Not a complete story

This book is all set up for the rest of the series. Even in that regard the book is all about hints and innuendo. The author’s way of creating suspense is to withhold information.

Sadly, the book also has poor pacing. Mostly slow and dragging, rushing through action to create a sense of drama. Add to this a somewhat limited writing style, where characters literally say the same this to each other back to back in a conversation. For example: “If I recall correctly.” And “Old friend” are used by two characters in consecutive sentences by two characters in a single conversation. There are many other instances of language choice that is less than optimal or distracting. I blame the editor for this. These items are something an editor that actually read the book would easily have caught.

Finally, the author tells the reader instead of showing them. For example Caine is the greatest general ever. We get told this over and over again. (In fact if we took out half of these references we could probably fit in some story that advances the plot so we would actually have a beginning, middle, and end.). However, in the actual action scenes we are shown pretty standard tactics. Apparently, what makes him great is that he hires good people below him and lets them do their job. That’s actually great, but it does not support the statements the author uses to describe his character.

These are individual examples, but the issues can he found throughout the book. I take away that this is a new writer who is self publishing on kindle, and I fully support that. There is a lot of promise here. I recommend: getting a good editor to work on story, plot and actual writing, not just grammar and structure. Secondly, write a complete story instead of planning to write 3-7 books from the beginning. Finally, read a bit more in the genre and take nites on things you like, so you can replicate best practices in your own writing.

I will not be continuing the series.

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The next generation of the Crimson Worlds

Any additional comments?

Another great book by J Allan. This book is the continuation of the fall, which is the last book of the Crimson world series. The story takes place 17 and 33 years after the fall and centers on the legendary general Eric Cain's two sons who have both risen to power but on opposite sides of politics and public opinion. Darius Cain is the leader of the mercenary army called the Black Eagles who contract their services out to the rich across the human colony worlds, resolving conflicts with extreme prejudice. Elias Cain is the leader of the planetary police enforcement agency. Elias enforces governmental planetary law with a strict blind justice approach. The two estranged brothers both face an unknown enemy that threatens both of their livelihoods and the existence of mankind. A great start to a new series.

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Outstanding! One of Jay Allan’s Best

Just what I’ve come to expect from Jay Allan: another gripping military sci-fi novel! A case of sibling rivalry could possibly spell doom for the human race, and a Marine mother’s iron will and undying love will be sorely tested. And who is out to destroy the Black Eagles?!

And Mark Boyett does his usual outstanding job of narrating this story!

Great author

I like a good blow them up space marine story any day. The story line was good and action in the beginning was great. THEN!!! Batman came on the scene. Yep that's who two of the narrated characters sounded like to me. The low muffled sound of batman's voice. Became a little irritating there but wanted to hear the story. Why did the mother sound like Katherine Hepburn??? Really!!!
Overall beside some things I didn't like it was an excellent story.

Should have read this before Galaxy's Edge

Please let me preface this by saying that the book is not bad. The story just feels to have the mechanics of a cheap dime novel. The momentum of the story is a little slow in the beginning but it does get better. The soldier interactions are a bit off. Doesn't really feel like a well-oiled military machine. And the profanity is thrown in haphazardly. of course some of this could just be the wrong narrator for the story. His voice and his character inflections just didn't seem right. I'm possibly spoiled by too many Marc Thompson projects. Of course I'm thrown off by the fact that the author had to blatantly state that the main character is Mars personified. A bit of a lofty claim to start a novel off on. the author however does spend a good amount of time building the plot which does get moving by the end of the book. I will be purchasing the second novel.

Boring, Boring, BORRRRRIIIING

As much as I really like other books in the Crimson World series, I really did not like this one too much. Both of Eric Caine's boys are mean and narcissistic. I disliked both characters so much, I had a hard time really getting into the book. Also, while there is some action in the book, it didn't captivate and draw me in like some of the author's other books did. The narrator did a good job but, overall, I found this book to be very boring and not at all captivating.

Wow

I was on the edge of my seat while listening to this. Mark did an excellent job narrating. I got the feeling that this story would have been a much more of an enriching experience if I'd read The Crimson world series. I best get on that. Can't wait to delve into this series.

Undertones of authoritarianism without action

This is the first book in the entire series I've read and I didn't know there were other books in the series when I picked it up.

As a military scifi, I was expecting a bunch of good old mindless action. That's not what I got.

Instead, I got a bunch of subplots and political twists with minimal action. There were a multitude of scenes that were only connected much later in the book. Each scene lasted long enough for me to start to like the characters, and then those characters went away for several chapters. A new scene would start, and it's as if I was starting an entirely new story - seemingly unconnected to anything else in the book. The story would progress enough for me to start to like these new characters, and then a new scene would start with conpletey new characters seemingly unrelated to any of the other stories told so far. The timeline jumped back and forth from present day to 33 years ago to 15 years ago and back again with each new chapter. It took a while to figure out what was going on, especially since a couple of the main characters have the same name (it wasn't until about a third of the way into the book that it was revealed that the characters with the same name were related).

Outside of all of this, there was a strong undertone of Authoritarianism. The author seems to love the military while simultaneously hating the government - despite the fact that militaries are a part of the government. He gets around this by having the best military force in the galaxy be a mercenary unit. All the strict discipline and mindless killing with none of the government to slow them down.

Every primary character had a deep love and respect for dictatorships. This was flat out said several times. Any government or organization that wasn't ruled by an iron fist of a dictator was utterly destroyed. All politicians were corrupt and incompetent - unless they were a politician who supported dictatorships. Any civilian who happened to live in a world that was destroyed deserved what they got for daring to live in a democracy. They voted in the corrupt politicians so they deserved the death that reigned down on them by the mercenary companies (who can't be blamed for the killing they do, because they're just doing their jobs - blame the people who hired them).

It wouldn't have been so bad if there was some decent character depth or some good action scenes. But even the action scenes (as minimal as they were) were lacking in emotional depth or raw description. Scenes were described in an almost clinical manner, leaving one with an understanding of how a battle occurred, by absolutely no emotional attachment to any of it.

I think the worst of it was that I kept thinking everything would soon pull together, it's just a little bit more for the story to really pick up. And then it ended.

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A good story and it keeps you coming back for more

Good story a little hard to follow but when you get the idea the story line becomes like a item you can't quite put down.