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Battleground

Unification War Trilogy, Book 1

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Battleground

By: Joshua Dalzelle
Narrated by: Mark Boyett
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About this listen

This war was inevitable.

After two brutal, bloody struggles for their very existence against implacable alien foes, humanity is victorious, but not at peace.

As distrust and accusations consume the political discourse between the two major factions, the Eastern Star Alliance military has already begun executing small raiding missions into United Terran Federation space. The Federation fleet, still reeling from the last war, is in no shape to try and protect its own borders.

Now, as diplomacy crumbles and tensions escalate, the ESA has moved into a Federation star system and declared it for themselves. Desperate, the Federation deploys a full task force commanded by Admiral Jackson Wolfe to try and defuse the situation, hoping his reputation forces calmer heads to prevail. Wolfe knows that even if he can stop the ESA here, the die has been cast. Humanity's march to war with itself cannot be stopped.

Battleground is the first book in the final trilogy of the Black Fleet Saga.

©2019 Joshua Dalzelle (P)2020 Podium Audio Fiction Military Science Fiction Space Opera War

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All stars
Most relevant
I listened to hundreds of books including all of the Jackson Wolf encounters. this is my favourite so far I think. strategically interesting. I found it hard to out down. Thanks Mr Boyett can't wait for the next book.

Absolutely brilliant.

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The tension, the politicking, the split second tactical decisions, it’s all there in glorious form!

It’s back!

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A beautiful read sci-fi expedition really enjoyed . Well written and look forward to volume two

Brilliant

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it's a good story worth a read, but 45kg of antimatter, bulls***. the bombs dropped on Japan released 1g of energy and matter anti matter annihilations are 100% efficient at turning matter into antimatter that means 90kg of energy or 90,000 little man's at that point it's completely pointless and your better off with lots of much smaller bombs as the radiation is how you deal damage in space and radiation falls off by the inverse squared so for spending 90,000x the energy you only maintain the same level of destruction over ~512x the distance where as if you were to split that into 9000 bombs and spread them out to keep the level of destruction uniform over a certain distance you could get a area of effect ~27,000x greater.

and unless you have uber strong defenses like force shield that can shrug off nukes which we haven't seen yet there is no need for individual bombs that large. it's just a waste of resources because while ~512x the area does seem like a lot nukes or antimatter bombs in space are very short range weapons a conventional nuke in space would only be highly distuctive over 100 - 200 meters so we are only talking 50km - 100km which is super close range for space combat. if your goal is range in space your better off developing single use x ray lasers powered by nukes or antimatter which is actually useful especially if you don't have FTL sensors as you can't dodge it at medium ranges that being in space combat in my mind would be about 1/10 a light second or about 15,000km at this range only speed of light weapons or weapons that can chase down the target are useful. which of you put a x ray lasers on a missile it's both.

Not really a review but...

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as a confirmed Star Trek fan, I was dubious of a series of books incorporating language like "Warp", "Star Fleet" and "Federation". but Dalzelle manages to navigate these landmines superbly and creates a gripping narrative that stands alone rather than being another "poor man's Star Trek".

fantastic listen

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