Earth has nearly completed a second ship, a sister vessel to the Behemoth. This crowning achievement is hampered by a lack of a necessary element called Ulem, mined in deep space in planetoids and asteroids spread throughout Alliance space. The closest such station failed to deliver their goods. A lone security guard managed to deploy a distress call with a simple message: PIRATES HAVE TAKEN THE STATION
Turning to the Earth military council, the Alliance asks them to send the Behemoth to take back the station. In return, they will provide them with all the Ulem they need for two vessels and stay on to complete the construction of the ships. But the Behemoth has just finished a nasty engagement at a research facility and has not even returned home yet.
Chances are good that the pirates are merely there to steal an enormous amount of the expensive mineral but you never know…
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
This series promised me war with an alien race full of religious zealots.
This book gave me nothing but a small, ultimately insignificant, conflict where our heros deal with a group of pirates.
The conflict/action was your run of the mill, bland military sci fi. The book makes it seem, outwardly, that there is the possibility of failure. But in reality, this just isn't the case. So far in this series our characters haven't faced a challenge they haven't been able to overcome. It makes for a bland book where, at this point, I expect our "heros" to succeed. So any tension that should have been present, just isn't.
Also, like the other iterations in this series, there are a decent amount of spelling/grammatical errors. When the 8th last word in the novel is spelled wrong, it leaves a bad taste for future books. (This was read on kindle)
I feel like I made a mistake reading John Walkers 'Liberation war' series first. Because the writing in this series is (in my uneducated opinion) far inferior to 'Liberation War' which was published 3 years later in 2019.
It was okay, I actually didn't enjoy this one as much as the others, it suffers from a lot of the problems book 2 did which was that this author does not know how to write characters or dialogue.
He doesn't seem to understand why bad people are bad people, why they do the things they do. Because his interpretations of right and wrong are cartoonishly elementary.
That probably sounds really pretentious and stuff, but what I mean is like, all of the characters are either the "good guys" or the "bad guys" there's NO moral ambiguity and the characters suffer from it.
And yeah I said the dialogue. The terrorist guy did not feel real at all.
However this author writes good action scenes and exciting battles and that's what I come back for, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't getting a little attached to Captain Gray Atwell and Clea.
I just feel disappointed that the author isn't trying to improve where his skills are lacking is all. He probably could do better.
Good book and series. Have enjoyed John Walker's stories for several series. If you are looking for a good book with exciting ideas and characters, then read on
This was a very enjoyable, but predictable book. For once, a military science fiction book that didn’t involve an alien war, but piracy. Yeah, this story is kind of mild to the ones I’ve been reading and pretty predictable as to what happens when. I didn't mind that predictability. The story is about a mining station that has been take over by pirates. They want to take all the precious ore called Ulem for themselves and sell it on the black market. This ore is very, very, very valuable and happens to be the last item required to finish construction on Earth’s latest two starships.
Now, the mining station is owned by the Kielans, but it’s ran by a mix of humans, Kielans and other alliance personnel. It’s total population is a little over 2,000 from what I remember. Anyway, it’s big, but about thirty-six pirates managed to take over the entire complex. And, these pirates are not your typical kill everything and take what’s left pirates. No, they have already managed to commandeer a Kielan battleship! It is about ready to dock with the mining station after sending out a warning to the station to not interfere or face serious consequences. The pirates will load up all the ore than can and then leave. No one needs to get killed so the station security force has to stand-down, which it does. Except for one security officer on duty deep in the maintenance levels of the station.
The Kielans have received word from the hidden security officer of the situation on the station. They believe that it would be in the best interest of the Kielans and the humnans, if the humans would resolve this incident. The Kielans would agree to ship Earth all the Olem they needed in return for the Earth Defenses freeing the station and securing their battleship undamaged. They believe it would be a suitable job the the Behemoth! Only, the Behemoth isn’t in the galaxy. They have just started repairs after their ordeal at the supposedly secret Kielan research facility and won’t be home for a few weeks. But, it is a mission they should be able to handle.
Ok, so you can now figure out what happens. It’s not all that hard. Pirates usually don’t have the know-how or the resources to attempt this kind of job so how did they get this far? Well, that’s not part of the story. And how they took over a Kielan battleship that was fully crewed is another interesting fact that is also not written about. We also don’t get much background on any of the pirates and when we do, it’s only about one individual who, although a pirate, has his own agenda. Still, the book is a good, easy read. There’s not a lot of fighting, but the intrigue is there.
I assume that the next few books in this series, if it continues, will have something more to do with fighting the alien enemy. Earth is about ready to release two or three new ships so they will then have a significant armada if not still very small. I found one passage in the book that kind of hit me funny.
The First Officer Adam talking, “Lieutenant Collins,” Adam turned to the navigator, Timothy. “Set a course for the open space between the moon and Mars. Then plot us a jump. I believe you have the numbers for that?”
Well, you know how much “open space” he’s talking about? Let me tell you, it’s a lot. There isn’t anything more than open space in space. I just hope the navigator has some kind of clue as to where they’re supposed to go because the open space between the moon and Mars is mind-boggling enormous! Might want to pin down your navigational directions a little better, there First Officer!
Again Gray and his crew have been tasked with a new job. Having just completed their last battle, and returning to earth. A alliance mining station as being attacked and taken over. The behemoth will need to sail out, and rescue the staff and also the ore which is being mined. But they find that one of the terrorist has his own agenda. I have enjoyed reading and look forward to book four.
I read a lot of sci-fy especially anything dealing with space and space warfare. This story is TV series worthy and perhaps theater worthy. I find this series gripping and transporting with the characters believable, sane, and inspiring. I surly hope to see this series continue with perhaps a few spinoffs to additional series. Great work!
This book has it all! Space Marines, huge dose ships with futuristic weapons, space fighters and SPACE PIRATES! The third book in the series doesn't disappoint! As the previous two books, this book keeps you interested in the action, which throughout the story. You will be disappointed when you read the last page!