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Robotech #12

Symphony of Light

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It had been a long hard road for Scott Bernard and his ragtag band of Robotech irregulars; but the Invid stronghold known as Reflex Point was finally close at hand, and preparations were under way for a full-scale assault.

But the Invid Regis was not about to surrender so easily the world she had come halfway across the galaxy to claim - especially now that her experiments in racial transmutation were nearing their conclusion.

And no one, Human or lnvid, thought to ask whether Protoculture might have something to say in these matters. But indeed it did; and the final encounter of the Robotech Wars would be more mystifying than anyone had imagined.
And Earth Was The Prize!

212 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1987

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About the author

Jack McKinney

76 books55 followers
pseudonym of authors Brian Daley and James Luceno.

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5 stars
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215 (36%)
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183 (31%)
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39 (6%)
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Profile Image for Alejandro.
1,299 reviews3,773 followers
December 1, 2016
The Robotech Third War’s last stand!


INVID V HUMAN: DAWN OF PROTOCULTURE

The Invid Regis conceived Ariel (aka Marlene) as a way to inflitrate Scott’s team, but she didn’t count to lose contact with her, and how Scott will impact on “Marlene”.

The Invid Regis continued having Corg and Sera, and both have been proved to be wild cards on their own particular paths, Sera isn’t certain of being in the right side of the war, and Corg enjoys just too much destruction.

Nevertheless, the Invid Regis did even more experimentations on humanoid hybrids, and it’s no wonder that while these new kind of Invid hadn’t fulfill their ideal expectations, the Invid Regis can’t avoid to remember Zor due this.


THE BEST AND WORST OF HUMAN NATURE

Lt. Cmdr. Scott Bernard born in Tirol space and he was never before on Earth until his desperate mission to reach Reflex Point with the assistance of a small rag-tag team.

Scott’s first-hand contact with Earth-born humans has been shocking, because while he has in high steem his civilian companions like Rand, Rook and Annie,…

…he has meet several dark examples of human nature, collaborating with the Invid.

Even worse, Scott has seen the disgusting face of a REF fallen hero in the previous book, questioning too his opinion about the REF soldiers,...

...not matter that certainly Lunk and Lancer have been valuable members of his rag-tag team.

In this final book chronicling Scott Bernard’s quest for Reflex Point won’t be out of really tenebrous models, including a serial killer…

…but where there is darkness, also there is light, and Scott will be proud to find other REF soldiers doing their duty not matter the odds of success and even looing a chance of redemption.


ATTACK O REFLEX POINT

Scott’s impossible mission seems to have a chance after all,…

…since the REF fleet Jupiter Division is hiding behind the moon, having the brand-new Veritech Shadow fighters, that they are “invisible” to the Invid Protoculture sensors, a key advantage changing the battlefield.

Finally, it isn’t a small rag-tag team against a whole invasion army, but also they will have a REF fleet with the latest in Robotech technology available…

…but even so…

…will it be enough?

And the mother of all questions…

…where is Admiral Rick Hunter and the SDF-3?








Profile Image for Butterflykatana.
67 reviews1 follower
June 2, 2013
A touching end to a long road, and the launching point of the end.
Profile Image for Joe Davoust.
273 reviews2 followers
October 31, 2021
This was one of the better novelezations from the Robotech animated series. This one worked harder than most to tie it to the other books and unite all of the earlier seasons of the show with the novels to come. Either because after reading several of these, I got used to the writing style, or after writing several of these the author's writing style got better, this was more palatable than the others. I also think the last few episodes of the series were kind of a mess and, this book does well to tie up the lose ends and make sense of the story as a whole. As good as this book gets though, I can only recommended to those who have read all the previous novels in the set.
Profile Image for Simon.
Author 11 books16 followers
December 30, 2022
Recent Reads: Symphony of Light. The 12th volume of Jack McKinney's Robotech series wraps up the main plot of the anime, pulp-style. One of the books longest on my TBR, and I can see why. Written in a month and it shows. At heart it's 1950's SF dressed up in 80's glitter gloss.
Profile Image for Brandon.
214 reviews
October 14, 2017
I love this trilogy. Enjoyed rereading the updated volume. A lot of improvised small unit survival, an interesting apocalyptic landscape and some intriguing characters.
Profile Image for James.
194 reviews
July 18, 2010
Ah the Invid Invasion. Such fond memories. Unfortunately, none of them stand up under new scrutiny. 18 of these books are slightly jazzed up and smoothed over transcriptions of the TV show. Once you know this, it's impossibly not to read the books thinking "and these two chapters were this episode, and these two chapters were the next . . .". It only kind of works and in the invid invasion trilogy, becomes annoying. The plot bounces around so much. It's a bunch of short stories set in a post-apocalyptic environment with only the thinnest of threads connecting all of them, but it's supposed to be sweeping hero's journey. Battling from one continent to another to reach Reflex Point and defeat the invid. Except nothing they do except getting there matters. It kind of sucks to finish a journey and then be told it was all for nothing. I hate stories like that. And to make each short story work, the characters do dramatically stupid and out-of-character things. Seriously, the character rand does something mind-bogglingly stupid at the end of the book for no apparent reason other than this particular short story needed someone to do the stupid thing even though none of the characters should be stupid enough to do it and they picked Rand. Ugh

Anyway, the invid are gone, peace on Earth is restored (once again at the cost of large amounts of it's population and fighting forces), an scott bernard is off to try to find the missing SDF-3, which for some reason never made it to earth space from tirol.

One more book to go! (I can't wait to be done with this project)
Profile Image for Allison.
222 reviews4 followers
October 18, 2014
New Generation is, by a longshot, my least favorite of the three Robotech series, but I do better with it in the novels than I do on screen. I don't know if this is because I'm most impressed by the constant attempts to combine the syndicated cartoon dialogue with edgy sci-fi swearing, or the authors' working double time to make sure that this somehow tangentially fits with the other two series, or with the fact that even something as filler fluff as Annie's birthday party is approached with a clinical seriousness. Regardless, this made for an entertaining read. The ending was a bit puzzling, with the "gosh golly gee, let's prep for a sequel!" last chapter more so than the anticlimactic final battle, but since the whole thing was a bit surreal, it didn't really bother me.

As always, though, I do appreciate the sheer amount of work that went into the faux-history book epigraphs to each chapter that do their best to link the different stories. Sometime, I want to dig through and see how many of the fake sources get reused from book to book.
64 reviews
March 29, 2011
Great series of books for kids that enjoy or are interested in science fiction. I read these books in middle school (I'm now in my 30s) and loved each one. The stories are fun, engaging and relatively fast paced. I'd be tempted to reread them now just for old time's sake if I didn't have so many new books on my to-read list.

I knocked it down a peg because, in retrospect, there are some aspects that are a bit too cheesy. I'm sure when my kids are old enough, they'll get thier own copies.
20 reviews
February 20, 2008
The second to last book in the RoboTech series, taking the Place of #20 in the Chronological order, ends the Invid Series and sets the stage for the final act in The End of the Circle. By this point in the series the bad taste of the Southern Cross Saga has been scrubbed away for the most part, and it sets things up rather well. Symphony of Light is a pretty good read as well, and ends the Invid Saga.
Profile Image for Little Timmy.
7,375 reviews58 followers
May 12, 2015
Great SiFi series. Giant battlesuits battling outer space monsters, what more can you ask for. Very recommended
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews

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