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The Silence #3
Forbidden Suns
The third and final book in the epic space adventure trilogy by D. Nolan Clark.
In the cold of space, the fire of revenge still burns.
Aleister Lanoe has been on a mission since before he can remember. Honing his skills as a fighter pilot and commander through three centuries of constant warfare, he has never met a foe he cannot best.
But now he faces a mission which may be his last: take vengeance on the alien race who has coldly and systematically erased all the sentient life in its path.
In all his years at war, the stakes have never been higher...
The Silence Trilogy
Forsaken Skies
Forgotten Worlds
Forbidden Suns
In the cold of space, the fire of revenge still burns.
Aleister Lanoe has been on a mission since before he can remember. Honing his skills as a fighter pilot and commander through three centuries of constant warfare, he has never met a foe he cannot best.
But now he faces a mission which may be his last: take vengeance on the alien race who has coldly and systematically erased all the sentient life in its path.
In all his years at war, the stakes have never been higher...
The Silence Trilogy
Forsaken Skies
Forgotten Worlds
Forbidden Suns
624 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 2017
18 people are currently reading
205 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 7, 2018
I'm halfway through it and I just can't bring myself to finish it. I've tried to do that for the last month (!!!) even though I'd like to know how the trilogy ends (and what happens to Valk).
However, the characters got progressively more boring, uninteresting...the reasons for their actions incomprehensible or plain stupid so I spend more time hating on them or, worse yet, being completely uninterested in them than doing anything else. I do admit I'm more partial to character development than plot which is probably why I have so many issues with it. In short, this book turned decent characters into caricatures of themselves (ie Lanoe). Which makes it really really hard for me to care for them or for whatever happens to them because it feels irrelevant. Idk if this makes any sense?
I still think the first novel is the best one as far as character development and plot go. Book 2 was better written, stylistically-wise, but I liked the first one better.
However, the characters got progressively more boring, uninteresting...the reasons for their actions incomprehensible or plain stupid so I spend more time hating on them or, worse yet, being completely uninterested in them than doing anything else. I do admit I'm more partial to character development than plot which is probably why I have so many issues with it. In short, this book turned decent characters into caricatures of themselves (ie Lanoe). Which makes it really really hard for me to care for them or for whatever happens to them because it feels irrelevant. Idk if this makes any sense?
I still think the first novel is the best one as far as character development and plot go. Book 2 was better written, stylistically-wise, but I liked the first one better.
January 3, 2018
The Silence concludes in explosive style. I've really enjoyed this trilogy. There are characters here I'm going to miss. Some excellent aliens, too! Not quite up to the wondrous excellence of book 2, though. 3.5 stars.
not-interested
May 18, 2022I read the first two, and that was enough, I think. I went Deep Enough ⚒︎ , for a competent but unoriginal space-opera, where he apparently throws in time-travel to complicate Book #3. No, thank you.
October 8, 2020
This review is mostly spoilers for Forsaken Skies and Forgotten Worlds. If you haven't read those books yet, maybe stop here and go read them. They're superb, I cannot recommend them enough.
The Blue-Blue-White have exterminated almost all life within the galaxy. Almost. The human race is still alive though, and that cannot be allowed to stand. The Navy sent Aleister Lanoe on a mission to make contact with The Choir, aliens who claimed they could help... but the help those aliens were offering reeeeeeeeeeally wasn't the type any breathing human would want. So Lanoe demanded an alternative at gunpoint: send Lanoe's team to the Blue-Blue-White's homeworld. And the aliens did. They sent Lanoe to the homeworld... 1 billion years in the past!
Unfortunately, Lanoe is not alone. The Centrocor fleet that followed Lanoe to the Choir followed Lanoe 1 billion years into the past. Outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded, with zero hope of rest, repair, or resupply, and a crew on the verge of mutiny. This is the sort of absolute bonkers situations that David Wellington loves to write. There is no good news for anyone, ever, and it's great!
Been scratching my head wondeirng why this trilogy is labeled "space opera" when it's just really good science fiction, and here it finally makes sense: Aleister Lanoe's descent into madness is something to behold. Yeah, there's aliens and time travel and so much pew-pew, but it's just not as interesting as the way Lanoe's vision narrows from experienced warrior into an embittered man who has no use for anyone that cannot enact his vengeance. On the other side is the confidence man Austin Maggs. How the hell is he going hustle his way out of this goddamn mess? Tannis Valk has progressed beyond being an android. Is there anything human of him left? The way Lanoe is acting, if Valk shed all semblance of humanity, it would be totally understandable!
I am slow at pretty much everything. Reading, yes. Actually getting these book reports done, yes very. I couldn't imagine this one could possibly have a happy ending. It's been almost 3 years since I finished reading this book, and sometimes late at night I still find myself staring at the ceiling wandering if it could have been different. This trilogy was fucking amazing. I cannot recommend it enough.
The Blue-Blue-White have exterminated almost all life within the galaxy. Almost. The human race is still alive though, and that cannot be allowed to stand. The Navy sent Aleister Lanoe on a mission to make contact with The Choir, aliens who claimed they could help... but the help those aliens were offering reeeeeeeeeeally wasn't the type any breathing human would want. So Lanoe demanded an alternative at gunpoint: send Lanoe's team to the Blue-Blue-White's homeworld. And the aliens did. They sent Lanoe to the homeworld... 1 billion years in the past!
Unfortunately, Lanoe is not alone. The Centrocor fleet that followed Lanoe to the Choir followed Lanoe 1 billion years into the past. Outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded, with zero hope of rest, repair, or resupply, and a crew on the verge of mutiny. This is the sort of absolute bonkers situations that David Wellington loves to write. There is no good news for anyone, ever, and it's great!
Been scratching my head wondeirng why this trilogy is labeled "space opera" when it's just really good science fiction, and here it finally makes sense: Aleister Lanoe's descent into madness is something to behold. Yeah, there's aliens and time travel and so much pew-pew, but it's just not as interesting as the way Lanoe's vision narrows from experienced warrior into an embittered man who has no use for anyone that cannot enact his vengeance. On the other side is the confidence man Austin Maggs. How the hell is he going hustle his way out of this goddamn mess? Tannis Valk has progressed beyond being an android. Is there anything human of him left? The way Lanoe is acting, if Valk shed all semblance of humanity, it would be totally understandable!
I am slow at pretty much everything. Reading, yes. Actually getting these book reports done, yes very. I couldn't imagine this one could possibly have a happy ending. It's been almost 3 years since I finished reading this book, and sometimes late at night I still find myself staring at the ceiling wandering if it could have been different. This trilogy was fucking amazing. I cannot recommend it enough.
January 14, 2018
I don't know that I can say I liked the ending of this series or the ending of this book, but what I can say is that I appreciate the fact that there WAS and ending. Too many series go on and on and on. It is refreshing that an author set out to make a trilogy and it stayed a trilogy.
*A LOT* happens in this book. Almost too much shoved into one novel. The thing that holds it together is characters. By this installment, the characters have established patterns and it is nice to see those patterns evolve but not break entirely. Still, though, I don't know that I buy Lanoe's evolution, and his behavior at the end harkens back to his behavior when we first meet him, and I didn't like almost seems like he has learned nothing after all he's been through.
As always, though, Valk is the man, and the hero of all these books.
If you're a fan of both Top Gun *and* Star Wars, this is your series.
*A LOT* happens in this book. Almost too much shoved into one novel. The thing that holds it together is characters. By this installment, the characters have established patterns and it is nice to see those patterns evolve but not break entirely. Still, though, I don't know that I buy Lanoe's evolution, and his behavior at the end harkens back to his behavior when we first meet him, and I didn't like almost seems like he has learned nothing after all he's been through.
As always, though, Valk is the man, and the hero of all these books.
If you're a fan of both Top Gun *and* Star Wars, this is your series.
February 21, 2018
Don't get me wrong - all three books are a jolly good read. She writes gripping narrative with strong characters. I have enjoyed them.
My only real gripe is that as SCIENCE fiction it is rather weak which keeps bringing me up short and spoiling it a bit. Her space battles are written as air battles. Ships have to keep powering to go fast. Having got up to thousands of K per hour, a quick puff of maneuvering jets has them going off into a corkscrew roll or loop the loop. Aircraft might do that -spaceships cannot.
My only real gripe is that as SCIENCE fiction it is rather weak which keeps bringing me up short and spoiling it a bit. Her space battles are written as air battles. Ships have to keep powering to go fast. Having got up to thousands of K per hour, a quick puff of maneuvering jets has them going off into a corkscrew roll or loop the loop. Aircraft might do that -spaceships cannot.
February 14, 2019
I hate time travel.
I especially hate time travel that's used as a vehicle to try and save a plot that has spiraled out of control and faffed off to parts unknown, leaving the author stuck with the least likable main character in the history of ever, and some kind of pathological need to kill off characters.
This series had potential, sadly that potential was wasted.
I especially hate time travel that's used as a vehicle to try and save a plot that has spiraled out of control and faffed off to parts unknown, leaving the author stuck with the least likable main character in the history of ever, and some kind of pathological need to kill off characters.
This series had potential, sadly that potential was wasted.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 12, 2019
3.5 / 5 stars. Can grimdark be applied to non-fantasy books? 'Cause this is totally one. And someone's gone off the deep end.
Review to follow.
Review to follow.
May 12, 2023
The Silence as a trilogy is a rarity, following a pattern that I've only ever experienced before in Koji Suzuki's Ringu series: a stellar first book, followed by a sequel that feels so disappointing in comparison that it's almost as if it were written by a different person, only to be capped off by a final volume that makes everything make sense in a way that shouldn't work, yet it does.
I hated most of Forbidden Suns. All but maybe...two of the characters had become intensely unlikable, with none more loathsome than Lanoe, who had become not even a caricature of himself, but a completely different person, altogether. Gone, was any consideration for his squadmates, let alone any semblance of logic or actual strategy to his orders, and if I had to read him pine about Zhang's red hair one more time, I would've chucked the book across the room. I still nearly did, more than once, because Lanoe just kept getting worse and worse, and even more irredeemable.
And then I got to the end of Part II, and suddenly everything made a horrible sort of sense. I'm not going to spoil exactly how things fall into place, but they do, and no one is more surprised by this than me. The last...120 pages or so salvaged not only this book, but the entire series. The writing is still rough and overly expository at times (which makes the subtlety of the part where everything clicks all the more shocking), but the ending as a whole casts the entirety of the last two books in a different light. And it brought what was going to be a 2-star rating (at best) up to the current 4. Honestly, I'd have considered 5, if not for the fact that Clark seems to have one plot point backwards, as far as I can tell.
Honestly, in the end, that's the biggest problem I had with Forbidden Suns. Aside from that, it's a book that managed to save a series that had been gradually losing me, after the first book. And that counts for a lot.
I hated most of Forbidden Suns. All but maybe...two of the characters had become intensely unlikable, with none more loathsome than Lanoe, who had become not even a caricature of himself, but a completely different person, altogether. Gone, was any consideration for his squadmates, let alone any semblance of logic or actual strategy to his orders, and if I had to read him pine about Zhang's red hair one more time, I would've chucked the book across the room. I still nearly did, more than once, because Lanoe just kept getting worse and worse, and even more irredeemable.
And then I got to the end of Part II, and suddenly everything made a horrible sort of sense. I'm not going to spoil exactly how things fall into place, but they do, and no one is more surprised by this than me. The last...120 pages or so salvaged not only this book, but the entire series. The writing is still rough and overly expository at times (which makes the subtlety of the part where everything clicks all the more shocking), but the ending as a whole casts the entirety of the last two books in a different light. And it brought what was going to be a 2-star rating (at best) up to the current 4. Honestly, I'd have considered 5, if not for the fact that Clark seems to have one plot point backwards, as far as I can tell.
Honestly, in the end, that's the biggest problem I had with Forbidden Suns. Aside from that, it's a book that managed to save a series that had been gradually losing me, after the first book. And that counts for a lot.
September 5, 2018
Tredjeboka leverer verkeleg varene. Mystikk, action og god gammaldags sci-fi.
Eg hatar Aleister Lanoe.
Så til det som irriterer meg grøn. Når Valk koplar seg til dronningskipet og lærer å snakke «blue-blue-white», er det i notida. Han lærer språket av ein drone som blei sendt frå heimverda deira for 500 millionar år sidan. Seinare sender Koristane han tilbake i tid til heimsolsystemet til dei blå-blå-kvite. Men når han prøver å snakke med dei, er språket hans «utdatert med 500 millionar år». Kva. I. Helvete. Dronar har ingen grunn til å vidareutvikle språket. Han kjem tilbake til den tida da dei blå-blå-kvite sende ut dronningskipet. Språket han lærte, bør vera om lag det same som dei snakkar. Anten er det noko eg ikkje fekk med meg, eller så er dette ein stor glipp.
Ugh. Uavhengig av den detaljen var dette ein Hollywood-verdig serie. Og at eg i slutten av serien endar med å verkeleg hata hovudpersonen, sjølv om han redda heile universet, er ein interessant twist.
Eg hatar Aleister Lanoe.
Så til det som irriterer meg grøn. Når Valk koplar seg til dronningskipet og lærer å snakke «blue-blue-white», er det i notida. Han lærer språket av ein drone som blei sendt frå heimverda deira for 500 millionar år sidan. Seinare sender Koristane han tilbake i tid til heimsolsystemet til dei blå-blå-kvite. Men når han prøver å snakke med dei, er språket hans «utdatert med 500 millionar år». Kva. I. Helvete. Dronar har ingen grunn til å vidareutvikle språket. Han kjem tilbake til den tida da dei blå-blå-kvite sende ut dronningskipet. Språket han lærte, bør vera om lag det same som dei snakkar. Anten er det noko eg ikkje fekk med meg, eller så er dette ein stor glipp.
Ugh. Uavhengig av den detaljen var dette ein Hollywood-verdig serie. Og at eg i slutten av serien endar med å verkeleg hata hovudpersonen, sjølv om han redda heile universet, er ein interessant twist.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 30, 2023
this series does have it all, first contact AI's, time travel, and math jokes. however can be a bit slow and the revenge plot feels like it is stretched pretty far tot eh point of unbelievability. could have not used that last interaction between Valk and lanoe. some of the rescues as such where good twists and i enjoyed the books but felt like it could have been more cohesive between the first book and the second two. felt very separate.
November 7, 2017
Great end to the trilogy. I enjoyed it beginning to end.
November 11, 2017
wonderfully satisfying conclusion to one of the best sci-fi trilogies in many many years. And yes it made me cry, copiously and in public. I loved pretty much everything about it.
June 29, 2019
Utterly astonishing in scope.
January 12, 2025
It was a slog to reach the end, and I was disappointed when I got there.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews