The Day of Battle (Exodus:Empires at War #6) by Doug Dandridge
My rating: 10 out of 10 stars
Sean needs a victory, before Parliament returns a no confidence vote and leaves him a figurehead ruler.
The Ca’cadasans are almost through with their conquest of Sector IV, and from the there, the heart of the Empire is exposed.
The Ca’cadasans continue to roll over the New Terran Empire and the New Terran Republic. Hit and run tactics are taking a toll on the enemy, bleeding them, but not enough. Frontier worlds, developing planets, and worse, the industrial powerhouses known as Core Worlds, are falling at an alarming rate, and even the new weapons based on wormhole tech can’t stop them. Risks need to be taken, everything put on the line. Sean must come up with a plan that allows him to take on and defeat the Caca battle fleet. Only then can he buy the time his Empire needs to battle the enemy on even footing, and keep the people without a plan from gaining controi of the Empire. Defeat could spell disaster, but so could inaction. He has even more new weapons to deploy, devices beyond imagination, and the shipyards are working to capacity. Allies are gathering, but so are regional enemies who join the cause of the enormous aliens. And a client species of the Cacas is looking to play both sides to their own benefit, while the Cacas plan on a strike that will take wormhole technology away from the humans, once and for all. The Day of Battle is upon the Empire, and the history of the human species depends on the outsome.
It is not often that I give a book 10 out of 10 star ratings. This one however merits one without a doubt in my mind. It is the third book this year that I have felt merited that rating and one of those other books are also in this very book-series. This book has most of the things I really like in a good space opera and little of the stuff I do not like. Good characters, plenty of action (especially fleet action), good story and it is generally well written although I did spot a few rather noticeable typos here and there. Not enough to distract from the enjoyment though.
In this, the sixth instalment in the series, Sean and the rest of the humans are finally dishing out some payback to the Ca’cadasans. I just loved to read those parts. I also liked that the strikes are not glossed over as are done in too many otherwise good books. You get to follow the Ca’cadasan side of it when the hammer falls as well. These parts are just great.
Naturally there is no paradise without its worm(s). Incompetent politicians and selfish spoiled billionaires are, as usual, making a valiant effort to disrupt things. These things do luckily, given how much I dislike political bullshit and manipulation, not hold a too prominent place in the book though. Worse are the shapeshifters that are infiltrating and sabotaging the war effort. Not my favorite part of the book. Although some of them are adequately dealt with we do not get to know the full extent of the damage of these despicable creatures’ actions before the end of the book.
Although we are treated to several human victories in the book it ends in quite a bit of a cliffhanger with several loose ends. One being the previously mentioned shapeshifter debacle were we are truly left hanging in the middle of the battle. Another one being the “client spieces” of the Cacas that the humans discover. If I should single out one thing I did not like with this book it would be this part. This new species are all too much resembling a well-known species from an equally well-known Sci-Fi franchise, at least behaviour-wise, and I do not like that at all. The author might of course surprise me in the next instalment but I have to say that I would rather be without these aliens and are not looking forward to reading any more about them.
Despite these minor misgivings I cannot but give this book a top rating and I am eagerly awaiting the next instalment.
PG's Ramblings 