Inverarity is not a Scottish village

A girl and her dog and kaiju-sized aliens.

On a distant Earth colony, an orphaned survivor of an alien invasion discovers that the greatest world-ending dangers aren’t behind her.

It’s been eight years since an alien invasion drove a small surviving group of settlers to seek refuge in an underground shelter. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the ragtag band has maintained a narrowly functioning colony due to communal effort and salvage runs. Alex Archer has her own duties as a dog handler. While this off-world colony may be harsh, Ash, Alex’s black shepherd raised to sense threats, makes living in it a little nicer.

But the tenuous hide-and-seek with the monstrous species known as the Lankies is about to come to an end for Alex and her close-knit crew of soldiers, techs, and friends. When a salvage operation goes catastrophically wrong, the Lankies home in on the humans.

With hopes of a rescue long faded, all Alex has left is will—and the fear that there’s so much more to lose.

( A filler novel to extend the <i>Frontlines</i> series. )

Also by Marko Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, Chains of Command, Fields of Fire, Points of Impact, Orders of Battle, Centers of Gravity, Aftershocks, Ballistic, and Citadel.

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Book three of the Palladium Wars.

An interplanetary battle is renewed in an epic novel of a warring solar system by the author of Ballistic.

The war should have been over. But it’s not for a group of nationalists grabbing for control.

It’s been two weeks since a missile with a nuclear warhead tore through the planetary defenses in the most blistering large-scale attack ever committed in the history of the Gaia system. Commander Dunstan Park of the Rhodian navy has been handpicked to command an experimental cruiser that could dictate the course of the escalating conflict. All he has to do is keep the ship from falling into the wrong hands.

On Gretia, the powder keg is beyond control. A terrorist attack against civilians draws Idina Chaudhary into a costly battle. It also forces a cautious Aden Jansen back into the fray. Now dedicated to a just cause, he’s still keeping his past hidden. The risk of exposing his former alliance could twist not only his fate but also that of his sister, Solveig, heir to the family empire.

With no time to waste, Dunstan hits the ground running. But as insurgents threaten the unstable peace, what’s ahead for both sides could change the destiny of the Gaia system forever.

( Volume three serves up more of the same, MilSF comfort food. )

Also by Marko Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, Chains of Command, Fields of Fire, Points of Impact, Orders of Battle, Aftershocks, and Ballistic.

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The seventh book in Kloos's long-running Mil-SF series adds a twist to milk it for a while yet.

The battle against the Lankies has been won. Earth seems safe. Peacetime military? Not on your life.

It’s been four years since Earth threw its full military prowess against the Lanky incursion. Humanity has been yanked back from the abyss of extinction. The solar system is at peace. For now.

The future for Major Andrew Grayson of the Commonwealth Defense Corps and his wife, Halley? Flying desk duty on the front. No more nightmares of monstrous things. No more traumas to the mind and body. But when an offer comes down from above, Andrew has to make a choice: continue pushing papers into retirement, or jump right back into the fight? What’s a podhead to do?

The remaining Lankies may have retreated in fear, but the threat isn’t over. They need to be wiped out for good before they strike again. That’ll take a new offensive deployment. Aboard an Avenger warship, Andrew and the special tactics team under his command embark on the ultimate search-and-destroy mission. This time, it’ll be on Lanky turf.

No big heroics. No unnecessary risks. Just a swift hit-and-run raid in the hostile Capella system. Blow the alien seed ships into oblivion and get the hell back to Earth. At least, that’s the objective. But when does anything in war go according to plan?

( Oh, now we're doing Star Trek: Voyager )

Also by Marko Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, Chains of Command, Fields of Fire, Points of Impact, and Aftershocks.

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More space battles against aliens as the war drags on.

Humankind may have won the battle, but a new threat looms larger than ever before....

Earth's armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present.

Earth's game changer? New advanced ships and weapons, designed to hunt and kill Lankies and place humanity's militaries on equal footing with their formidable foes. Andrew and his wife, Halley, both now burdened with command responsibilities and in charge of more lives than just their own, are once again in humanity's vanguard as they prepare for this new phase in the war. But the Lankies have their own agenda...and in war, the enemy doesn't usually wait until you are prepared. As Andrew is once again plunged into the chaos and violence of war with an unyielding species, he is forced to confront the toll this endless conflict is taking on them all, and the high price of survival...at any cost.

( Milking this series for more than it's worth. )

Also by Marko Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, Chains of Command, and Fields of Fire.

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Book four in the Frontlines series about a war against aliens is rather lacking in aliens.

The assault on Earth was thwarted by the destruction of the aliens' seed ship, but with Mars still under Lanky control, survivors work frantically to rebuild fighting capacity and shore up planetary defenses. Platoon sergeant Andrew Grayson must crash-course train new volunteers - all while dulling his searing memories of battle with alcohol and meds.

Knowing Earth's uneasy respite won't last, the North American Commonwealth and its Sino-Russian allies hurtle toward two dangerous options: hit the Lanky forces on Mars or go after deserters who stole a fleet of invaluable warships critical to winning the war. Assigned to a small special ops recon mission to scout out the renegades' stronghold on a distant moon, Grayson and his wife, dropship pilot Halley, again find themselves headed for the crucible of combat - and a shattering new campaign in the war for humanity's future.

( Time to go nuke some traitors. )

Verdict: Chains of Command is not a good entry point into the series - start at the beginning. But this one won't let you down, even if it lacked some of the climactic moments of previous volumes. 7/10.


Also by Marko Kloos: My reviews of Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, and Angles of Attack.

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Even an invasion by genocidal kaiju does not not unify humanity.

Vicious interstellar conflict with an indestructible alien species. Bloody civil war over the last habitable zones of the cosmos. Political unrest, militaristic police forces, dire threats to the solar system...

Humanity is on the ropes, and after years of fighting a two-front war with losing odds, so is Commonwealth Defense Corps officer Andrew Grayson. He dreams of dropping out of the service one day, alongside his pilot girlfriend, but as warfare consumes entire planets and conditions on Earth deteriorate, he wonders if there will be anywhere left for them to go.

After surviving a disastrous spaceborne assault, Grayson is reassigned to a ship bound for a distant colony - and packed with malcontents and troublemakers. His most dangerous battle has just begun.

In this sequel to the best-selling Terms of Enlistment, a weary soldier must fight to prevent the downfall of his species...or bear witness to humanity's last, fleeting breaths.

( Better-than-average Starship Troopers imitator. )

Verdict: An improvement on the first book and, if derivative of Heinlein, it's a good derivative. Lines of Departure shows development in both characters and worldbuilding, and has enough of a hook to keep me interested in the series. 7/10.

Also by Marko Kloos: My review of Terms of Enlistment.

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