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The Forgotten Empire #5

The Forgotten Empire: The Confederation and The Empire at War

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From USA Today best-selling author Raymond L. Weil, and his daughter Julie, comes the fifth book in his newest military science fiction series.

The war between the Human Empire and the Confederation has reached a turning point as the Humans are now poised to attack the Confederation in their own area of space. Few Humans have ever entered the Confederation and returned alive.
As the Confederation fractures and new alliances emerge, who will continue to fight the Humans? When tensions grow in the Confederation, who will light the first fuse?

Admiral Collison leads the fleets sent to attack the Confederation. Who will be their first target? Will the Human fleets survive their mission? New alliances will be tested, and old alliances severed as the Human Empire continues its fight to free all races from the clutches of the Confederation.

385 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 31, 2021

182 people are currently reading
48 people want to read

About the author

Raymond L. Weil

72 books338 followers
USA Today Best Selling Author

I live in Clinton Oklahoma with my wife of 40 years and our cat. I attended college at SWOSU in Weatherford Oklahoma, majoring in Math with minors in Creative Writing and History.

My hobbies include watching soccer, reading, camping, and of course writing. I coached youth soccer for twelve years before moving on and becoming a high school soccer coach for thirteen more. I also enjoy playing with my five grandchildren. I have a very vivid imagination, which sometimes worries my friends. They never know what I am going to say or what I am going to do.

I am an avid reader and have a science fiction / fantasy collection of over two thousand paperbacks. The space program has always fascinated me and I've followed it since its inception. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an astronaut. Now, I just write about it.

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366 (29%)
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135 (10%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
Profile Image for Tony Hisgett.
3,038 reviews37 followers
September 10, 2021
I was really pleased to see this book and wish to thank the author’s daughter for continuing his work. The series is an old school space opera with numerous worlds and species and vast armadas battling in space, what is not to like.

I really enjoy reading this book, although there were a few minor irritation e.g. some of the details in the big space battles don’t always bear close examination.


I was also surprised that the Humans haven’t devised better tactics and systems to reduce some of their unsustainable losses. The battles always seem to turn into ‘slugfests’ ending with ‘the last man standing’ e.g. If you have a vastly superior weapon you could easily afford to use some of your force as dedicated defence ships to protect the ships with the big weapons.
Also their plan to reduce the Morag’s capacity to build ships so they could catch-up with their numbers sounds reasonable, but there method seemed to cost far more ships and experienced crew than they were gaining.

Overall I enjoyed this book and as a fan of old school space operas, I nearly gave four stars, but I would have liked the battles to have been a bit more than just matching numbers and ‘slugging’ it out. I also didn’t like the way the high human casualty rate was just accepted instead of trying ways of reducing it, especially the way interceptors are just thrown away like so much gabbage.
Profile Image for Per Gunnar.
1,338 reviews76 followers
October 5, 2021
The Confederation and The Empire at War is another enjoyable instalment in The Forgotten Empire series. I think I have enjoyed pretty much all books by Raymond L. Weil. He writes straightforward adventure actions stories that is generally straight up my alley.

This, the fifth book in the series, depicts the continuation of the re-emergence of the Human Empire. The story has advanced to the point where the Morags have received some well deserved ass-kickings although they are far from knocked out. Their evil machinations have been exposed and some of their former allies are turning on them, or at least refusing to help them.

One thing that I really like in this books is that we get to see the story from the bad guys side as well, or more specifically we get to see their surprise and consternation when the humans are kicking their arses.

As usual there are a nice mix of preparations, advancements, character dialogue and solid fleet action in this book. All the characters, which are very likable, are present and I quite enjoyed this book. The story is perhaps on the lighter side but it is still a solid military science fiction adventure story.

I quite liked this hinting of a new weapon in the making which seems to spell some nice future clobber time with nasty surprises for the Morag.

Looking forward to the next instalment.
26 reviews
October 17, 2022
Future war material historical tactics

Futuristic space battles using tactics from pre-revolutionary war. No use of mobility, basically form up in a line and shoot till either side runs away or is destroyed. Leadership with less concern for lives and material loss than trench warfare generals in WW1. Lots of repetition of descriptions that pad word count but do little to improve the story.
Profile Image for Jim.
1,249 reviews53 followers
December 30, 2021
The last book, "War for the Empire", ended so well that I couldn't wait to get into this one. While the Confederation attempted to destroy the Human Empire after getting soundly defeated at Earth, that effort also didn't work out so well. The Confederation has been exposed as being controlled by the Morag who have telekinetic abilities which they have used on the other six species of the Grand Federation Council. While all of these other alien civilization thought they were acting upon agreed to actions, some have now found out that their entire cultures have changed due to the Morag's meddling into their thoughts. So, the Confederation Grand Council is about to break up since the Lormallians are definitely not going to put up with the Morag's activities much longer.

Lormallian Councilor Ardon Reull has found a way to manufacture telepathic nullifiers that will prevent any Morag from taking control of anyone wearing such a device. He has provide these to a few other councilors much to the anger of Morag Councilor Damora. Still, the Lormallian's have agreed not to provide the plans for these devices to everyone for now. They also have told the Morag that they and the Visth are now neutral in the war with the humans. Of course the Morag aren't happy with this situation and they eventually decide to just dissolve the Grand Council and form a smaller alliance with the Lamothians, who are known to eat humans, the Druins and the Zynth. These smaller races are not very strong, but the Morag have been building up their fleets for centuries in secret and have plenty of warships to defeat the humans, or at least they believe they have.

Yet, the war with the Human Empire isn't going so well. Earth has seen fit to provide additional assets to the Human Empire and they came at a most opportune time. Now those Earth fleets are regrouping and planning on taking the fight to the Confederation. Admiral Collison will attempt to enter Confederation space and specifically, Morag space to destroy shipyards of the Morag. It is hoped that with the recent defeats the Morag have suffered, they will not be so ready to jump back into major battles. Yet, the Morag still have huge numbers of warships that the humans know nothing about. They do intend to keep a large armada around their home world, but they still plan on defending against any and all attacks in Confederation territory.

There are a lot of battles in this book and it's kind of difficult to keep up with everything that's going on. With new characters being introduced in almost every paragraph, it's hard to actually know who's doing what to whom. Then there's the simple problem with why the humans feel that an attack against the Morag with such a small fleet as has Admiral Collison would do any significant damage. It's stated that the Morag have conquered over 92 systems each with multiple planets. Even if each system only had one shipyard producing ships, that's a lot of production. The humans can't attack everyone of them and actually are only able to destroy a relatively small number which would seems to effect the Morag's shipbuilding abilities at all. So, it seems the humans are doing all this fighting for nothing.

It's not clearly stated that the shipyards destroyed by the humans will cause the Morag any problems so I guess we'll have to find that out in the next book. It also isn't clear in this book that the humans actually wiped out the Lamothians. This was something Princess Starguard had declared would happen if the Lamothians continued to consume humans during their ritual feast. They continued so as the book ends we are lead to believe that the humans did attack and destroy the last two Lamothian planets, but the Lamothians do have a rather large fleet still flying around space.

Then we also get the information that a world called Falton Two has a large human population. Norhing is known about this planet which is deep inside Confederation territory. It apparently has been the source of most of the humans the Lamothians have used to consume. Something needs to be done about this situation, but again that must be coming in the next book titled, "War in the Confederation" which is supposed to be available in January of 2022. I'm putting it on my reading list.
9 reviews1 follower
February 7, 2022
Julie, I am a great respecter for your father's work. I have read every book he had ever published 3-4 times over. The excitement and adventure from Mr. Weil's writings kept me going back to reread his work again and again. I was very pleased that you have taken over where your father had left off. I have finished reading this book and I am starting on book 6 of this series. Bravo Julie on your new adventure. I know your Dad would be very proud, and I certainly look forward to more of your novels. Ken Pachkowsky.
36 reviews
September 8, 2021
fantastic as always. sad that Raymond had past but his daughter Julie has carried on brilliantly

So sad to hear that Raymond had past away. But am very pleased his daughter Julie has taken the Torch. To be honest I didn’t notice the difference in writing at all between Raymond and Julie. So looking forward to her next two books . Congratulations Julie your father would be very proud.
215 reviews
November 5, 2021
The Empire Fighting for Its Freedom

The confederation of evil is determined to bring the empire and earth into submission. A daring plan is launched to carry the fight to confederation space. This conflict will determined if there's enough time for the humans to build a force strong enough to win. The action is exciting and I enjoy the character development. I hope Ms. Thomas carries on in Raymond's tradition of great writing.
Profile Image for Edgar Guedez.
Author 1 book3 followers
September 7, 2025
A GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE

As the Humans send two fleets into Confederation space and they start destroying Morag shipyards and battleships, the raid turns into a game of cat and mouse as a larger fleet of thousands of Morag ships search for the Humans to destroy them. It looks at the end as a suicide mission and it raises the question, was the raid tactic ally sound? By the way Julie, I also attended graduate school at OU many years ago.
7 reviews
September 8, 2021
Julie you make your Father proud!!!

I loved your Dad’s books. My enjoyment of his books has been tremendous. Now I will look forward to your books as you continue and add new books to the shelf of Weil!!!
Thank you so very much for continuing them. I look forward to the next one!!!
Gerry
5 reviews
February 17, 2022
Exciting and pleased that this series has continued

Having read all of Raymond Weils books, then losing a gifted author, his daughter has picked up the mantle and one cannot tell the difference. This series not only has the "what if this was possible", but the weaving of the story lines between the characters is immersing. Hard to put the book down. Keep up the great work.
11 reviews
September 4, 2021
Raymond would be proud of his daughter continuing this series.

I downloaded the book today, couldn't put it down and already finished. It is fast paced, a lot of action and enjoyable to read! Looking forward to the next 2 books in the series.


1 review
September 5, 2021
Excellent.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book and can't wait for the next one. A big thumbs up for Julie for carrying on her dad's amazing work.
I have almost every one of Raymond's books and am a very big fan of his and now Julie's books. Thankyou .
122 reviews1 follower
September 5, 2021
Great continuation !

Was wondering what would occur to this series upon the death of Raymond L Weil. I have to say , I've enjoyed this book even more than the others . Julie has done a great job of finishing the story as well as making it her own as well .
Highly recommended
16 reviews
September 6, 2021
The Forgotten Empire

Another excellent book by the Weil family. I was not sure how well the transition would be from the late Raymond Weil to where his daughter picked up but it was flawless and we will continue to read books written by the Weil family.
21 reviews
October 6, 2021
Fun read

I’ve enjoyed all his books and this series. Having it completed by his daughter makes it very special. My best wishes to his family. I wish the series could continue. Lots of action and fun characters, both evil and good. 👏
12 reviews
October 19, 2021
Great military Sci-Fi

Constant action with at lot of character development. Can’t wait for the next book in the series. Very interesting alien characters that you learn to dislike very quickly.
8 reviews1 follower
January 27, 2022
I love this universe

I am a huge fan of this author. When he passed, I think I can safely say many people were heartbroken. Then his daughter stepped up to continue his work. This is a prime example of just how well she is accomplishing that task.
15 reviews
September 3, 2021
Great sequel

Really enjoyed the next book in the series. Impossible to put down.

Julie, please continue to tell the stories your Dad started.
3 reviews1 follower
September 4, 2021
Action!

Lots of action and complexity to the interactions and relationships between the species. Read it in two days and cannot wait for the next book!
Profile Image for Larry Holly.
187 reviews1 follower
September 4, 2021
Good book

This is another great book of this series. Cannot wait for the next book to come out. The battle scenes and the storyline is excellent
38 reviews
September 4, 2021
Promising

Can't tell which person wrote which part so this appears to be the right person to carry on creating. Will read the next one.
539 reviews3 followers
September 6, 2021
Next please

Great book from a great author. Like many of this authors series. There fun fast reads. Great deal with kindle unlimited
5 reviews
September 8, 2021
Great Read

Fantastic! A great way to continue Raymonds work! I am sure he is proud and I hope you continue this series.
4 reviews
September 10, 2021
Rays work lives on

We will all miss Raymond but Julie did an amazing job and I look forward to many more stories from her.
8 reviews
September 16, 2021
Addictive Read

Just like the rest of the books, the latest was a page turner. I can’t wait for more to come. Please keep em coming.
Profile Image for William Jerkins.
159 reviews2 followers
September 28, 2021
Just as good but in a different way.

With his daughter taking over the series in his place. It is a little different from the original. But just as good as the original one was.
1 review
September 28, 2021
Very addictive

The series keeps me waiting for the next book.....
Cannot wait to read to see what the next book brings
4 reviews
September 29, 2021
Excellent continuation of the story

Exciting, action filled continuation of this novel
The characters are believable and the plot line is believable. The bad guys are bad
13 reviews
October 4, 2021
5 books in 7 days

Great series, looking forward to the conclusion. Headed to the Galactic Empire now, engage hyperdrive.

3.. 2.. 1... Engage 😎
1 review
October 5, 2021
Fantastic science fiction

Very well written. If you like space warfare, alien invasion this is the book and author for you. You need to read this book!!!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews

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