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Mankind has awakened a monster…

…Humanity must put aside its own animosities…

…or face extinction

The origins of human history begin to unravel as Earth learns they are not the only humans in the galaxy. The sudden discovery of humans living on multiple planets beyond Earth has created more questions than it’s answered.

When humanity arrived on New Eden, a hideous new alien race, the Zodarks was discovered. In the face of an existential threat to their own survival, the historical warring factions of Earth will need to unite if they want to save themselves from extinction and understand the true origins on human history.

A fleet is built, an invasion force is assembled…

Join our heroes as they lead humanity into the battle to conquer their first alien world and liberate previously unknown humans from the bondage of slavery and servitude.

Grab your copy of this gripping military sci-fi and find out today.

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 13, 2020

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415 people want to read

About the author

James Rosone

83 books359 followers

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5 stars
1,718 (52%)
4 stars
1,113 (33%)
3 stars
338 (10%)
2 stars
87 (2%)
1 star
46 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
Profile Image for Ivan.
54 reviews2 followers
April 7, 2021
Let's ignore the pacing, the nonsensical events that are not connected by anything other than wishful thinking, or deus ex machina solutions. But this science fiction novel declared dinosaurs existed on Earth four thousand years ago, that ice core of a comet crashing into Russia wiped them out, cut human life span dramatically ... and caused a flood of Noahs' fame. He really tried to incorporate Bible stories as true and having advanced aliens with wormhole and teleportation technology as witnesses to this. Whatever doubts I had about this book series that decided it. I am noping out of this travesty right now. Too bad since I love the trope of ancient people being transplanted to other planets.
Profile Image for Dirk.
1 review
September 19, 2021
WTF Dinosaurs died thanks to Noah's flood?

I think James Rosone is generally a good author, but this book is total BS.
In the story, humanity encounters aliens that claim that 12000 ago humans lived side by side with dinosaurs. After that, a giant ice block hits the earth and causes Noah's flood.
And yes, the Aliens mention Noah by name.
The flood kills all dinosaurs, but humans survive?
How could humans evolve when dinosaurs had an extra 65 million years on earth?
Why is all science wrong about history?
I have no idea how James Rosone came up with this weak storyline.
This makes no sense whatsoever and ruined the book for me.
3 reviews
November 15, 2021
Book 1 was okay. Not great but okay. Second book however...

Very intense battles in space and on land, but the focus on the enemy was missing. There is a lot of gibberish when it comes to technology and international collaboration. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Still, it was not so bad until humans encountered Alteirians.

Those are incredibly advanced aliens who watched humans for a long time. This is where the story becomes so bad even a 6 years old kid could write it better. Apparently 12,000 years ago Earth had no water it was all desert and water was only in space Earth being encased in a water sphere. Then a comet hit in Russia, all that water came down and the biblical flood killed all the dinosaurs...

Even the most absurd televangelist could not write something more idiotic.

If you read this review, do yourself a favor and don't buy this book. I felt cheated out of 8 $ for buying it in the first place.
Profile Image for Kori Maleski.
2 reviews
February 17, 2021
Avoid

Book one was an ok read, with junior high level character development. I had hoped it was just teething problems, but it continues for a painful read in second book - do much so I had to stop. I then read reviews to see where this was headed and yikes. Not scifi and not military fiction.
5 reviews
January 12, 2021
Couldn't even finish it

This is only fiction.
Whatever the author needs to happened it happens regardless of science fact.
Tactics are absurd: "We need to hide. Go to full power". Good luck with that.
26 reviews1 follower
October 26, 2020
So disappointed

The first volume seemed OK, as did the first half of this book.
Then it descended into total farce. Highly derivative dross.
Profile Image for Josh Vega.
41 reviews
October 12, 2024
Pick right up from where the first book ends. Excellent writing and character building!
30 reviews
March 9, 2024
Slower, world building isn't bad, but there's a lot of fluff in the writing. Builds decently on the first book
Profile Image for Jim.
1,230 reviews50 followers
April 25, 2021
This series is so good that I couldn't wait to get back to it, so I went straight to book 2, "Into the Battle" As we left book 1, Captain Miles Hunt was getting ready to take his ship, the RNS Rook, into battle against not one, but two Zodark starships!  He had the RNS Voyager  trailing ship and the RNS Ottawa, a small destroyer, with him, but it was hoped the won't have to directly engage in the battle. Well, that didn't work out so well!  The Rook had all it could handle and more. Not knowing the capabilities of the Zodark ships was a very dangerous situation to be going into. The Rook is equipped with Havoc missiles and their deadly magrail guns seem to have a major effect on the Zodark ships.

This first battle proves to be short and deadly. While the Rook was able to take out the first Zodark battleship, the second one was much, much larger, larger even than the Voyager. It also sprang a surprise Captain Hunt wasn't expecting. Fighter craft came swarming out of the Zodark carrier and these little ships packed a heck of a punch that the Rook's close in weapons systems had a hard time defeating.  Finally, the Voyager and the Ottawa had to intercede between the Rook and the Zodark carrier to protect the Rook from becoming completely destroyed. The Ottawa didn't last long. It was no match for the Zodark carrier's pulse weapons.  It took only a few hits to completely destroy the little ship. Still, combined, they both took down the second and last starship the Zodark had around New Eden. Then Captain Hunt then came up with a questionable decision. Why not attempt to capture the Zodark carrier? While it was disabled, it still was floating in space. Only problem was that it's crew was still largely on-board, all that weren't killed anyway.

Now, it was time to land the invasion force and capture the planet. This story moves along quite rapidly from here on out. There is fierce fighting on the ground as the Republic begins landing its massive Army troops along with the Deltas. The humans quickly take over the air and begin bombarding all the know Zodark encampments. There is one large one and several smaller ones around the various mining activities. The fighting is tedious because of the way the Zodarks fight in that they never hardly every surrender! It does take awhile, but the planet is finally rid of most of the Zodarks and the occupation then starts taking off. Even Fleet Admiral Baily and President Luca arrive to see what the new human planet looks like.

So, while it appears that the Republic has captured New Eden, will it actually be able to keep control of it. They know the Zodarks aren't going to just go away. From talking with some of the the Zodark slaves who were surprisingly humans called Sumerians, they learn that the Zodarks have an enormous empire. It is believed they should be able to send countless number of ships to New Eden if they wanted it back bad enough. Fortunately, one of the Sumerians was a former scientist for their very advanced civilization. He and his fellow Sumerians were very grateful to the Earth humans for freeing them from their slavery and were willing to help the humans any way they could. That lead to some very significant changes in the humans technology. The Sumerians began showing the Earth humans how to develop much more powerful power plants which would significantly improve their ships and weapons. It appeared that Earth just might have found a way to finally combat the Zodarks on an equal basis. That is until they found another alien race called the Altairians!

The writing is still pretty good in this book and the story moves along quite rapidly. It's hard to tell sometimes how much time has passed between events. Some of the battles take place and then nothing happens for quite some time. This isn't all that surprising, but it does allow the Earth humans to build a lot more starships than they would have otherwise. It's somewhat explained that the vast size of the Zodark empire is what's keeps them from immediately returning to New Eden. Also, it appears that the Zodark are in another war some where very far from New Eden and Earth. I am finding out that the author needs to work on his aliens names. Some of them are becoming quite comical and should have been developed a lot better. Still, what I like best about this story is that humans from Earth aren't just being killed off because we're so inferior. Even with our supposedly ancient weapons, we're able to fight the Zodarks very effectively and hold our own. Even in close combat with the Zodarks, enhanced humans can and do defeat these eight foot tall monsters when necessary. That's a good change of pace from Earth humans just being wiped out like livestock in some books.

I'm moving on to book three, "Into the War', which I think will be just as interesting as these first two. I did notice that book four, "Into the Chaos", won't be available until June 2021, so I guess I will have to slow down with the series at some point.
Author 1 book
July 25, 2021
Good storyline let down by the writing style.

After reading the first book in the series I was in two minds about starting the second. Like the first novel, I personally find that the writing style is too simplistic. There does not appear to have been much in the way of independent editing either. After the initial meeting with the Alterians, the alliance is formed incredibly quickly and the government's of Earth seem to out great faith in what they are being told. One thing I found disappointing was that no attempt was made to get inside the minds of the Zodarks and explain a little of who they were and why they were fighting up until we met the Alterians. Oh, and it jarred a lot when the authors equated the meteor that caused the great flood of Noah with wiping out the dinosaurs, creatures that lived and went extinct millions of years before Homo Sapiens appeared on Earth. There are better military Sci fi series out there and I won't be rushing to read book 3. Sorry.
1,477 reviews25 followers
October 28, 2020
Into the Battle. James Rosone

Earth in under attack by a species called Zodarks. Physically superior to humans and willing to sacrifice themselves to achieve victory. Only are genetically enhanced special forces augmented with are robotic warriors are able to engage them successfully. Earth has aligned themselves with a alien species of extremely high intelligence and technology superior to ours as well as the Zodarks. They are called Altatairians. Our alliance with them is mutually beneficial to our survival and theirs. This novel is set well into the future. Non stop action is an understatement. Enjoyed immensely!! My highest recommendation!!
Profile Image for Brandon.
556 reviews36 followers
September 20, 2021
I'm going back and marking these read now, so I forget exactly what was happening in each book. That said, I remember thinking that the story was still getting even better and more interesting as the series progressed. The universe opens up a bit more as our technology progresses and new friends are met. I also very much appreciated the military aspect to the series. Rosone always does a great job of bringing the soldiers to life and telling the progression of the war at a good pace.
Profile Image for Clayton Ellis.
813 reviews5 followers
May 27, 2021
I felt like the author was writing this for a 10 years old. I enjoyed the first book, but the constant reminders of why every character was doing an action were so tiring. For the last 30% of the book, I just skimmed the chapter heads and to see if anything was actually happening. I will not be reading the third book.
Profile Image for Randy Kays.
226 reviews2 followers
September 29, 2021
The enemy in these novels are VERY one-dimensional and just an excuse to kill them, a lot. But I finally gave up on the books when about 2/3 in to this book the author has a ridiculous explanation of a major plot point using the fact of Noah's flood. Noah's flood and weird nonsensical asteroids.

Sorry, I am done.
Profile Image for Zach.
696 reviews1 follower
May 22, 2024
So far I can't put these books down. They're never too tense, they're never too deep. It's real simple smooth brain stuff here folks. I'm very much enjoying the escapism of military sci-fi here without anything that brings me down. Tense enough but never stressful or profound. Pure sugar here, nothing nutritional.
19 reviews
January 27, 2022
No character development. Stilted dialogue. No understanding of space battle mechanics. The science is disconnected from cultural development. Pointless detours into tangential dialogue. I feel like I lost two days of my life reading this crap.
Profile Image for Don Viecelli.
Author 28 books28 followers
January 26, 2021
My Book Review Number 203:

This review is on Into the Battle (Book Two Of The Rise Of The Republic) by James Roscone. This is the second book I have read by this talented author. This Military Science Fiction story about space exploration, first contact with aliens and humanity’s efforts at colonizing the stars adds even more space battles and ground combat scenes.

The story begins with Captain Miles Hunt on his warship, RNS Rook, near the Rhea System. Two enemy Zodark warships are sighted in orbit around New Eden and move to attack the human ships. The deadly space battle begins for control of New Eden.

Losses are heavy, but Hunt is able to capture one of the disabled Zodark warships and use knowledge gained from it to prepare for future battles with the Zodark race. It also allows the space Marine Delta force to board the enemy ship and take control before it can be repaired by the Zodarks still alive on board.

There are still many Zodark enemy troops on the ground in New Eden that have to be cleared out with intense fighting and more human losses. In the end, the military realizes it needs more synthetic robot troops called C100s to fight the Zodarks in the future.

The fight to take New Eden from the Zodarks is much more difficult than expected, but it is finally achieved. The Republic intends to use New Eden as a base of operations in the future to prepare for future battles with the Zodarks when they return to try and take back the planet.

One of the things that result from fighting with the Zodark race is the discovery of stargates that allow deep space travel between the stars. The Zodarks use the stargates to travel vast distances to control their multi-star system empire. Humans discover a map with thousands of stargates and decide to explore some of them to find out where they lead. One of the goals is to find out the location of the Zodark home worlds.

The story continues to unfold as more stargates lead to new worlds and finally to the discovery of new alien races and how they all fit into the war with the Zodarks. Fortunately, humans find a new ally that may help win the war against the more advanced Zodarks.

I give this book Five Stars because the story is interesting, fast moving and full of surprises. The story continues to expand the universe with advanced technology, new alien races and fierce battle scenes. The characters are memorable and interesting. The plot continues to build in scope and detail. The dialogue and writing style are excellent. The science and technology are believable and creative. This MSF story continues to unfold with more action scenes and new characters. I look forward to reading Book 3 in this series to see what happens next to humanity and more about their new alien partners in this war.

Keep reading good science fiction and let me know when you find an interesting novel or author.
Profile Image for Russell Gray.
674 reviews135 followers
April 1, 2023
I'm usually pretty lenient with the first book of a series since I hope the author will shore up weaknesses while bolstering strengths as the story progresses. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how much you enjoyed Book 1, this series continues on the same note.

Based on other reviews, there are many hangups with this series. Maybe it's because I'm an enthusiastic but casual sci-fi fan, but I'm rarely bothered by the basic ideas of a story. I'm also not a physicist or someone who can't help but get annoyed when authors trip up on minor scientific details.

That being said, the writing really needs some work and took an otherwise 4-star potential down to 3 for me. The author continued to beat the reader over the head with character name repetition during dialogue and overwritten sentences with 20 words where a handful would have sufficed. Because of this, regardless of the effort put into certain topics in the story, things felt very simple-minded.

There's always a balance of showing versus telling, but this story felt like 90% telling. Getting very invested in or excited by the scenes was hard for me. The characterization also never really got off the ground. I gave some leeway with this in the first book since there were so many characters, but none of them got further development or voice.

My interest and attention flagged noticeably about 2/3rds into this book. It was a relatively quick read, so I still finished, but I can't say I have the motivation to pick up Book 3.
1 review
June 21, 2021
Inconsistent and lacks innovation

Interesting concept for a book series even though we have seen similar versions in the past. More problematic is that the author is making things up along the way - there is no clear thread anywhere. In order to be at least worthy of 3-4 stars the series would need extensive editing and a lot of fact checking… Examples include that an alien ship can be destroyed by being rammed but can take tens or hundreds of 32-inch magrail shots. Physics anyone? In one battle the humans wait for the Zodarks at a stargate as they will get a massive advantage for 60 seconds before the enemy can fire back. Then the fight drags on for hours… Battleships with 40 m thick armor and 2600 m in length would require the total annual steelproduction (in 2020) for just one ship…and no discussion around this. Author lacks any understanding of infantry tactics making descriptions of ground combat just ridiculous. Fought my way through the first 2 books in the series but no way I will be able to continue. There are much better stories with similar concepts out there - read those instead!
35 reviews1 follower
September 28, 2021
In general I enjoyed the action and development, but the thing that stuck out to me was the inconsistent use of measurement (note that I'm not directly quoting here, but this is how things get described).

"Six 24 inch mag-rail turrets mounted along the ship's 400 meter length."

Are you using imperial or metric units for stuff?

Then we get to how far apart the Zodark's stargates are.

"There's three stargates in this system, not the two we were expecting!"
"How far away is that new gate?"
"By FTL speeds, two or three days."
FTL speed of the ship in question: approximately 1 light year per day of travel.

Those stargates are not "in" the system! I think that line was written when the author was still assuming 1 lightyear per [i]two weeks[/i] of travel via Earth's first generation warp drives from book 1. Not the second generation that were ~15 times faster.

Even so, that's about 9000 au worth of distance ([i]only[/i] a distance 180 times Pluto's aphelion).
Profile Image for Eric Manzi.
16 reviews
August 22, 2024
Into the Battle by James Rosone had the potential to be an engaging continuation of the Rise of the Republic series with its well-crafted world-building. However, the plot in this installment felt increasingly untenable, stretching plausibility to its breaking point. The author's persistent and unhealthy glorification of the military detracts from the story, turning what could have been a nuanced exploration of interstellar conflict into a one-dimensional narrative. Furthermore, the obsessive references to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk continue, disrupting the immersion and making the book feel more like a personal soapbox than a cohesive sci-fi adventure. After finishing this book, I decided to stop reading the series, as these issues overshadowed any enjoyment I derived from the world-building.
Profile Image for Sally Hamilton.
2 reviews
January 27, 2021
Not bad follow up

This has been a not too bad follow on to the first book and certainly has moved at a good pace.

Things I liked:
- focus on a small group of main characters
- pace of the story
- initial premise
- initial political manoeuvres

Things I wasn't keen on:
- characters not quite in keeping with their rank (just my opinion)
- tactics and strategy not really all that sophisticated
- the timeline not being too clear
- the rapid influence of the "benevolent" elder species
- lack of star carriers (especially given the intense use of naval aviation currently)

Overall a good read and I am looking forward to the next book, even if I do appear to be overly picky on some of the details.
20 reviews
July 15, 2022
Good read, with some caveats.

Engaging story. Just a few minor quibbles.

The Republic seems a bit US centered. I understand that they're the big fish in the pond, but there are two few Latinx characters, in my opinion.

Once a characters rank has been established, such as Lieutenant Commander, we in the Navy (26 years, retired CPO) just drop the modifier. Also, once Ethan's rank has been established, if you still want to use the whole thing, use Lieutenant j.g.

It's been a while, but I don't think the Navy salutes indoors, or even inside a ship, as we're uncovered (no hat).

I know this is being written for the general public, but these things would make it ring more true for us Navy folks.
Profile Image for Jeff.
1,381 reviews7 followers
May 31, 2021
UGH, just skip through the parts of the story where the author describes the politics and tedious manufacturing decisions. These are important, but they are just plain boring. We want to know about the battles with this new alien species. Humans face a vast cosmic empire, after several successful battles, the big question is about the actual resources of the other side. As the opponents mobilize their extensive resources, Humans are bolstered by a new friend. This is a fun adventure, but the overall storyline is a bit mundane: Humans are pawns in a cosmic chess game. The new allies seem to think that this pawn might make the difference. I'm interested in seeing where this story goes.
383 reviews3 followers
July 26, 2021
Good expansion with some holes

This book really expanded the universe for the humans and they only have a few choices as a result. It was impressive how quickly they improved their technology though … until you found out how pointless that was when they had to join an empire to survive and got technology 5 times better lol. I’d have to a free that the theory that advanced aliens couldn’t stop a ice core asteroid is fairly ridiculous. If that’s the case than all the races should put ice cores into rail guns and they’d be unstoppable haha. But I’m still curious where this goes and will read the next even id there are some holes. Good action and space fighting too
38 reviews4 followers
December 5, 2022
Ok, I'm sticking this out. The characterization is very good. The plot is ok. The battle scenes are first rate and very believable. That said, there are too many loose ends from such a massive tome. I also have a real serious problem with the Alts explanation on what happened in our history to explain humans on other worlds.
There are a few problems about the timing of the Great Flood and how proto-Sumarians were rescued. The clincher for me was explaining this as the extinction of the Dinosaurs. That was about 75 million years ago, not thousands.
I'll read the next in the series, but it has some problems for me.
30 reviews1 follower
October 17, 2020
Great follow-up

Excellent, I couldn't out this book down read it in a few days, my only one regret was it ending.. These are the first sci-fi books I have ever read and I must say I wasn't disappointed. From start to finish the story flows and is easy to follow unlike other sci-fi books. The use of progressive technology within the story line is very clever as is the story line as a whole. I would highly recommend this book..
Profile Image for Robert Spellmann.
332 reviews4 followers
April 29, 2022
Good sci-fi. Bit of crude verbiage

Got tired of reading heroine-lead semi-romance novels of dragon fantasies and fairy tales, and searched for basic sci-fi space battles and exploring the universe by capable, normal, and moral people - you know - people like the ones I hope you grew up among PLUS aliens. *smile*

" Into the Battle" was a precise fit for that criteria, as was his first of this series.
36 reviews2 followers
February 8, 2024
Fire phasers

If you like space adventure like Star Trek or Star Wars, you will love this series.
I've read a few rare reviews that have not enjoyed this series. Fine, shut up and go read a physician desk reference if you need that level.
For the rest of us that like good action space adventure stories, this series is great. I look forward to the next book to continue the adventure
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