Earth Strike: (Star Carrier: Book 1) – Ian Douglas

Having read some military themed space novels, this was a new venture in to something I thought was by an author unknown to me, though I was a little apprehensive to learn that it is in fact by someone who I have heard of, one William H. Keith.

Undaunted I thought I’d give this a go and have been pleasantly surprised.

From the book

There is a milestone in the evolution of every sentient race, a Tech Singularity Event, when the species achieves transcendence through its technological advances. Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point.

But an armed threat is approaching from deepest space, determined to prevent humankind from crossing over that boundary—by total annihilation if necessary.

To the Sh’daar, the driving technologies of transcendent change are anathema and must be obliterated from the universe—along with those who would employ them. As their great warships destroy everything in their path en route to the Sol system, the human Confederation government falls into dangerous disarray.

There is but one hope, and it rests with a rogue Navy Admiral, commander of the kilometre long star carrier America, as he leads his courageous fighters deep into enemy space towards humankind’s greatest conflict—and quite possibly its last.

Plot

Set in a future where human kind have endured several natural and man-made disasters, the book picks up at the point that the huge space carrier ‘America’ and the accompanying battle-group pop out of ‘faster-than-light travel’ to attack the enemy ‘Turusch’, who are in turn attacking a remote base of human marines, because they have captured a couple of the Turusch.

The theme that we, as a race, are close to ‘transcending’ is the main drive of the war though mainly the reasons are initially painted as unknown, as are the enemies.

Review

Having just finished this, I immediately Kindled the next book in the series ‘Centre of Gravity‘ (Paperback Edition), if that is any pointer as to how much I enjoyed this one.

The story is well paced, the characters are well written, and the sciencey bits add to the story for once, instead of giving you the WTF feeling. 😆

I especially like the fact that not everything in this future world is squeaky clean, and that sometimes things break or go wrong – for instance there is reference to when ships pop out of their faster-than-light modes that ships get scattered and lose formation.

There is however one thing that chafes; the familiar plot element of interfering politicians woven in to the story. This I feel is a plot line has been used too many times in too many stories and makes for an obvious point when the characters need to be held back in some way. Though in general this is kept to a lowly amount and doesn’t get in the way too much.

All in all a page turner, and quite hard to put down.

I’ll give it an 8/10