KCR: Eye of the Storm (novel, scifi)

John Ringo has pretty much concluded his "Legacy of the Aldenata" (i.e. Posleen War) series, so it is time to take it to the next level.

The short of it... Lt. General Michael O'Neal had not much left to live for than to lead his beloved Corp of Armored Combat Suit infantry and kill Posleen. His only family has been long dead. His planet Earth mostly gutted by the Posleen invaders. Then his day got much much worse. The Terran fleet, under control of Darhel, wiped out his ACS corp on trumped up charges of "mutiny", and his staff was shot in front of him for 'attempting to resist'. It is clear that his fate was to suffer a bullet while "attempting to escape" from a kangaroo court with a preordained verdict.

Unfortunate for the Darhel, a new invader has appeared on the horizon... the Hadren Hegemony, wielding combat power and technology matching or exceeding the Terrans, plus Sohon abilities wielded by their psy-combat masters to bend time / space / matter to their will (on a limited scale), has invaded a planet near the capital of the Federation. Without the Terran combat troops, the Federation Capital, the Darhel homeworld, will surely fall.

So for Darhel leader Tir Dol Ron, his task is impossible. He have to somehow convince Lt. General Michael O'Neal, someone with the power to destroy the Darhel without touching any weapons,  to save the Darhel despite everything the Darhel did to him...

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The problem I have with this scenario is it doesn't make sense. There really is NO reason for Michael O'Neal to agree to save the Darhel. It is no surprise that the book hinges on he does, and he's out to rally the Terran troops stood down since the Posleen War to fight another battle on alien planets, this time with some better technology that is a logical advancement from the Posleen War.

We really need to see inside his head a little more to puzzle out his motivations, because it doesn't make sense, and that kinda ruined the book for me.

The various characters in previous books make an appearance... most of them... Panama (Old Yellow Eyes), Germany (March on the Rhine), and more are all here. And that's another problem: the book really has NO combat until the very end. And even then it's divided into two actions: half of it is on a ship-boarding raid, and the other half is the orbital invasion but we're left with a cliffhanger.

Combat is exciting, when there are some. It's O'Neal's motivation I don't get.

Rating: Try it