guns, can’t keep their guns secure. AND YET IT GETS WORSE!!!!!!!!!! THE LA BAD GUYS STOLE THE GUNS TO MAKE CONTACT???????????? NEVER MIND THAT THE LA BAD GUYS COULD HAVE JUST MADE THE EQUIVALENT OF A PHONE CALL SINCE ONE OF THEM WAS ALREADY IN THE MILITIA BEING SPONSORED AND SUPPORTED BY THE MC. I REALLY CAN’T BELIEVE HOW STUPID THIS WHOLE STORY LINE IS. STUPID THIEVES WHO STEAL AS A FORM OF COMMUNICATION IN A WORLD WHERE RAPE AND MURDER ARE COMMON????? STUPID ALLIES WHO CAN’T SECURE THEIR OWN WEAPONS AND A STUPID MAIN CHARACTER WHO NEEDLESSLY RISKS HIS OWN LIFE WHEN HIS DEATH WOULD END ALL HUMAN RESISTANCE TO THE ALIEN INVADERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND WHY DID THE THIEVES DO THIS????? BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T WANT TO MOVE OUT OF THE DANGEROUS CITY INTO THE SAFE AREA!!!!!!!!!! THEY EVEN GO SO FAR AS TO TURN DOWN AN OFFER OF HELP IN MOVING FROM THE MC WHO HAS FLYING MOTORCYCLES, HELICOPTERS AND SPACESHIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW F-ING STUPID ARE THESE PEOPLE????????? LARGE GANGS TRYING TO KILL YOU IS AN EXCELLENT REASON TO MOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yet it gets worse . . .
The moronic MC isn’t satisfied just risking his own life for no real reason (since he has troops to deal with this stuff). No, he has to also bring along his second-in-command and true love who, in spite of having super high tech all around her which is monitored by an AI, is surprised and captured. Worse, she gets off several gunshots, which the AI somehow magically fails to register, as does all of the troops in the area, including the MC who is about 300 yards away (roughly, based on the non-sniper rifle MC uses at the start of combat). And yet it gets worse. . .
To control their prisoners the worse LA bad guys (as opposed to the LA bad guys who stole the weapons) strap a “mini-claymore” to the MC's true love with a string. Personally, had I been in the true love's position WITH THE FUTURE OF ALL OF HUMANITY IN THE BALANCE, I would have immediately triggered the claymore. It may kill my captors. My armor may protect me. But even if neither of those things happened the bad guys would have lost pretty much everything with my death since, AGAIN, THE MC CAN BOMBARD THEM FROM SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yet it gets worse. . .
The idiots who grabbed the second in command did so because they saw a group of armed and armored super soldiers flying over their 18th century technology holdout. So, already not smart enough to realize they shouldn’t piss off the people with flying motorcycles, machine guns and body armor. However once they do grab her they are unable to hurt her in anyway because of her high tech body armor. DO THEY THEN REALIZE THEY’VE BITTEN OFF MORE THAN THEY CAN CHEW??????????? SOMETHING THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS FROM THE FLYING MOTOR CYCLES ALONE!!!!!!!!! NO. And, even though the whole premise for this encounter was that they saw the flying motorcycles on their way in, they don’t prepare for an attack by their prisoner’s companions. NO, THEY JUST TIE HER UP AND INEFFECTIVELY ASSAULT HER SINCE THEY CAN’T REMOVE HER BODY ARMOR. And yet it gets worse . . .
THE PERSON THE FUTURE OF ALL HUMANITY DEPENDS ON THEN UNDERTAKES A SOLO MISSION INTO DODGER STADIUM, THE STRONGHOLD OF THE WORSE LA BAD GUYS. IF ONLY HE HAD TRAINED PEOPLE TO DO THIS FOR HIM . . . OH WAIT, HE DOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yet it gets worse . . .
The MC does all of this even though he is still recovering from injuries received when he stupidly waded into the hostage situation his incompetent (in spite of constant training) security allowed to happen.
To date I have only encountered one scene in a book more stupid. There a super villain who has spent years successfully hiding her identity literally flew down out of the sky, announced who she was, what her power was and what her greatest weakness was in two sentences. That was the most stupid scene I’ve ever encountered. This is now a close second.
What is really sad is common sense was all that was called for. The thieves could have just not stolen anything and made contact and the troops trained for security and a planned infiltration of LA. Security personnel could have done their jobs and just like that this becomes an actually good book. And yet it gets worse . . .
In the next set of scenes it is revealed that the super intelligent AI that listens to everything all the time and was responsible for translating during negotiations with the “good” aliens who are also being oppressed by the “bad” aliens didn’t actually listen to what was said during those negotiations and so missed the fact that one of their new allies has an entire fleet of military vessels in orbit around their planet just waiting for a buyer (because, heaven forbid, they actually donate the ships to the people trying to free them from oppression). And yet it gets worse . . .
The AIs in this story are the lynch pin. They give humans the ability to beat the bad aliens in earth's vicinity. Even though there is FTL communication that can support holograms, for some reason it does not allow the AIs to remotely pilot more distant battleships like they do with the ones in earth orbit. And for some reason there are no attempts to make more AIs, let alone to start putting them on spaceships so they can just take themselves wherever they are needed UNTIL THE VERY END AND THEN ONLY BEGRUDGINGLY BECAUSE THESE PEOPLE ARE JUST TOO STUPID TO LIVE.
Bottom line: This book contains some of the worst crap I have ever read and the only reason it doesn't get just 1 star is I like the big picture scenario and some non-crap was mixed in.