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Exodus: Empires at War #4
The Long Fall
The Saga Continues, as an Emperor is seated and the threat from the Ca'cadasan Empire grows.
Sean is back, saved from the grasp of the Ancient Enemy. And the Ancient Enemy is going full bore into the heart of all the human kingdoms.
The Ca'cadasan Empire has it out for the humans. Their Emperor had ordered the human species exterminated. But the humans got away, at least some of them, and established themselves ten thousand light years away in the Persius Arm. They were given a thousand years to establish themselves, but now the Ancient Enemy has found them, and they are still determined to wipe out over a trillion humans. Those humans are not so inferior in their tech as they were, only a couple of decades behind the Ca'cadasans. And they have the Donut, the enormous space station built around a black hole, a century in the construction. The Donut generates wormholes, the one major adantage of the humans over their enemies. There are other technologies on the horizon that the canny humans hope to gain advantage from. If they can keep their Fleet together long enough in the face of a mighty foe to deploy what they hope are war winning techs. And in the capital of the New Terran Empire plots are still alive. The plots of other governments, and of humans with their own agendas. Old enemies sharpen their knives, determined to catch the humans in disarray, while new allies come in on the human side. Will it be enough? Or will humanity be forced to flee once again.
Sean is back, saved from the grasp of the Ancient Enemy. And the Ancient Enemy is going full bore into the heart of all the human kingdoms.
The Ca'cadasan Empire has it out for the humans. Their Emperor had ordered the human species exterminated. But the humans got away, at least some of them, and established themselves ten thousand light years away in the Persius Arm. They were given a thousand years to establish themselves, but now the Ancient Enemy has found them, and they are still determined to wipe out over a trillion humans. Those humans are not so inferior in their tech as they were, only a couple of decades behind the Ca'cadasans. And they have the Donut, the enormous space station built around a black hole, a century in the construction. The Donut generates wormholes, the one major adantage of the humans over their enemies. There are other technologies on the horizon that the canny humans hope to gain advantage from. If they can keep their Fleet together long enough in the face of a mighty foe to deploy what they hope are war winning techs. And in the capital of the New Terran Empire plots are still alive. The plots of other governments, and of humans with their own agendas. Old enemies sharpen their knives, determined to catch the humans in disarray, while new allies come in on the human side. Will it be enough? Or will humanity be forced to flee once again.
345 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 10, 2013
52 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Doug Dandridge
75 books142 followersDoug Dandridge was born in Venice Florida in 1957, the son of a Florida native and a Mother of French Canadian descent. An avid reader from an early age, Doug has read most of the classic novels and shorts of Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as multiple hundreds of historical works. Doug has military experience including Marine Corps JROTC, Active Duty Army, and the Florida National Guard. He attended Florida State University, studying Biology, Geology, Physics, and Chemistry, and receiving a BS in Psychology. Doug then studied Clinical Psychology at the University of Alabama, with specific interests in Neuropsychology and Child Psychology, completing a Masters and all course work required for a PhD. He has worked in Psychiatric Hospitals, Mental Health Centers, a Prison, a Juvenile Residential Facility, and for the his last seven years in the work force for the Florida Department of Children and Families. Since March of 2013 he has worked as a full time writer. Doug has been writing on and off for fifteen years. He concentrates on intelligent science fiction and fantasy in which there is always hope, no matter how hard the situation. No area of the fantastic is outside his scope, as he has completed works in near and far future Science Fiction, Urban and High Fantasy, Horror, and Alternate History.
Doug has published 34 books on Amazon, with over 230,000 sales with 5,000 reviews averaging 4.6 stars. He will be publishing his first traditionally published book in 2018, followed by the second book of the contracted series. Also in the planning stages are post apocalyptic and alternate history series.
Doug has published 34 books on Amazon, with over 230,000 sales with 5,000 reviews averaging 4.6 stars. He will be publishing his first traditionally published book in 2018, followed by the second book of the contracted series. Also in the planning stages are post apocalyptic and alternate history series.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 12, 2019
Still has Dr Jennifer but the rest is fun
Again with Dr. Jennifer, she's the most disturbing portrayal of a human female in the entire series. I get that the writer wanted a love interest for his MC but this isn't it. She's annoyingly clingy and the emperor is not in love. He has the hots for her and it reads like high school infatuation. The writer seems to be forcing her into an important role but other than as a self-involved 1960's teenager, the shoe doesn't fit.
On the plus side, the alien internal politics are first rate. I am blown away by the portrayal of all the species as well as descriptions of individuals from each. They are consistent and feel totally real.
The naval/military sections are just as much fun to read as the interstellar politics. The wormhole inside a wormhole thing, is fuzzy to me but I'm going with it. If you avoid the self centered idiot that is aiming at becoming empress, it's an interesting story. The passage of time is muzzy but assuming it is appropriate to the action, I'm not complaining.
The warfare is still fine and does have the feel of Empires at War (with maybe a touch of Flash Gordon).
Again with Dr. Jennifer, she's the most disturbing portrayal of a human female in the entire series. I get that the writer wanted a love interest for his MC but this isn't it. She's annoyingly clingy and the emperor is not in love. He has the hots for her and it reads like high school infatuation. The writer seems to be forcing her into an important role but other than as a self-involved 1960's teenager, the shoe doesn't fit.
On the plus side, the alien internal politics are first rate. I am blown away by the portrayal of all the species as well as descriptions of individuals from each. They are consistent and feel totally real.
The naval/military sections are just as much fun to read as the interstellar politics. The wormhole inside a wormhole thing, is fuzzy to me but I'm going with it. If you avoid the self centered idiot that is aiming at becoming empress, it's an interesting story. The passage of time is muzzy but assuming it is appropriate to the action, I'm not complaining.
The warfare is still fine and does have the feel of Empires at War (with maybe a touch of Flash Gordon).
October 9, 2017
I am completely hooked on this series! I don't know where the author gets his theories from, but even though they are purely out there in terms of science fiction, he writes them in such a way to seem entirely plausible, without some of the technobabble a few authors spout.
The characters are deep and well developed, and the plot is fast and furious from the first page. roll on the next book!
The characters are deep and well developed, and the plot is fast and furious from the first page. roll on the next book!
October 28, 2013
This is another very good book in the Exodus: Empires At War series. I was actually hoping for the humans to do some fighting back in this instalment but the ground is still being prepared for any such event and this is very much “only” a stepping stone. You definitely get the impression that the war have only just begun from reading this book. Not that there is no fighting in this book though. There are plenty of it but it is all quite defensive. Actually, I would say that the humans are more doing a fighting retreat similar to what Russian armies did during the 2nd World War. Also similar to this there are pockets of resistance although this time the resistance have good help from the wormhole technology that the humans developed.
On of my complaints with the previous instalments in this series was the seemingly never-ending story of getting the heir to the throne back and getting him installed as the new emperor before the scumbag politicians (lords) got their puppet in place. Luckily this was over and done with in the first couple of chapters and Sean is indeed proving to be up to the task.
Unfortunately the Ancient Enemy is not Sean’s only enemy. Internal enemies are still lingering, scheming, plotting and generally making trouble. Not all the trouble is coming from actual enemies though. Sean have to battle selfish or simply downright stupid politicians as well since he is after all not a dictator, “just” an Emperor. Although not at all negligible this is not really taking up an enormous part of the book. Enough to add some additional thrill but not enough to make me unhappy about it.
Most of the book is spent in preparing the Empire for being able to strike back without losing too much of it or being totally overrun first. Some stabs and harassment attacks are taken against the enemies but, as I wrote above, most of the action is guerilla actions or quite defensive. If I should complain about one thing in this book is that I would have liked to see a higher percentage of space combat. There is really not that much of that in this book.
There are also some very interesting glimpses of the ancient species that once dominated this area of space and were (are) vastly ahead in terms of science and technology. They say that they will not interfere or help but will they truly not do anything? If they will not interfere, what role will they actually play?
As far as I am concerned this book easily places itself on the top ten list of books that I have read this year. It is well written, have interesting characters, plenty of action etc. It has most of what I like and little of what I do not like in a book. I am eagerly looking forward to the next.
On of my complaints with the previous instalments in this series was the seemingly never-ending story of getting the heir to the throne back and getting him installed as the new emperor before the scumbag politicians (lords) got their puppet in place. Luckily this was over and done with in the first couple of chapters and Sean is indeed proving to be up to the task.
Unfortunately the Ancient Enemy is not Sean’s only enemy. Internal enemies are still lingering, scheming, plotting and generally making trouble. Not all the trouble is coming from actual enemies though. Sean have to battle selfish or simply downright stupid politicians as well since he is after all not a dictator, “just” an Emperor. Although not at all negligible this is not really taking up an enormous part of the book. Enough to add some additional thrill but not enough to make me unhappy about it.
Most of the book is spent in preparing the Empire for being able to strike back without losing too much of it or being totally overrun first. Some stabs and harassment attacks are taken against the enemies but, as I wrote above, most of the action is guerilla actions or quite defensive. If I should complain about one thing in this book is that I would have liked to see a higher percentage of space combat. There is really not that much of that in this book.
There are also some very interesting glimpses of the ancient species that once dominated this area of space and were (are) vastly ahead in terms of science and technology. They say that they will not interfere or help but will they truly not do anything? If they will not interfere, what role will they actually play?
As far as I am concerned this book easily places itself on the top ten list of books that I have read this year. It is well written, have interesting characters, plenty of action etc. It has most of what I like and little of what I do not like in a book. I am eagerly looking forward to the next.
January 17, 2016
Really Good Storyline Continues!
I knew this would be a great series after reading the very first book. Now with each succeeding book I can't wait for the next one. This last book is no different than those before it. I can't put it down! I really do have other things to do but reading this book is all I get done for about two days.
it is good to see that the new Emperor gets back and takes over. There is a lot of fighting even though it's not going very well for the humans. Still, we're getting our act together and breaking in a new Emperor so it will take time. We'll have to get some allies to come help but they seem to be having problems of their own. There are a lot of smaller stories going on and we only get glimpse of some of these. It will be interesting to see how these side stories all tie together at the end.
Good action. great writing, needs some closer editing. And on once again, I'm can't wait for the next book!
I knew this would be a great series after reading the very first book. Now with each succeeding book I can't wait for the next one. This last book is no different than those before it. I can't put it down! I really do have other things to do but reading this book is all I get done for about two days.
it is good to see that the new Emperor gets back and takes over. There is a lot of fighting even though it's not going very well for the humans. Still, we're getting our act together and breaking in a new Emperor so it will take time. We'll have to get some allies to come help but they seem to be having problems of their own. There are a lot of smaller stories going on and we only get glimpse of some of these. It will be interesting to see how these side stories all tie together at the end.
Good action. great writing, needs some closer editing. And on once again, I'm can't wait for the next book!
November 20, 2013
Amazing series. Portrays hopeless scenarios amazingly well
May 7, 2014
Up to now the best book in this series
March 18, 2015
The engaging space opera continues, though I feel the worm hole shenanigans are getting more and more outlandish.
Read
January 6, 2016Getting better.... new twists and plots...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews