This is the sequel to “Into the Light” published in 2020 and “Out of the Dark” published in 2010.  It’s worth reading the previous books before this one to really appreciate the storytelling; so, please…desist reading this review until you’ve read the previous two books. This doesn’t really standalone and there will be spoilers.  At least the wait this time was only a measly four years.

When we last saw Dave, he had become the de facto ruler and father figure for an entire planet, Sarth.  He also inherited two body guards cum advisors that follow him everywhere.  A very far cry from the man who just wanted to live off the grid and manage his shooting range in S. Carolina. Governor Howell became President (of the planet) and was intent on bringing the entire planet together to address the inevitable incursion by another Hegemony race.  And Vlad and Stephen were on their way to the Shongairi homeworld in their captured ship with the intent to flatten every single Shongairi.  But the travel time is forty years and in those years the clever humans have time to improve upon the Shongairi’s technology and even build a new ship; one that can easily overtake Vlad’s ship.  So it is a big surprise for Stephen and Vlad to meet Dave just as they were ready to pummel the Shongairi homeworld.  It’s an even bigger surprise to discover that Dave and Howell don’t want that anymore.  While the thirst for revenge remains in every surviving human and vampire, forty years is a long time and the humans on earth had access to a complete Shongairi database of all the species and worlds that the Hegemony knows of.  Time enough to decide that what humanity needs more than revenge is allies.  And the Shongairi have potential to be a very good ally. There’s also the part where humanity understands that every Shongairi that participated in the attack is already dead and it’s likely that no one who was responsible is even in power anymore on their homeworld, Shongaru.  Plus, Weber is obviously fond of the American ideal of being the white hats; it wouldn’t be worthy of us to participate in a planet-wide genocide. 

Forty years was also long enough for xenobiologists and xenopsychologists to study and understand the underlying precepts of the Shongairi belief and system of honor code that makes Bushido look like a child’s game.  And their conclusion is that even if they present the Shongairi with the inescapable evidence that human tech is superior, they won’t get the results they want without beating them into submission.  But once the planet-wide genocide goal is off the table, they realize they need to accomplish this task with minimum enemy casualties.  This puts our heroes in a very vulnerable position and they know they’ll take more casualties than if they just bombard the whole planet.  The authors do a very good job in showing us the rulers of Shongaru and although they would very much like to surrender to the humans, they know their people would never understand until the humans have a boot to their collective neck.

The story is fast-paced and engrossing so it might not be immediately evident but the authors engage in a great deal of exposition.  And it’s warranted.  The story is so large that without a summarization along the way, it would go for several hundred more pages.  This reader, while not normally a fan of exposition, was very satisfied with how it was presented.  It was much like listening to a group of friends reunited after a long absence and bringing everyone up-to-date; it was interesting and not tedious in the least.

Since Weber and Kennedy don’t seem to be interested in following a single story thread, they also include a second mission.  At about the same time as Dave’s fleet leaves to meet Vlad at Shongaru, a second mission led by Howell, the past Governor of N. Carolina and former Planetary President, leaves earth to visit a planet system called Tairyon. The Shongairi database has details of what happened when the Hegemony allowed another member species to engage in planet genocide, much as what happened to Earth.  The humans, with their white-hat ideals, are suitably outraged at what happened.  The race of Liatu wanted a planet that was already inhabited by a race that was much lower in technology skill level than the Liatu.  And the Hegemony turned a blind eye towards the heinous crime the Liatu employed to take what wasn’t theirs. The human mission intends to make the Tairyon system an example to the Hegemony; return the planet to its rightful owners, and impress upon the Hegemony that humans are not to be underestimated or ignored.  This half of the book was almost as much fun as the first half.  I thoroughly enjoyed the broad view the authors take.

And, finally, in the background of all this remains the unresolved issue of the vampires.  They did not manage to invent another term so it still feels unsettling to include the word “vampire” in hard science fiction; I doubt it’s been done before.  In the last book, they discovered that the vampires are actually a product of science:  nanotechnology.  And Dave has some suspicions of who or what is responsible for it.  So this thread along with the fact that they still haven’t encountered the actual Founders of the Hegemony indicate the authors might not be done with this story.  I am a little concerned since the storyline has to continue taking into account both subjective and actual travel time between galaxies.  They posited that the Shongairi database included advanced medical science that keeps the humans from aging as rapidly but still…they need to keep the main characters alive to complete the series.  They can’t just switch to a generational story this far in.

This entire series is military science fiction light.  I am not a fan of such but the authors manage to incorporate a whole lot of science while not neglecting the human side. They also provide gobs of science at the end of the book in the form of three appendices which should satisfy those hardcore military sci-fi fans and those who want more behind-the-scenes details.

While I could be content with this ending; expect the monkey boys and girls to continue to kick galactic butt against the “herbivore” controlled Hegemony and even the occasional “carnivore” origin species like the Shongairi, I really think we need just a little more resolution.  Confronting the Founders of the Hegemony is a mind-boggling concept and the answer to the origin of the vampires just has to be tied to that.  I like the idea that the Hegemony’s experience has never included an omnivorous species that didn’t blow themselves up before getting space flight, which is a reasonable assumption.  The giveaway here is that the humans didn’t do it on their own.  They only acquired the technology because they were invaded; and their ace-in-hole, their nano-tech vampires exist because someone interfered with their evolution.  I want those answers.  Hopefully within this decade, please.   ~~ Catherine Book

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