User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
Quite good!
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
AvoidBook 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.
Rating: really liked it
Couldn't even finish itThis 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.
Rating: really liked it
Do you ever read a book as part of a series that starts alright, gets more interesting as you go, but is suddenly derailed?
That's this book. The series starts off on an alright note despite the issues with pacing and characterization as well as inconsistent world building, not to mention the billionaire fanboi wankfest. But this just goes off the rails in this book. The bad guys fail to resolve into anything meaningful or interesting. All the primary characters are Mary Sues of the highest order. In the second in a series I feel the author should be more ok with letting our protagonists have some warts and actual depth but beyond some "pirates" with aspirations of nationhood, that never materializes. And for a "Republic" that is nominally most of the Western world, it's just a stand-in for the good ole USA. It's not the rah-rah USA that I mind, it's the way the author just lets a lot of potential unique story/world building opportunity slip away unutilized.
While military sci-fi and space opera in general hinge of suspension of disbelief, they also presume a certain congruency with our present understanding of how things actually work. But between the "march to war" portions of this story that really don't do much to enhance the tone but mostly bog down the narrative and the need to validate biblical literalism, it ruptures that suspension of disbelief.
I'm aborting the remainder of this series. So long, thanks for the fish.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
So disappointedThe first volume seemed OK, as did the first half of this book.
Then it descended into total farce. Highly derivative dross.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
Inconsistent and lacks innovationInteresting 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!
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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).
Rating: really liked it
Not bad follow upThis 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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
