The grays, terrors from deep space, overwhelm our fleet. Our starships burn. Our armies shatter. Our cities crumble. Hope is all but lost. Captains Marco Emery and Addy Linden launch a desperate quest. Against all odds, they must reach the grays' world. They must travel deep behind enemy lines. They must find the grays' source of power--and destroy it. The quest seems hopeless. Yet Marco and Addy must succeed. Or we all die. It's a time for courage. A time for hope. A time to fall . . . or to rise higher than ever before.
Daniel Arenson is a bookworm, proud geek, and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction. His novels have sold over a million copies. The Huffington Post has called his writing "full of soul." He's written over forty novels, most of them in five series:
EARTHRISE — They came from deep space. They came to destroy us. Against the alien onslaught, Earth stands alone. But we will fight. We will rise. We will win. Start reading with Earth Alone, the first novel in this military science fiction series.
REQUIEM — Welcome to Requiem, an ancient kingdom whose people can grow wings and scales, breathe fire, and take flight as dragons. Requiem is explored in six trilogies, which can be read in any order. If you're new to Requiem, you can start reading with Requiem's Song (you can download it for free). For fans of dark, gritty fantasy like A Game of Thrones.
MOTH — Discover Moth, a world torn between day and night—its one half drenched in eternal daylight, the other cloaked in endless darkness. For fans of classic fantasy worlds such as Middle Earth and Narnia. Start reading with Moth, the first novel in this epic fantasy saga.
ALIEN HUNTERS — Got trouble with aliens? Call the Alien Hunters. A group of scruffy mercenaries, they'll remove the pest for you. Low rates. No questions asked. Start reading with Alien Hunters, the first book in this space opera series. For fans of Star Wars, Firefly, and Guardians of the Galaxy.
KINGDOMS OF SAND — Enter a world of sand and splendor, a world where gladiators battle in the arena, where legionaries and barbarians fight for glory, and where empires rise and fall.
Last Book? I Sure Hope So I finished the last book in the Earthrise series last night and sure hope it is the last one. From start to finish, the one resonating thought going through my mind is get a better editor! Let me explain, and maybe we can help out this author.
First, the premise of the first few books exited me into plowing through. Caution to the wind sort of thing. It's been a long time since I'd read a really good SciFi series and the anticipation raised knowing the author was on the USA Today's best sellers list. But that only means one of his books, not necessarily from this series, sold over a certain amount in one week. It's easy to do if you have the money.
People are drawn in by the cover art of a book in most cases. This is the case with the series. Heck, you think what can go wrong when the cover art looks so good? And there's the advert about being a USA today bestselling author (if you look it up, yes, it is true, but for another series and only one book, the first). A red flag should have gone up, but I ignored my better instincts and went forward. Boy was I wrong!
Cut to the chase moment - if you are tempted to read this series, be prepared for a lot of issues. If you can look beyond them, you'll enjoy it. But if you're like me and want a high level of entertainment for your hard earned money, run from this one until he starts getting better editors. There's a reason they call it self-published.
I don't want to put a self-published author down, I've known a lot of amazing ones over the years.
Sub-Par Reasons Throughout the work I've basically said each book rates at the most three our of five, and I'm sticking to my guns on this rating. The first had the highest score. In a way it reminded me of Starship Troopers lite. Many of the technology explained appeared from old books and sub-par research. It then moved through the series with changing technology and issues with no research. Heck, the author confused hyperspace and warp drive! Enough to destroy anyone's reading, let alone a SciFi geek like myself.
We come to a point in the series where all you can think of is every advanced alien races can do is build lousy ships. At not one, not two, but three different occasions the lonely human race with their just out into space technology, overcame the advanced alien species bent on conquering them. And it doesn't stop there. The race they battle in Earth Eternal is human evolved one million years from their point. It would be understandable they have advanced technology, so why does all their technology get destroyed by the current day Earthlings? Because it is something used to advance plot, and it stinks.
Mean to One Another In the last book, something that turned me off was how Addy and Marco treated each other. They were, for the most part, insulting and rude toward their relationship. The continual elbowing in the ribs Marco took from Addy became a skit from poorly performed improve. And to make matters worse, her continual want for hot dogs became a joke, turning her into a one dimensional character.
The aliens throughout the series had one thing in common - evil. The author plays this joke on the reader. Each one had evil intents. The SCUM from the first few books could be attributed as having insect like desires to advance, but when the cross-genetic experiments came to light, it just didn't make sense. Then we find out the marauders were the creation of the SCUM using human genetics with their own made me shake my head. And not losing the train, the Grays also were human, just a millennium in the future. Each showed signs of on dimension. All were sub-par. Each were evil. Same theme. And even some of the aliens besides these turned out to be on the far scale of poorly thought out.
Throughout this book the theme is we overcome and aliens are evil.
Wrapping Up The Experience In a way I'm glad to have read the work. It tells me I'm on the right path with my own writing by researching and sourcing amazing editors who go the extra mile. it is with sadness that others have not identified the issues in this series and commented on it like I have. Maybe, in the future, the writer of this series will take the time to research who edits their work and have a little more respect for the hard earned dollar readers are spending to purchase. Until then, off to another work.
The Grays are launching their final attack against a devastated Earth, their last effort to destroy and claim their homeworld from a million years in the future.
Captain Einav Ben-Ari, commanding the HSS Lodestar, a joint military and scientific expedition to find new civilizations among the stars, seeks assistance to overcome the Grays assault from the future.
Marco Emery, bestselling author of "The Dragons of Yesteryear", "Lee Kill" and "Loggerhead", holding the rank of Captain in the reserves, currently homeless, along with Addison Elizabeth "Addy" Linden, also a Captain in the reserves. Marco and Addy are returning from the planet Durmia where they tryed to find solutions and overcome their own demons by learning Deep Being. On the way back to Earth, they stopped at the planet Taolin Shi and found two giant mochas, fighting machines shaped like huge statues of heroic warriors. Marco flew Kaiyo, a giant male carrying an axe while Addy flew Kaji, the giant female mecha carrying a sword.
Captain Lailani De La Rosa, recently returned from a jaunt to the past to rescue Elvis who she had killed when the Scum chip in her brain took control of her.
These four, the greatest heroes of Earth, destroyers of the Scum, killers of the Marauders' Lord Malphas, and now the only hope for the Earth's struggle with the Grays.
The action is fast and furious, the jokes and puns hilarious and the characters as hateful and beloved as always. The four heroes along with old friends, new acquaintances, heroes and villains, lead the final battles as this remarkable series comes to an end. I'm really shedding real tears as I say goodbye to my friends, but my hotdog rake is loaded and ready as I head to the campfire to reminisce.
This is a remarkable book, closing a remarkable series and if you haven't enjoyed it yet . . . WHY NOT? I've told you why you should! Get them now and you'll know I speak the truth. These are must reads!
The first several books in this series are not bad--a little black-and-white (you can spot pretty early who's going to live and who's going to die, classic horror movie rules), but overall not bad.
As we get past the first six or so books, though, the writing becomes progressively worse, almost as if the author wanted to try and tailor his prose to be more accommodating to 12-year-olds, even as he continues to display some pretty adult themes (sex, violence, even rape threats).
The characters never really seem to learn anything, they continue to agonize over the same issues, they continue to have the same internal conversations, and by about the twelfth book, everybody in the inner circle has slept with everybody else, and are constantly revisiting every decision they've ever made, even if they just made that decision a few pages ago.
My enjoyment of the series has progressively declined with each successive book, to the point that I will not buy anything further in this series.
Not too shabby! Addy is a little less cartoon-like. The other characters continue to develop and evolve, as would be expected. In the first couple of novels they were 18 year old kids going into boot camp, by now they're 30-ish, seasoned warriors, with three alien wars under their belts.
One really interesting thing is the actual, surprising, and horrible origin story that this author builds for the "greys". You know. Those little grey humanoid aliens with huge oval solid-black eyes that are so often depicted in flying saucer and alien abduction stories, and Roswell conspiracy theories.
The only real issue that I had concerned the paradoxes involved with time travel. Yes, it was discussed in the book, but it only beat around the edges of the problem. But I guess that's to be expected. Science fiction has a long history of ignoring or sneaking around inconvenient facts that get in the way of the narrative.
I gave this series a 5 Star rating. From the very beginning of the series, the author keeps you interested in the happenings of the people involved in the books. Through the training of the troops, to their interaction with each other and the friendships they make, even as they are fighting the enemy before their training ends, you are kept interested in what is going on. As the series goes from book to book, it continues to be a great read, even though some of the members of the team don't make it back. I have read all 9 books, and I will probably read them again in the near future, as I thoroughly enjoyed all of them.!!
This is not my typical genre, but boy once I read the first book, the characters got a hold of me and I could not stop until the end. I saw a review about lack of weapon knowledge...this book is set in the future after an apocalypse so I think weapons are allowed some leeway. Besides it is a sci fi book. I found the plot extremely interesting and not predictable and it is hard to surprise this reader, but the author did. The characters come alive and I enjoyed being part of their world. If you are looking to binge on an excellent series this 9 book series is one to read!!!!
The book itself was great but I really felt that this tied up the story that was started and really made it final.
I applaud the author for finally coming to a natural ending and being okay with that.
If you are a fan of the series you aren't going to want to miss the ending and if you are reading this and havn't started the series yet its nine easy to read books that have a nice ending! I don't think you will be disappointed.
The Last and Final Novel of Earthrise/The Last War/Family/Happiness
DA has penned the last novel poo f nine in the Earthrise series. The final battle against the Greys. The realization that the Greys were the humans of the future. The worst part of humans. The evil and ugly parts. Finding the advanced technology at different locations in the universe to use against the Greys. This is an excellent read for the genre.....DEHS
Not for The faint of heart... Nor those with Fragile Constitution's, Weak Stomachs or, those Politicaly Correct gentle beings who believe Science Fiction is not supposed to contain violent space battles that mirror real life consequences that every veteran Of combat has had to deal with since the beginning of time!
Peter Anthony Roland Miami Beach Florida July 2024
Read the entire series through, and it's great to just enjoy the books as they are. We get to know and love the characters throughout the books, and I'm for some reason motivated to get a rake and roast hot dogs. Fast moving, good to read. Can't wait to read more by the author!
It was not "3-for-3" which was expected, you know, first the scum, then the marauders, and then the grays. Daniel added some good tweaks - e.g., time travel - to allow the defeat of villains #3 to be different enough.
I should also point out that, in all of the books, he handles the first chapter dilemma, i.e., re-introducing continuing characters and revisiting past events, very well. Just enough to re-acquaint followers as well as initially acquaint new readers.
I waited until the end of the series to write the review. Ya know, sometimes you read through an entire series, only to find that the ending is singularly unsatisfying. Maybe undeveloped, maybe it seems rushed. Earthrise left nothing to the imagination, except the future. I loved it.
Characters stayed true to their past development, the solution to beating the Greys made sense in the story line, and only one character became even a little annoying. Thanks for the series.
Wonderful ending. Much better than i imagined. Written well, very few errors which makes reading a huge pleasure. Thank you, Daniel Arenson for many hours of reading enjoyment.
Great last chapter to a great series of books. You won't go wrong reading it and many like me will miss reading the adventures of Marco, Addy, Ben-Ari, and all the characters in the series.
It was an amazing series that I am sad ended. It was a quick wrap up for being 9 books long, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. A must read and I recommend this to all who enjoy science fiction.
The initial book spun into an 8 book series and I read all of them. They create a galactic space opera of humanity dealing with evil. The characters are interesting and the action intense. The finale is awesome with a great twist. Kudos to the writer!
Still lots of extra description and backstory your already know at this point in the series. And all the characters think I'm the same internal voice and style. That being said it was a fun read and nice way to end the series.
Just finished book nine . Enjoyed the whole series. Book nine is a great send off to the characters that we all became invested in. This series has become one of my all time favorite s.
Great finish to a strong series. Everything was wrapped up nicely. If you like sci-fi I strongly suggest this series. The characters are excellent and you feel lime you know them well. Great Job Daniel!
It's the end of the series. I loved these novels and I loved all the characters. This series was space opera at its finest . I look forward to more from this author.10//10
I wasn't a sci fi can when I started this series. I took a chance on it because it sounded interesting. Glad I did because it is now one of my favorite series. I can't wait to go back and read these again many more times.
I would recommend Anyone who likes interesting science fiction mixed with a good love coming story. I especially like how the story tried to have a good ending without selling out any of their earlier character developments.
The story has gripped me from the very first book but this one. This book. Was just WOW. It brings a lot together and the ended was amazing. Was just so good and amazing. I absolutely love this series and the way the author draws you in is amazing.
I Didn't want this epic story to end so I'm really thrilled to find that it's going to continue. This author wove together his endings so well. I really enjoyed this author.
This book continues where book 8 ended. So many times it looked like the end but our hero’s and heroines slugged their way through and find peace. Great read. Big D
All I can sat is I laughed, I cried, I died, I lived this book. It was wonderful, I love Mr. Arenson's writing. The way he writes captures your imagination in such a way that you are in the action! Thank you for another incredible ride into your imagination, sir.