Exodus

Starfire #5

by Steve White

Once before, the sentient races in the known part of the galaxy, humans, Orions, Ophiuchi and Gormhad, united to defeat alien invaders. The bugs were as incomprehensibly alien as they were revoltingly evil, using all other living things, intelligent or not, as food, and they had been defeated at a terrible cost. Decades have since passed and the gallant warriors of the battle against the bugs have grown old, while new generations have grown complacent . . . dangerously so. Long ago, much of the population of an entire planet had built a huge fleet of ships, each ship larger than a city, and fled their world before its sun went nova. Those slower-than-light ships traversed many light years, and have now arrived at the world they intend to make their new home. They regard the fact that the planet is already colonized by humans as a mere inconvenience, the more so since their mode of communication is so different from anything humans use that they do not consider humans and their allies to be truly intelligent. And the arriving aliens knowor, at least, they believethat when they die they will be reincarnated, so they do not hesitate to attack humans and their allies with suicidal fury. This time, the intelligent races of the old alliance will not have to worry about becoming an invaders mealbut that will be small comfort if the invaders decide that genocide is justified for their own survival. . . .

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Fiction, Military Science Fiction, Ebooks, Military Fiction, Space

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Born in 1948.
Steve White is an American science fiction author best known as the co-author of the Starfire-series alongside David Weber.

He is married with 3 daughters and currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. He also works for a legal publishing company. He previously served as a United States Navy officer and served during the Vietnam War and in the Mediterranean region.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wh...

Reviews

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along with the Lost Fleet series (Jack Campbell), the Starfire series was my first introduction to this style of Military SF (where the tactical and military elements are prominent to the story, and not a secondary feature). I suppose I came late to the party, but nevertheless...

I really enjoyed the books White co-wrote with David Weber, such as dealing with the Theban war (Crusade) and of course the fantastic Bug War arc (In Death Ground / The Shiva Option).

I had always intended to continue with the series, but there just seemed to be so many other books to read. Finally though, I have managed to work my way to Exodus

What they had gone into had been Hell.

Exodus does go to some conscious effort to tell the story from both sides of the conflict. There are different viewpoints, motives and imperatives, not just from an individual point of view, but indeed from a species overview.

What kind of beings lurk inside those ships?

What kind indeed? How to come up with an enemy that equals the Bugs for their destructive tendencies. How about a species that sees death as a “temporary inconvenience” and that holds a rather unattainable view of sentience. The Arduans have some very specific criteria in this regard, such as something they call selnarm, which is a form of empathy combined with telepathy, basically turning the whole species into an organic Wide-Area-Network or Local-Area-Network, as circumstances require. It’s not quite a hive mind, either, and I’m not sure I am explaining it correctly.

Any species unable to participate in this particularly state, and unable to reincarnate (yep, that), is literally considered to be vermin. You’d think the ability to build starships should count as some indication of sentience, or sapience. Apparently not.

She symbolically drew a finger across the table in front of her, for all the world like she was drawing a line in sand. "This far. No further."

In a rather cool twist, this novel introduces the additional physics and challenges of Einsteinian Space, as opposed to solely dealing with Warp nexus mechanics. It makes for a nice conundrum in the context of the story, which I enjoyed.

Oh, and Orion names are still a nightmare. They hurt my eyes just looking at them.

I enjoyed Exodus although it clearly only sets up the main event, which is set to be depicted in Extremis.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright, I admit it: this book has a green chick with three eyes, big boobs, and tentacles for fingers on the cover...and I loved it! I am a total sucker for military science fiction, and this one--the fifth in the crack-like Starfire series--had me from page one. There is just something about capital ships pounding the shit out of each other with missiles and beam weapons that turns me into a 12 year old boy again. Love this stuff. There is no character development, no deep ruminations on the human experience; no clever figures of speech or soaring prose: just missiles. So many, many missiles. And three-eyed tentacle fingered space bimbos.

Life is good.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exodus
Author: Steve White & Shirley Meier
Publisher: Baen
Date: 2006
Pgs: 270
Dewey: WHI
Disposition: Inter Library Loan via Missouri River Regional Library, Jefferson City, Missouri to Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
The Arduans companion star is going to go nova. They know it is coming. The answer is to leap toward the stars with everything that they can carry. Refugees in ships many miles across...at lower than light speed. Generation ships. A telepathic species who have psychic immortality. But the new homes that their diaspora has carried them to have creatures on them. They don’t believe that the humans they encounter are intelligent. Vermin. The planets are covered in vermin. And vermin don’t deserve to have planets to themselves. Then, the animals fight back.
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Genre:
Science Fiction
Military
Space Opera
Action
Adventure


Why this book:
I’ve loved the Starfire series.
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Favorite Character:
First Space Lord Li Han. She is a force of nature here analogus to Howard Anderson and Ivan Antonov in the previous books.

It was a good character beat when Cyrus had to be strong in the face of the enemy as he managed the retreat of his fleet and mourned the loss of his friend.

Least Favorite Character:
All of the Arduans. They are a bit of cardboard.

Favorite Scene / Quote:
Li Hans surprise about the Devastator class at the allied conference on Zephraim was cool.

The arrival and battle of the 2nd set of Arudan invader refugees is better than the 1st. Maybe because there is more grounding in the tech and the ideas than the same around the 1st groups arrival and conquest.

The spider web ambush was awesome ship to ship militaria in space.

Third Bellerophon is well done. This is everything I love abotu the Starfire series. Heroics, drama, things going boom, life and death.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The behind enemy lines guerilla aspect would have had to be gigantic and superiorly dramatic to stand up to previous instances of that aspect in the other books. And it doesn’t.

Hmm Moments:
The starship battles aspect of science fiction has always been a favorite of mine. This info dumps on tactical ship criteria are mostly well placed and pertinent.

Meh / PFFT Moments:
There’s a hole in Vice Admiral Krishmahnta and her staff’s strategy. They talk of being outflanked thru the Magnus-Zhi warp point chain. The problem is that the warp point between Magnus and Zhi is a closed warp point and therefore invisible to sensors. The Arduans are neophytes at the warp point game and all the ones that they’ve found and used so far they’ve been lead to by the Alliance. So, the idea that if the Alliance made the effort to hide the closed warp point, moved or destroyed the stuff around it, then the only way the Arduans would find it would be if they stumbled through it. This would have effectively lead the Arduans into a cul-de-sac that they couldn’t escape from without accidentally falling through the closed warp point. And space is big.

Sigh. Art...really? That’s feels cliched.

Missed Opportunity:
Where are the Crucians?
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Last Page Sound:
To be continued.

Author Assessment:
I’ll be there for the next book, because I know the potential. When done right, Starfire is an awesome sci fi militaria platform.

Editorial Assessment:
At book’s end, I feel that a quarter of this could have been left on the editor’s floor. I enjoyed it, but I am steeped in the series. If this was someone’s intro to the series, I have misgivings about whether they would return for another bite.

Knee Jerk Reaction:
it’s alright
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[Per Gunnar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a continuation of the Starfire series and is published quite a few years after the previous book in this series. David Weber is no longer in the authors list and, even though the book was quite enjoyable, this shows. The book starts a new story arc in the Starfire universe but the basics of the story seems to be similar to previous books, that is, another day another invader. I have nothing against that. It is a type of story that I normally like.

In general I did like the book. The book is well enough written, some of the interesting characters are back and there is some nice “slugging it out” action in space. I did not like it as much as the previous two books though. Those where both 10 out of 10 stars for me. I think the absence of Weber shows. I wrote that the book was well enough written but it does kind of lacks the “touch” that he usually manages to get into his books. I especially missed him in the details of the space fights which were not bad in this book but still somewhat superficial compared to what Weber can do if he sets his mind to it.

The book references back to previous books quite a lot so, even though the book is readable without knowledge of the prior books, I would not recommend it. Unfortunately most references go all the way back to Insurrection, the first book in the series, which was the book in the series that I liked the least.

The book spends quite a bit of time on the Aliens and the story flip-flops back and forth between the alien viewpoint and the humans all the time. I cannot make up my mind if I liked this or not. The way the aliens communicated and how it was written in the book was interesting. It did however become a wee bit tedious to read through all those brackets with emotions in them after a while. On one hand it was interesting to follow the other side as well but on the other hand I usually ended up thinking, enough of this, lets get back to the good guys.

Speaking of good guys, maybe that is the wrong term to use since the entire war is pretty much the fault of the humans. Personally I thought it was rather cheap and unimaginative to use the old “dumb military office cannot keep his finger off the bloody trigger, mistakes sensors for an attack and screws up big time” plot element. I got off to a quite bad start with the book thanks to that.

There is no real conclusion in this book. As a matter of fact, pretty much all of the book is more or less setting the stage for this new story arc and it is not until the end of the book that the humans finally starts to get organized and put together some coherent, longer term plans for kicking the alien’s butts out human space. Now that will of course pose an interesting moral dilemma since the aliens are in reality homeless and, as I noted previously, the blame of the hostilities really falls on the humans.

Although the book was not as good as the previous two books I did enjoy the book for sure and I will definitely read the next one.

[Troy G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exodus is the worst of the Starfire series. That makes it better than most any other novel out there. A book like Exodus about the struggle between two sides in a war is dependent on both sides being interesting. The human point of view is fascinating as always. The aliens on the other hand struck me as a bit weird. It is good that they aren't evil, and that the humans aren't pure good, but it doesn't feel like a fair fight. The aliens control one small area, while the humans have a massive empire. The aliens are refugees from a destroyed world, and the humans are native to this are of space.

Negatives in the premise aside, this is a very good book. Tactical and strategic planning is done in an interesting way. The key component that elevates the starfire series above other Military Sci Fi has always been the attention to logistics that is lacking almost everywhere else. Logistics sounds boring, but pretending it doesn't exist dramatically undercuts the plausibility of many other stories.

Lastly, there is a sense of problem solving that I like alot. In a world constrained by a series of warp points that act as choke points that can be defended, there is a reason why having the biggest, most powerful fleet might not be the deciding factor in a conflict. Tactics, Strategy, and innovation will eventually lead to victory.

I hope Mr. White Decides to write the sequel soon, because I want to know how the story ends.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 5th book in the series but follows directly on Insurrection which was the first book written. You really need to read that one to understand what is going on in this one. David Weber is gone so now Steve White is partnered with Shirley Meier. Perhaps that explains why the style of this book is so much different from the previous three. In those it was just one battle scene bleeding over into another. In this one there are battles with a great deal of character development in between, both among a large group of Hooman characters and in alien groups as well. It is much more like Insurrection in that, which is odd since Weber was involved in that one.

It's been 80 years since the Hooman Space Civil War. Suddenly some generation ships show up out on the fringe. They are slower than light, some as large as 10 miles across, and carry millions of aliens. The Hoomans go out to try and communicate, the aliens respond, and everyone is happy, the end. Psyche! The Hoomans go out to try and communicate, there is a huge misunderstanding, and we have the basis for a new war porn book series. The aliens ships are so large that each one is attended by its own fleet, and there are waves of them coming. The aliens are semi-telepathic and empathic so they think the nontelepathic Hoomans are dumb animals. With spaceships. I dunno, aliens can be so stupid sometimes. The aliens also have a genetic memory like the Goa'uld, so they know that when they die they will come back in a new body sometime in the future. It makes death a minor inconvenience and heavily influences their fighting style. They also start out with some tech disadvantages but almost immediately overcome those.

Most of the Hooman part of the story follows the preparation for a long war with a few attempts to attack. The other focus is the return of Ian Trevayne. Rendered a corpsicle in the first book, he is thawed out and pressed back into service.

All of this is setting the stage for the next book or group of books. Based on a hexmap empire builder game from the 70's, with later computer versions, it is not supposed to end. This book is just the start of the next war, which presumably will be followed by another war, and so on. Not likely a series based on a war game will ever stray from the source. If the castaways ever get off the island then the show will be over. So war porn it is, and if that's your thing then you've come to the right place.

[Gilles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lu en anglais

Tome 5 de la série Starfire

Les Arduans, des extraterrestres techniquement très avancés, vont disparaitre; une étoile proche va se transformer bientôt en supernova et détruire toute vie sur leur planète. Mis au pied du mur, ils conçoivent un plan de dernière chance. Ils vont construire des vaisseaux absolument gigantesques pour transporter la majorité des habitants de leur planète vers d'autres étoiles. Le voyage sera long, car leurs vaisseaux ne peuvent atteindre la vitesse de la lumière et ils ne connaissent pas les points de saut, qui permettre de relier rapidement certaines étoiles. Des milliers d'années plus tard et donc maintenant, ils approchent des populations humaines et de leurs alliés. Pour eux, que les planètes soient habitées ou non ne fait pas de différence. Sans compter que les différences de mode de communication sont telles qu'ils considèrent les autres races comme dénuées d'intelligence. Et c'est la...guerre.

Les humains et leurs alliés sont rapidement mis sur la défensive. Les Arduans ont une technologie avancée, apprennent vite et ont des vaisseaux ....véritablement énormes. Sans compter qu'il utilisent un sens télépathique pour communiquer et peuvent se réincarner. Comme la branche guerrière a pris le dessus suite aux batailles, il est très difficile d'établir la communication.

Et c'est reparti. La fédération et ses alliés sont acculés et toutes leurs tentatives de contre attaque sont mises en échec. Et l'on met de l'avant d'anciens héros en espérant des miracles. Une de ces légendes, une ingénieure de génie, propose quelques approches. Mais leur mise en place va prendre plusieurs mois, sinon des années. Un souffle épique assez constant à mon grand plaisir !

Le roman partage les moments dans l'espace avec la résistance des population conquises sur leur planète. Deux bémols : on utilise des mots inventés pour des concepts, reliés aux Arduans, qu'il faut comprendre par le contexte et le roman se continue dans le tome suivant.

Bien sûr, j'ai beaucoup aimé . Une série qui porte la science-fiction militaire à son top niveau.

[Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

New species of alien enemies arrives to colonize a human-entrenched system. This time, the aliens have evidence that they will reincarnate after death, arrive in massive generation ships (having traveled at sub-light speeds), and quickly decipher things unknown to them after seeing it demonstrated by humans. (This last part was a bit sticky for me. Were the aliens deducing by observation or is there something in the wreckage of the human ships that they've defeated which was then analyzed and figured out how the Desai drive works and how to traverse wormholes.) For a colonization expedition, the aliens sure came prepared to fight over whatever they found at their destination.

Otherwise, typical military SF. One interesting bit is that the reader knows of at least one other colonial expedition and, since wormhole space doesn't conform to physical space, it's unknown when or if these additional (more advanced since they had longer to develop tech before leaving the home system) expeditions will run into another inhabited system. I guess that's what the sequel is for.

[Anatoly · Rating 2 out of 5]

5 books in and the narrator still can't pronounce Russian names. The complete level of absurdity in tactics, interactions, timeline discrepancies with the previous books in the series, the complete lack of any realism in production or fighting ability of either side of the conflict is staggering. The only redeeming value is the half-baked characters and short length of the book. Hence more than 1 star.
While the previous few books were mindless mil-sci-fi action extravaganza and enjoyable for what it was, this one is devoid of even that. End of the series for me.

[SciFiOne]

Exodus (Book 5 in the series)
By Steve White and Shirley Meier

2023 Grade Z

I read 30% of the book before I abandoned it, so it is Not a bad story. I just found it more difficult to keep track or the who, what, and where of the story than it was worth. I expect the author to do that for me. Some continuity errors were so big I never figured out who and when the POV was in relation to the previous part of the tale. It might be more understandable if a person has read books one thru four first but the cover did not say it was book 5 when I found it in a little roadside free library.

[Abu Dhabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's okay, if a bit too casually egalitarian/internationalist/idealistic for my tastes.

[Mathias Juhl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only the beginning of a new plot with no ending. The other books in the Starfire-Series were better.

[Daniel Hamad · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of the same. An entertaining read, as always, but you're not going to be blown away by anything.

[David Packer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continues the story but language choices make it a hard read.

[D.w. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems to be my week to read incomplete books. White and Weber, though this is written in collaboration with Shirley Meier, took their initial success of giving us stories based on the Starfire game, like Insurrection, and made them two book long tales. Sometimes with so many rehashed battles that one wondered why bother.

You could see another battle coming and could jump ahead fifty pages as nothing would be different from the last battle described. History as repetitive to its core.

This book so far did not do that. Each battle did revisit a new aspect of the war it was describing. Though one can get lost in the technical side that White dwells on and throws in. Who in the end cares how many of each type of ship is brought to the battle when you are not invested in those who are the ships. It is just a bunch of numbers and then, White spends too much time on that, instead of delving into what all that tonnage might mean. Or that they are configured differently (ASMBMMMBBEEEE-Letters that to the game of Starfire mean a unit of Armor, then a Shield, A Missile, A Beam.... which if the book ties into a campaign system that everyone can replay, might mean something)

Where another book I read this last week did not make logic of their world building (60 men in an incursion wreak so much havoc that thousands are sent to deal with it, who live in a garrison as large as the pentagon, all in a medieval setting.) White does not suffer from that. They have been working on the universe for many years. Where we lack is that they have provided a map that is only half useful. Key places you are trying to find are not on it, so you are thrown wasting time looking for those places.

It may not be a reread like Insurrection or Crusade, but it completes what one would like to know about the universe. Though last, White too attached to characters he previously introduced wasted too much time bringing such back into the story he is telling. He has such a broad canvas of time he could have moved entirely onto new generations without sacrifice.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big fan of military science fiction in general, and a huge fan of Steve white books specifically. With this in mind, I have to say that Exodus was without a doubt the worst Steve white book I've ever read. But there was more to this book then just logistics, the struggle to communicate despite a vast gulf in philosophy and thought, and battles.. Exodus is a surprising book, in that it is inherently about the struggle to live in a very chaotic, very deadly universe.

The Arduans are an empathic/telepathic race of three-eyed, tentacled humanoids who can reincarnate after death. Their sun is about to go supernova; this desperate situation leaves them with no choice but to construct monstrous (and by monstrous, I mean GIGANTIC) 'generation ships' to traverse the dark between the stars to colonize a new home... Despite the fact that the planet was already colonized. Therein lies the beginning of the plot.

I was a little put off by the slow progression of this novel; however, the more I got into the book, the more fascinating it became. I can't wait to read the sequel!

[Fumijo · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot to like about this book, and it could have have been as good as the previous books in the series, but it had a few problems.

One of the biggest was a completely wasted subplot which was introduced but never had any followup. They reintroduced the Tangrians, but then never did anything with them for the rest of the book. It was left completely open, and while it might be tired up in future books, the way it was introduced led me to believe that something was going to be happening within a short time. Not so.

The rest of the book was interesting, but the lack of contribution from David Weber was very plain to see as the plot was not tight like one of his books (including the previous Starfire books).

So, an interesting addition to the series, but not up to the level of the previous books.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the world and the characters, but I found it was a lot of work to finish this book. It comes with a map that isn't relevant for the first half of the book - instead focusing on places just off the edge of the map. I often found it was hard to tell who was where, because of the use of titles, nick names, first names, and last names.

The story lines really do not take shape until late in the novel and there is not a great deal of resolution. The book just stops, clearly waiting for a sequal.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book in this series. You can tell there's a different author mix, but then again you can't, if that makes sense? The story has the "taste" you'd expect, yet there's a little different flavor to the story.

That said, it's kind of the usual, "New species from out of no where, who can't communicate to known races, starts kicking butt and known races try to fight back, initially loosing, but finally start to turn the tide" kind of story.

Again, that said, if you've read the others in the series already, then this is still a must read...

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up playing the game STARFIRE, which this book series is based on. If you came to this book from THE SHIVA OPTION, you may be disappointed. The co-writer on that book was David Weber, and his lack of influence on the story is keenly felt. Not to say it's bad, just VERY different in flavor. This is more akin to his book INSURRECTION than it is to ON DEATH GROUND or THE SHIVA OPTION set in this universe.

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, this was disappointing. I'm a huge fan of this series, and was hoping for more excellence. Unfortunately, there isn't any. Compared to the previous entries, this one is shallow and small. There's minimal character development, and there's a real lack of connection between the chapters. It feels like a semi-related collection of short stories, none of them very good. I read it, and I'll read the next one, but only because of the previous entries, and not because of this one.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was fun to revisit some old favorite characters, and the new aliens were somewhat interesting. However, I think this will probably appeal mainly to those who are already familiar with the milieu and how the universe works, I wouldn't want this to be a person's introduction to the Starfire universe. At the least, "Insurrection" should be required reading before starting this set, since it relies so much on the characters who were introduced in that book.

[Haakmed · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not very well written and a far cry from the first few books that come before it. There was to much effort to create a new language for the bad guys to speak that I had a feeling of dread each time one of their perspective chapters showed up. I am not entirely sure I will finish this series off after reading this book.

[Marco Paganini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as the others in the Starfire series, but a different take on aliens. I found the premise of aliens that can't see Humans, a spacefaring society, as an intelligent species just because they don't communicate over the same medium a bit of a stretch, but in any case, the alien society and ideas is well constructed. Not a lot of space battles in this one though.

[Keira F. Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extension to the "Starfire" series by Weber and White. Not bad, not amazing. A race using non-FTL transport is en-masse invading the federation, and the shenanigans ensue. It thankfully did not have the agonizingly detailed battles of the prior Starfire books, but it also felt like it was lacking in spark.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A continuation of the Starfire series by White and Weber. An alien race, fleeing the nova of their sun, stumble into a war with humans and their allies. Extremis is the sequel by White and Gannon.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

A OK read of Weber's Starfire series. Takes off after Insurrection from 1990.

[Aaron Anderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

God, there is a total orgy of made-up words for a new alien culture. Inadequate explanation of them makes it very unfun to read. Screw this book.

[Christy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seems stuck on technical descriptions and not the more interesting exploration of alien differences.

[Honor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the Starfire books anyway, but this one goes quite a bit more into fleshing out an alien culture and mindset - I'll write more later. For now, I was just getting a link for someone.