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Exodus: Machine War #1
Supernova
Machine Book 1: Supernova is the launch of a new chapter in the Saga.Not all the action occurs on the main front. Space is too big for that kind of restriction.The Klassekians are a gifted race, with an ability which could help the Empire in its war against the Ca'cadasans. Just entering space, the species is still torn apart by religious and nationalistic schisms. They are on the verge of a nuclear war. And that is the least of their problems. For six light months from their star system is a blue giant, and the timer on its life is just about to hit zero.
Exploration Command ships discover the civilization, and it is soon apparent that this is one that needs saving. But saving the six billion people on the planet is a daunting task, especially with a killing wave of radiation a year and a half away, six months after the blue giant explodes. And one of the main religious factions of the planet sees their destruction as a cause for celebration, the return of their God. Now the humans must not only battle time, but the politics and religious fanaticism of a fatalistic people who do not desire rescue, and are determined to stop those who do. Add to this the mysterious alien artifacts that rise from surface to above the atmosphere, and the mission becomes interesting in the most hazardous manner.
And in the darkness, wait things that humanity thought they were well rid of, probing the human fleet, and threatening the great Empire base at Bolthole.
˃˃˃ A full novel of the Exodus Universe. Get yours today.Scroll up and grab a copy today.
Exploration Command ships discover the civilization, and it is soon apparent that this is one that needs saving. But saving the six billion people on the planet is a daunting task, especially with a killing wave of radiation a year and a half away, six months after the blue giant explodes. And one of the main religious factions of the planet sees their destruction as a cause for celebration, the return of their God. Now the humans must not only battle time, but the politics and religious fanaticism of a fatalistic people who do not desire rescue, and are determined to stop those who do. Add to this the mysterious alien artifacts that rise from surface to above the atmosphere, and the mission becomes interesting in the most hazardous manner.
And in the darkness, wait things that humanity thought they were well rid of, probing the human fleet, and threatening the great Empire base at Bolthole.
˃˃˃ A full novel of the Exodus Universe. Get yours today.Scroll up and grab a copy today.
508 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 18, 2015
37 people are currently reading
60 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 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 4, 2018
O...M...F...G!
I've been a fan of Doug's for a long time. In fact, I accredit him with my decision to start writing. I LOVE his Exodus series, so when he started this offshoot series, I was right on it.
Did it disappoint? Did it heck!
I LOVE the way Doug brings in the aliens who were just touched on in the main series. And I LOVE the way he's portrayed their home planet, and the similarities it has with humanity right now.
The political and religious conflicts are just...relevant.
Bring in the entirely plausible tech Doug's imagination continues to spawn, and you have another gem of a series in the making.
I finished this book in a day, and I'm currently on book three, less than a week after starting this one.
Just hoping he has another book in one of the series out before I finish this lot.
BEST SPACE OPERA IN YEARS!
I've been a fan of Doug's for a long time. In fact, I accredit him with my decision to start writing. I LOVE his Exodus series, so when he started this offshoot series, I was right on it.
Did it disappoint? Did it heck!
I LOVE the way Doug brings in the aliens who were just touched on in the main series. And I LOVE the way he's portrayed their home planet, and the similarities it has with humanity right now.
The political and religious conflicts are just...relevant.
Bring in the entirely plausible tech Doug's imagination continues to spawn, and you have another gem of a series in the making.
I finished this book in a day, and I'm currently on book three, less than a week after starting this one.
Just hoping he has another book in one of the series out before I finish this lot.
BEST SPACE OPERA IN YEARS!
March 15, 2015
I have been really enjoying the Exodus series so far. This book was a good addition to the universe even if the machines barely feature in the book. Overall it can lead to some good things, but hopefully it will not leave the main exodus story sidelined for too long. Hopefully at some point both plot lines/book series will merge and culminate in what I expect to be an incredible series.
October 29, 2017
it was ok.
November 5, 2019
Bleh
I stopped at the 60% point. The helping the aliens survive, even if they are trying to stop you from helping them is too weird. It got impossible to believe, even though I put the book down several times to reset my belief function.
The aliens are insane but that was believable to me. Sentients gonna be sentients. I had problems with how the humans interacted with them. It made no sense to me that humans: give maniacs access to human historical files; leave shuttles vulnerable to assault resulting in loss of ground weapons; not seeking out every radioactive source on the planet and burning it down; not using human tech to identify the entirety of both the official and unofficial government structure and then destroying it; no attempt to avoid ambushes; and more. It got so silly that I started rooting for the aliens bent on burning up in their supernova.
The human scientists, techs and exploration officers pay no real attention to 2 dozen megastructures circling the star and on the planet. Then they do but with no curiosity about the builders, who were not the current alien inhabitants. They aren't very good explorers if their operations doctrine includes firing ship weapons at thousands of year old, still functional devices created from impervious material using an impossible energy, which are also kilometers high. What could go wrong? There were similar issues in other exploration stories but the stories were overall strong enough that I gave them a pass. I'm thinking that I probably shouldn't have.
Here the Exploration Command forces are modeled directly on the image of U.S. Intervention forces in the Mideast. It's not a pretty sight. The writer directly references muslim terrorists as the model for the alien crazies. Why didn't humans just destroy the entire industrial infrastructure of the crazies' society and allow them to get a jump start on Armageddon (and joining their god) by dying from starvation and disease. Then humans could get on with trying to save the population that is very interested in survival. Instead they force themselves on crazy aliens in embassies, etc.
As for genocidal crusades, look at Christianity delivered by the swords of Roman legions, Charlemagne's armies to Central Europe, The Crusades in the Mideast, Spanish-Dutch-French-English-Portugese (Belgian, Dutch and others) soldiers of Christendom. Any of these models would have worked better, I think. Lastly, for the record, Muslim terrorism began as a reaction to the Zionist terror of The Stern Gang and Irgun. The Jewish state taught Arabs the ins and outs of terror, waged first against the British then turned next on their neighbors. Moshe Dyan had all sorts of Jewish Nationalist creds but couldn't stomach either of those groups, including one member who later became head of the government. So the irony of pointing to Islam is really just racism rearing its ugly head. Hopefully the writer will avoid this kind of misstep in the future, because I really like his books for the most part.
The writer also mentions one god as if monotheism was the default belief system for humanity over its entire history. It makes no sense, given Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, the religious tradition of every indigenous population on earth, as well as the fastest rising new religious affiliation, atheism. That's just the present. Given about 15 centuries of murderous, monotheistic crusades by Christianity and Islam (which still have not succeeded in wiping out all other belief systems) versus 50 to 100 thousand years of modern human societies, writers need to let it go.
If the above flaws aren't central to the novel, I would have continued to read it. This despite the predictable purpose of the alien artifacts and both the apparent incompetence and schizoid reasoning of the Exploration Command. As it was, I got bored with it. It's a great swashbuckling universe and there may be a lot of stories in it, worthy of the writer's skill and great style.
I stopped at the 60% point. The helping the aliens survive, even if they are trying to stop you from helping them is too weird. It got impossible to believe, even though I put the book down several times to reset my belief function.
The aliens are insane but that was believable to me. Sentients gonna be sentients. I had problems with how the humans interacted with them. It made no sense to me that humans: give maniacs access to human historical files; leave shuttles vulnerable to assault resulting in loss of ground weapons; not seeking out every radioactive source on the planet and burning it down; not using human tech to identify the entirety of both the official and unofficial government structure and then destroying it; no attempt to avoid ambushes; and more. It got so silly that I started rooting for the aliens bent on burning up in their supernova.
The human scientists, techs and exploration officers pay no real attention to 2 dozen megastructures circling the star and on the planet. Then they do but with no curiosity about the builders, who were not the current alien inhabitants. They aren't very good explorers if their operations doctrine includes firing ship weapons at thousands of year old, still functional devices created from impervious material using an impossible energy, which are also kilometers high. What could go wrong? There were similar issues in other exploration stories but the stories were overall strong enough that I gave them a pass. I'm thinking that I probably shouldn't have.
Here the Exploration Command forces are modeled directly on the image of U.S. Intervention forces in the Mideast. It's not a pretty sight. The writer directly references muslim terrorists as the model for the alien crazies. Why didn't humans just destroy the entire industrial infrastructure of the crazies' society and allow them to get a jump start on Armageddon (and joining their god) by dying from starvation and disease. Then humans could get on with trying to save the population that is very interested in survival. Instead they force themselves on crazy aliens in embassies, etc.
As for genocidal crusades, look at Christianity delivered by the swords of Roman legions, Charlemagne's armies to Central Europe, The Crusades in the Mideast, Spanish-Dutch-French-English-Portugese (Belgian, Dutch and others) soldiers of Christendom. Any of these models would have worked better, I think. Lastly, for the record, Muslim terrorism began as a reaction to the Zionist terror of The Stern Gang and Irgun. The Jewish state taught Arabs the ins and outs of terror, waged first against the British then turned next on their neighbors. Moshe Dyan had all sorts of Jewish Nationalist creds but couldn't stomach either of those groups, including one member who later became head of the government. So the irony of pointing to Islam is really just racism rearing its ugly head. Hopefully the writer will avoid this kind of misstep in the future, because I really like his books for the most part.
The writer also mentions one god as if monotheism was the default belief system for humanity over its entire history. It makes no sense, given Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, the religious tradition of every indigenous population on earth, as well as the fastest rising new religious affiliation, atheism. That's just the present. Given about 15 centuries of murderous, monotheistic crusades by Christianity and Islam (which still have not succeeded in wiping out all other belief systems) versus 50 to 100 thousand years of modern human societies, writers need to let it go.
If the above flaws aren't central to the novel, I would have continued to read it. This despite the predictable purpose of the alien artifacts and both the apparent incompetence and schizoid reasoning of the Exploration Command. As it was, I got bored with it. It's a great swashbuckling universe and there may be a lot of stories in it, worthy of the writer's skill and great style.
April 5, 2015
This book is starting a new series in the Exodus: Empires at War universe or at least I am assuming that it is a new series since it is marketed as book one. It is a great addition to this universe that Doug Dandridge have created. In this series we take a pause from the war in the Empires at War and embark on another adventure. Well, the war is still there in the background but the story itself is not about the war.
The book starts of as a mission of exploration undertaken by the aptly named Exploration Command. Soon a, previously unknown, civilization is discovered and from there on it starts to get really interesting. Although the Exploration Command’s ships are by no means defenseless, as the more primitive natives are about to learn the hard way, they soon discover that it might be advisable to get themselves a bigger stick. Like a battle cruiser or two. And why not a few marines while we are at it?
As the book blurb states, the natives of this unknown civilization are deeply religious (most of them at least) and as some of us knows, when religion enters the equation then intelligent reasoning and common sense usually exits. Thus the good guys soon finds themselves battling religious fanaticism when trying to save this race from extinction. It is impossible not to draw parallels between these fanatics and the ones that are rampaging around in our real world today, or in the past for that matter. Sadly humanity never seems to learn some things. I suspect these similarities are quite intentional from the authors side.
Anyway, some rather interesting features of the aliens anatomy quite quickly makes them highly interesting for the empire which makes the effort to make these people survive so much more important. So important that ethics occasionally might have to take a back seat. Not that the humans are turned into the bad guys though, except from the point of view of the religious fanatics of course.
To complicate matters there are a number of alien artefacts in the system that are advanced well beyond the empire. They play a rather important role later in the story although this where I have an issue with this book. I will not give any details since it would be a spoiler but when you encounter an artefact that is well beyond your level of science and understanding and which seems to be more or less indestructible you do NOT poke it with battle cruiser weaponry. That is just dumb.
Now, as if there was not enough complications already, the reason why this series seems to be called Exodus: Machine War rears its rather ugly head. As a stand alone book the title is somewhat misleading as there is not really any machine war going on and the machines only appear at the very end. However, obviously this is just book one of a series and should be seen as a stage setter. At first it does indeed look like much of the book have nothing to do with the upcoming machine war but I am sure that the author have some plans on how to tie everything together. If nothing else the empire now have to defend this world.
This is really a great book. Great story, great characters, good writing as usual from Doug Dandridge, plenty of well done fight episodes both in space and on the planet. The balance between the technological superiority of the empire and the more primitive natives ability to give them a black eye despite this is quite good. I am eagerly looking forward to the next instalment in this new series, as well as the next instalment in the Empires at War story arc as well of course.
The book starts of as a mission of exploration undertaken by the aptly named Exploration Command. Soon a, previously unknown, civilization is discovered and from there on it starts to get really interesting. Although the Exploration Command’s ships are by no means defenseless, as the more primitive natives are about to learn the hard way, they soon discover that it might be advisable to get themselves a bigger stick. Like a battle cruiser or two. And why not a few marines while we are at it?
As the book blurb states, the natives of this unknown civilization are deeply religious (most of them at least) and as some of us knows, when religion enters the equation then intelligent reasoning and common sense usually exits. Thus the good guys soon finds themselves battling religious fanaticism when trying to save this race from extinction. It is impossible not to draw parallels between these fanatics and the ones that are rampaging around in our real world today, or in the past for that matter. Sadly humanity never seems to learn some things. I suspect these similarities are quite intentional from the authors side.
Anyway, some rather interesting features of the aliens anatomy quite quickly makes them highly interesting for the empire which makes the effort to make these people survive so much more important. So important that ethics occasionally might have to take a back seat. Not that the humans are turned into the bad guys though, except from the point of view of the religious fanatics of course.
To complicate matters there are a number of alien artefacts in the system that are advanced well beyond the empire. They play a rather important role later in the story although this where I have an issue with this book. I will not give any details since it would be a spoiler but when you encounter an artefact that is well beyond your level of science and understanding and which seems to be more or less indestructible you do NOT poke it with battle cruiser weaponry. That is just dumb.
Now, as if there was not enough complications already, the reason why this series seems to be called Exodus: Machine War rears its rather ugly head. As a stand alone book the title is somewhat misleading as there is not really any machine war going on and the machines only appear at the very end. However, obviously this is just book one of a series and should be seen as a stage setter. At first it does indeed look like much of the book have nothing to do with the upcoming machine war but I am sure that the author have some plans on how to tie everything together. If nothing else the empire now have to defend this world.
This is really a great book. Great story, great characters, good writing as usual from Doug Dandridge, plenty of well done fight episodes both in space and on the planet. The balance between the technological superiority of the empire and the more primitive natives ability to give them a black eye despite this is quite good. I am eagerly looking forward to the next instalment in this new series, as well as the next instalment in the Empires at War story arc as well of course.
March 1, 2015
Doug Dandridge has delivered another great story in the Empire series. This novel follows the Explorer Corps as they find a new alien civilization that is threatened by a star about to explode. As they try to save as many people as possible they find religious fanatics that threaten everything. I found myself thinking about our world today. What makes this book enjoyable is the setting away from the war along with a new twist that should lead to some awesome storylines. Get a copy today.
May 31, 2015
Extremely Engaging
The whole exodus series is enhanced by this novel and yet I was totally engaged by what was happening that was unique to this story line am looking forward to seeing what happens.
The whole exodus series is enhanced by this novel and yet I was totally engaged by what was happening that was unique to this story line am looking forward to seeing what happens.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews