Earth Strike

This one I left at chapter 5. It was just too technical for my taste. By chapter 3 they should've been making major headway. It feels like the book hasn't moved one bit. And Gray, being a military type, probably should stop whining about loneliness. If he signed up for it, he can deal with it. He can't be a loner and then miss people just cause he loses communication for a little bit, that's just lame and weak. If he was lost for a few days I'd understand, but his comm wasn't out THAT long. And if the AI is gonna be doing most of the work, why not increase your technology and just make the AI control the Starhawks? Forget the humans and possible casualties. Let the AIs break through the Tush defenses and then let the task force fleet show more enter and evacuate everyone and take over defense? Seriously. Not everything needs to be so detailed either. Pick the use the detailing for the ships and battle or the stars/planets, don't randomly shift between the two, because that just feels awkward. "Crazy combat! Oh wait, pretty planet description.....Krait thing fired! oooh pretty....." I don't like that one bit. Better luck next time. I won't be finishing this one up. I'll find a different Sci-Fi book. show less

If you like space technology to be the star of your mil-sf, with blow-by-blow descriptions of every element of every space battle, well laden with space military jargon that is then carefully explained, and don't mind characterization that tells instead of shows, then this is the book for you.

Sadly, it is not the book for me. There seems to be a hint of an interesting story and potentially interesting aliens buried underneath all the weaponry and space battles, and since I bought the whole trilogy on a 3-for-2 sale, I'll probably read the rest of it.. but I doubt I'll pick up anything else by this author.

This wasn't an action filled military sci fi novel.
It plodded. Every little detail about the tech in the space fighter ships was s p e l l e d o u t and any tension or excitement went with it into the vacuum.
The hard science of traveling at near the speed of light and then decelerating into star system and attacking the enemy was interesting.
The characters didn't make any sense to me.
Annoying politicians on a battleship trying to micromanage the engagement with the enemy? And the officers letting them up to a point. Seriously? Nawwww.
One fighter pilot was subjected to a lot of c*ap from his team members because he grew up outside the dominant society, in a kind of 'prepper + Amish' way which was abhorrent to the mainstream people show more serving in the military. It reminded me of the prejudice towards the cloned pilot in the TV series "Space and Beyond", but there it served a purpose in the group dynamics and it worked into the over arching story line, too. In Earth Strike, it didn't serve any purpose at all, and the specific issue the other pilots were angry about was simply ridiculous by any objective or logical military standard.
(Arguing isn't conflict.)
Aliens were sufficiently alien to the point I didn't understand why they were fighting the humans.
I was frustrated, so I quit. YMMV show less

I accidentaly read this book twice. It wasn't in my library listing, so when I read the description on Amazon, I secured another copy. About a third into the book, I recognized enough passaged to know for sure that I had read it before. Despite that, I persevered because I was fully enjoying the second read.

The main character is a spacecraft fighter pilot from the slums who doesn't feel that he belongs in the space navy. He longs for the life he had in the slums, one where he was a respected member of a gang and had a wife that he loved. After numerous space battles with an alien invading force, he goes back the slum and realizes that it's no longer for him.

He then devises a tactic that totally defeats the alien fleet and is then fully show more accepted as a leader and respected member of the space navy fighting force.

To summarize, Earth Strike: Star Carrier is a coming of age type of book in a fast action space opera environment. show less

I should have checked the reviews. If you like detailed battle descriptions, get high on military jargon and weapon specs, cry on self-sacrifice and get moved by displays of camaraderie then you'll probably like this.

Otherwise the plot is thin, the politics are superficial (present only to get in the way of the military geniuses) and the characters could have been robots, if they were not infuriatingly model soldiers that only exist in this kind of literature. While he did try to go for some realistic physics, the close dogfights don't exactly signal hard sci-fi.

Star Carrier: Earth Strike
Author: Ian Douglas
Publisher: EOS/Harper Collins
Publishing Date: 2010
Pgs: 357
Dewey: PBK F DOU
Disposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
Man has reached beyond his cradle. As humankind approaches a technological singularity, a transcendence, an alien species that they’ve traded with is revealed to be part of a larger empire. An empire which does not want any species reaches transcendence for beyond that lies death. The Sh’daar and their underlings the Turusch are beating the Humans back across the stars. But at Eta Bootis IV, a human Marine base has captured two Turusch, the first to fall into their hands. show more The Star Carrier America and her Task Force are to relieve the Marines and pull them out with their prize. Their secondary mission is to pull as many of the colonists off the planet as possible. Tertiary, tear the enemy fleet apart. When elements of the Turusch fleet escape, the fear is that they will reprovision and come after them again. Earth is on their shopping list. The enemy fleet is inbound. All hell is about to break loose.

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Genre:
Hard Science Fiction
Space Operas
Science Fiction
Military
Aliens

Why this book:
Space warfare, fleet action...I’m there.
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Favorite Character:
Equal parts Admiral Koenig and Lt Gray.

Least Favorite Character:
Spaas, Collins, and Quintanilla...they’re all plot roadblocks.

Favorite Scene / Quote/Concept:
The shadow swarmer, carnivorous leaves are awesome creatures.

Meh / PFFT Moments:
Gray’s PTED diagnosis is circuitous. If he had such a thinking they would’ve found it a long time before Mufrid based on his backstory.

The arrogant squadmates are an overdone cliche. Those characters are cardboard. Better if they had been jettisoned and allowed to be casualties or had the full ramifications of their actions come home to roost in a court martial.

Quintanilla, the fleet political officer, is the same kind of character as Spaas and Collins.

The Sigh:
Why doesn’t anyone ever write a Political Officer who has an ounce of common sense and sees himself as part of the crew before seeing themselves as an overseer, equal or superior to the command structure on the boat.

Wisdom:
I like the “you can’t go home again” aspect of Gray’s story. He’s grown and changed. And in the same way that he said Angela wasn’t the same person after she had grown and experienced all that stuff that they implanted in her brain, he too grew.

Juxtaposition:
The misdirection that Admiral Koenig sees in the Turusch attack on the Solar System should have been seen by everyone.
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Pacing:
The flow and action are great.

Last Page Sound:
If, like me, you are a space warfare, fleet action junkie, you’ll enjoy this. Felt like both Dunkirk and Midway. Well done.

Author Assessment:
I’m reading more.

Editorial Assessment:
Well edited.
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This review will be for the complete first three book arc of this series. This novel reminded me a lot of the Jack Campbell Lost Fleet series as there was lots of space battles with ship to ship action. In this series, humans are fighting multiple alien species and not other human groups and for the most part are behind them technologically but the author makes up for this in the tenaciousness of the human fighting spirit. The author also does a pretty good job in fleshing out the multiple main characters and well as building a nice universe to tell the tale in.

I really enjoyed this whole series and look forward to reading more in the followup series. 4 stars for a fun read. Recommended for any fan of space navy military sci-fi.