An ancient enemy with a billion starships and a trillion soldiers is about to invade our universe!
A Forerunner artifact the size of a planet drifts in hyperspace. It has mysteriously gone online, opening a rip between space-time continuums. A monstrous race older than the stones of Earth is pouring through, planning to eradicate all life not its own.
The aliens in our spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy are in terror of the invaders. They want to use human assault troopers as ground-pounders in a suicide mission to save our universe. Humans are little better than beasts anyway, although the aliens know they can fight like hell. Let the unpredictable Earthlings do the dirty work and battle down to the center of the portal planet: closing the rip. It’s a commando raid where no one comes back, and good riddance to them.
Creed understands this is a screw job. He’s dealt with these aliens before and beaten them at their own game. But the stakes are desperately high and the extraterrestrials have threatened all humanity if he refuses to stop the monstrous invaders. So be it. Creed has an idea, a crazy plan, and if he’s right…every alien that ever lived—in this universe and the next—will curse the day they messed with Earth.
I was born in Canada and remember as a small boy crawling in my snow-fort. I closed my eyes, and when I tried to open them, they were frozen shut. I didn't panic, but wiped away the ice crystals, unglued my eyes and kept on building my tunnel. Those were great days! I moved to Central California before seventh grade and couldn't believe I lived in a land where oranges grew on trees and you could pick grapes from the vine.
I used to wonder what I wanted to do with my life, what kind of work specifically. I was miserable not knowing and bordering on desperate. Then one day a friend gave me his typewriter. I began working on a novel. A different person told me it was much easier on a computer, so I bought one and began getting up at 4:30 A.M. each morning before work, writing for three hours. My eyes were unglued once again as the pang of misery left my gut. I knew exactly what I wanted to do: write. So now that's what I do, I write, and write, and write, and I love it.
I told you in my review of the first book didn't I? Didn't I say the one's "behind" wiping out Earth would be sorry they didn't finish the job and get all the humans?
Well, they are though things haven't gone as maybe most of us expected. With military science fiction action mixed in with first contact, origin ideas, semi-religious plot lines tied in with political and military action lines this could have gotten bogged down easily. It didn't however. While the book is not completely character driven the main characters will become familiar to you and they will "act as they would act".
In other words no one suddenly becomes some one else. Our main character does some developing and maturing while not becoming someone else. The aliens are interesting if not totally original.
Also while playing with religious beliefs so far he's been at least respectful to "all involved".
For your peace of mind we do have a rabidly atheist character so the atheists among you can take comfort.
I enjoyed both books in the series, and look forward to more. Lots of action and the story takes all kinds of "didn't see that coming" twists. I've never been disappointed in a Vaughn Heppner read, and this series is great entertainment.
It was just as exciting as the first Book. Yet again l could not put it down. Mr. Heppner has an uncanny gift of bringing his characters alive. They become like people one knows, particularly Commander Creed. I cannot wait to read Star Viking, the third book in this series.
I liked Planet Strike better than the previous book in the series, but it was not good enough to say I loved it.
The story: The evil, worthless lion-aliens who murdered all our fellow Earthlings are now our allies in fighting the even-more-evil aliens from a parallel universe who wish to kill us all. Luckily our hero will solve this problem using the brash ways that he learned in prison.
Any problems with this story? At times it got a little silly with a few pop culture references that described the situation well enough, but seemed out of place in an space adventure. I would have accepted these pop references if the author had been going for a tongue-in-cheek sort of story where serious things were happening all around a non-serious character who seemed to get the job done anyway and with good humor.
Secondly, the main character didn't seem strong enough to be the general of the Earth space forces (what few there were of them). Also, the author changed from the Roman military structure that was used in the previous book to that of a Mongol military structure. What purpose that served other than to confuse the reader (me) is a mystery. It was not explained (or for that matter used) enough times for me to absorb the differences between a Roman legion and a Mongol horde, and why that made a difference.
FYI, a religious theme was introduced. It was not oppressive. It did not seriously denigrate religion, but it was also not a strong enough theme to carry the story of a mystical/technological power that created all living beings in our particular parallel universe. I seem to recall a similar idea being introduced in my wife's Philosophy of Religion class in college. The author could have benefited from such a course, if only to warn him away from such a theme. It almost worked, but the author needed more background in religious history for starters. It was not enough to use the famous quote from Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" as if he was equating religion with magic which the author did specifically through one of his characters, a scientist. She eventually got a boot in the backside for her simplistic dismissal of religion, but that didn't make this a pro-religion book either. See? Too wishy-washy.
For an example of a successful religious theme used in a SciFy context I suggest reading the Safehold series by David Weber beginning with "Off Armageddon Reef". It is essentially the recreation of the Christian Reformation IN SPACE! He does it well without requiring the reader to be particularly religious.
Other good examples of religious themes used in SyFy are "Dune" by Frank Herbert and "The Jesus Incident" also by Frank Herbert. (Warning: The Jesus Incident is a very violent and sexual book as I recall.)
The ending of Planet Strike tied up the major threads introduced in the beginning of the book while leaving an opening for a sequel. However, the book left me with the feeling that the hero of the story was a worthless piece of crap. (I am being vague in order to avoid a spoiler.) I understand why he had to make the hard choices, but he still came out looking bad in my eyes.
Generally, I liked the story enough to stay with it to the end. Nevertheless, I doubt I will be reading this book again. I am abandoning the series which encompasses three more books as of this writing.
Wow. This was amazing. The story and world building is so good. The author has given this story a lot of thought.
There aren't any boring parts for the first page to the last. You get into the action right from the beginning and it lasts till the end. Most 2nd books in the series are usually fillers or just flops. Others could learn a thing or two from this series on how to keep the interest of the reader going.
Okay, I finished this book faster than I thought and am glad I decided to read it! It further builds on the first book in the series with a big surprising twist, and introduce and build several intriguing concept that will make you think, like some parallel concepts of earth and alien race(s).
Onto book 3 of the series now and I can only see things getting more interesting!
There is so much to comment on but say that is was very intriguing story! Other universes and aliens that have destruction our life is also interesting and fascinating! I like the story although the end could have been a little more exciting. For now I look forward to to reading the next installment in the series.
Entertaining. And with the added bonus of increasing testosterone & reducing IQ. Creed reacts to everything with all the subtlety of an angry hornet. Luckily all those angry-spur-of-the-moment decisions seem to turn out ok in the end, though not without a great deal of collateral damage.
The Earth died when aliens rained thermonuclear warheads on her cities and sprayed the surface with a bio-terminator. A deadly poison drifted to every corner of the planet, threatening the last survivors with annihilation.
"For a soldier in Antarctica like Creed, there is only one way to keep breathing untainted air. He must join the Jelk Corporation as an assault trooper, leaving the planet for outer space. In return for his and other people’s services, the Jelk will house the last humans for as long as the assault troopers keep winning.
For the price of living and the chance to save humanity, Creed has to wear a shock chip in his neck—Jelk discipline is harsh—and he has to don a symbiotic battlesuit that feeds off his sweat. Human life is cheap in the vast alien war. The assault troopers are little more than suicide soldiers, but for humanity to escape extinction, they must survive. But Creed didn’t agree to the bargain in order to remain a dog to the aliens. He has a plan, and he’ll need all his cunning to beat the extraterrestrials and begin the road to freedom for the human race".[Amazon]
Very easy SCI_FI: World destroying enemy, end of the world, can do hero! You get the picture. The book is like, BV Larson, but so what. Listen via AudioBook Bay, read well and great voice for the hero. I enjoy the action packed story but easy going hero and no in-depth bedroom scenes. Well written and no surplus words. I would recommend this book as going to sleep action story, young adults or a distracting story to listen to as you do that unpleasant job.Enjoy P.S: You have got to love a trilogy!
My head was still in space opera mode when I noticed Vaughn Heppner had penned a sequel to "Assault Troopers," a fast-action world-is-taken-over-by-aliens novel. "Planet Strike" follows the exploits of now Commander Creed, a former con who has taken over his alien master's ship after winning and escaping a huge interstellar battle. He returns to earth to try and save what's left of humanity. But Creed never gets a break. The Lokhars, who look like big bipedal tigers, return with some simian freelancers to finish off all humans. Creed kills off the apes and works a deal with the tigers and winds up in a religious quest for the meaning of life. Only this one requires a mass amount of death. Heppner turns on the action. Really. Creed is an interesting character who reminds me of a badass version of Harry Harrison's "Bill, the Galactic Hero." The story has one direction: forward. Those who want to contemplate more philosophical stuff need not read this book. Heppner ends the book somewhat suddenly, and I wanted a bit more resolution. But he's got a paragraph that puts my mind at ease. A little anyway. He says, and I paraphrase, "Read this and I'll write another." OK, dude. I'm ready. Here's a review. You're prolific as all hell, but this guy has more to say.
This series is epic! I cant fathom people who could give this under 4 stars. Yeah it has spelling mistakes but other then that it is fine story telling. There seems to be 3 types of sci-fi space opera alien invasion type books.
First you have the John Ringo like Hard sci-fi that has more plausible views on what space technology would be like but i find boring "like 12 hours for a missle to hit" and explaining every pecie of tech in detail , then there is somewhere in between hard sci-fi and star trekky nonsense like how this novel plays out and then the unimaginitive total implausible type 4 civilization type stuff wich i also dont like. This series has the perfect balance in my opinion and this is exactly the type of story i like. There seem too be 4 authors that have the same story telling and same style , Raymond Weil Vaughn Heppner , Ryk Brown , and BV Larson and i love all 4.
Trust me give this series a try , book 1 is so so , book 2 is good and book 3 and 4 are epic
Another fantastic addition to the series. I enjoyed every page. The dialogue is just fantastic between our main character and the various aliens he comes in contact with. The banter with N7 which I loved in the last book wasn't there now that he is an ally but instead it is with the trumped up tiger admirals and the foes he comes across. The forerunner tech, the artefact, the planet, are all really fresh and interesting ideas rather than your run of the mill space or land battle form of space opera. Yes there are a lot of Babylon 5 homages, including the Vorlon ship on the cover, talk of the "first ones" and a similar babylon 5 style hyperspace. The author must be a fan (as am I)
Definitely a 5 star book for me and I cannot wait to get to the third book!
First of all, this series qualified as a summer read book. Action moves things forward with little detail about how that movement is accomplished. So, there's little military tactic, explanation, etc. It's not designed like a Tom Clancy novel if that's what you're into.
Recognizing this, I liked the first book quite a bit. The story line was solid enough, the twists weren't totally predictable, etc.
This, the second book, not so much. It was very predictable and, the underlying military premise of attacking a highly populated planet with a relatively small number of soldiers, was unbelievable.
If you want to finish the series, by all means, read the second and third books, they don't take much time. But, the second book drops off in quality IMO.
I didn't find this as engaging as his latest effort, but it was entertaining with good concepts. Of course, it didn't help that I inadvertently went with the second book of the trilogy instead of the first, so I had a lot of catching up to do. Now I have to decide to catch up with the first or move on. Sigh. Definitely worth a read, he has a nice style and manages to write books in a trilogy that stand alone nicely.
This book was the next in this series and it seems like the humans can't get a break let alone someone they can trust. The book was well written and had plenty of action at times he spoke of remembering old history battles that seemed to help him in his battles. All in all I think it was a great read and I would highly recommend giving the series a try. Nice job Mr Heppner.
Outrageous Fun Wow, this was so much fun. I know, I know there are things that could have been done better or things that have been done before. Be that as it may I loved this second installment of the Extinction Wars. Creed and his band of survivors/troopers are all here and I love them all. The things they go through to avenge and protect what’s left of the human race was amazing and over-the-top fun! Booyah
I hadn't read Vaughn Heppner before and choose the Extinction War books because they were free. I read both in 2 days and was disappointed Planet Strike was so New I'm going to have to wait for more! LInk the meantime I'm eagerly moving on to the rest of his books, free or otherwise. Highly recommend this author.
I found it very difficult to put down Planet Strike, by Vaughn Heppner. I enjoyed the first book, Assault Troopers, but I doubly enjoyed Planet Strike. The twists and turns, as well as how the main character, Creed, overcomes the biggest obstacles is tremendously entertaining. I recommend this book.
I started this series hoping that it would not die half way through,and haven't been disappointed yet! excellent read! let's keep it going!!! I hope to be informed when the next one comes out!#! hint-hint!
I really love the way Heppner spins a story... Creed is one of my favorite heroes... I 've downloaded all the Extinction Wars books and can hardly wait to read them.