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Robotech #5

Force of Arms

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Supreme Commander Dolza had amassed the largest fleet of Zentraedi warships the Universe had ever seen . . . and all their weapons were aimed at Earth!

205 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 12, 1987

3 people are currently reading
134 people want to read

About the author

Jack McKinney

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

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5 stars
203 (26%)
4 stars
291 (38%)
3 stars
221 (29%)
2 stars
36 (4%)
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3 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
Profile Image for Alejandro.
1,304 reviews3,776 followers
January 6, 2016
An armada of one million ships against the SDF-1!!!


DIVIDED FORCES

The SDF-1 has lost its best officer when Lt. Cmdr. Lisa Hayes tries a desperate effort to convince the UEG and her father, the Admiral Hayes, to re-accept the SDF-1 on Earth and to look for a peaceful solution against the Zentraedi threat.

Breetai has lost his trusty advisor, when Exedore goes through the micronized process and goes to help to convince the RDF high ranking officers aboard the SDF-1 that there is a big Zentraedi faction willing to form an alliance with the humans.

Azonia has lost her best pilot when Miriya Parino not only betrayed her fellow warriors but also she got married with human!


ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN

And at the end, a military conflict is unavoidable, however the odds are against Earth and the SDF-1.

Dolza's main armada finally has arrived to strengthen the fleets of Azonia and Khyron. One million ships!

Captain Henry Gloval and Commander Breetai are forming an alliance between their forces, making the SDF-1 and Breetai's Battlewagon the spears of their offensive but against one million ships' armada, it seems like an inconsequent effort.

Earth's orbit will be the scenario of the mother of all battles.

However when the ultimate military action is displayed, there will be a small hope to survive from that hell of battle.

The most unlikely heroine may be the key to win the unwinnable war.

However, victory or defeat...

...Earth never will be the same!!!



Profile Image for Danny.
99 reviews1 follower
August 10, 2025
Episodes 24-28

Goes into more detail of the destruction and detail with the battle with dozal
Profile Image for Butterflykatana.
67 reviews1 follower
August 4, 2012
The final showdown for Earth with 10 million enemy ships vs the SDF1. Loved this book back in the 90's.
Profile Image for Simon.
203 reviews4 followers
August 23, 2021
Not having, or maybe losing, books 2-4 made me wonder whether i would be able to pick up on the overall storyline when i started this one but an excellent prologue brings me up to speed very quickly.
I am enjoying these books. They may be quite basic, not the novel writers fault, and the romance angle just doesnt feel right in any of the relationships but the story is enjoyable space action/opera. I have a lot me of these to read and at the moment I am getting enough out of them to carry on
Profile Image for Mel.
3,519 reviews213 followers
July 17, 2017
Max and Miriya getting married, the big war to end all wars, the destruction of Earth (again), and reconstruction blues. Possibly the best of the robotech novels.
Profile Image for Patrick.
Author 3 books61 followers
October 8, 2018
The climactic battle is a little bit of a letdown and really the "Reconstruction Blues" could have been part of the next book, but whatever.
Profile Image for Daniel Hamad.
265 reviews3 followers
August 3, 2020
I just have a hard time buying a lot of this. Who would bring something capable of blowing up millions of ships by accident to a battle, for instance?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for David Nichols.
Author 4 books89 followers
November 20, 2019
In this fifth volume of the ROBOTECH novel series, Lisa Hayes tries to arrange a diplomatic resolution of the Human-Zentraedi conflict, General Dolza bombards the Earth to forestall the Zentraedi's contamination by Human culture, and Admiral Gloval and Exedore persuade Minmei to use her music as a weapon against the Zentraedi. Oh, and billions of people die.

But who cares? What the fans want to know is, how do all the love stories from earlier episodes play out? Does Rick Hunter finally figure out that Minmei only sees him as a friend? (He does!) Does Rick finally hook up with Lisa? (Not yet, but there are a couple of promising rescue scenes.) Does Mirya hook up with her nemesis Max Sterling? (She does! And they “meet cute,” too, during a duel to the death!) Does Lynn Kyle master the art of flinging whiskey bottles at Minmei? (He will soon!) Do Breetai and Exedore finally admit their true feelings for one another? (Not so much! You'll have to go to the fan fiction for that.)

Incidentally, in revisiting this novel a quarter-century after I first read it, I finally appreciated the irony in the title. The Zentraedi muster a massive fleet and bomb humanity's cities into glass, the Humans deploy their doomsday weapon, yet in the end the climactic battle between Humans and Zentraedi came down not to "force of arms" but a bubble-gum pop song. Readers who wish to draw parallels between this story and the rise of Japanese "soft power" in the 1980s are free to do so.
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.
Profile Image for batya7.
391 reviews2 followers
September 13, 2015
This book is in the space opera genre. I do not think it has weathered time well since it was written. The characters are flat. although females have positions of leadership, vase they did not seem as well developed as the males. Perhaps because I did not read books 1 through 4 I missed some of the back story. Perhaps. But still I think this book app merely "eh". I finished it but looked forward to its ending. As much as I love science fiction, I'd rather read a worn out cooking mystery than this. Sorry McKinney.
Profile Image for Theresa.
8,282 reviews135 followers
October 1, 2014
how the military service protects the populace at the sacrifice of their own.
Profile Image for Little Timmy.
7,390 reviews59 followers
March 14, 2016
Great SiFi series. Giant battlesuits battling outer space monsters, what more can you ask for. Very recommended
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews

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