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Solar Warden #1
Alien Secrets
In the first novel in New York Times bestselling author Ian Douglas’ Solar Warden series, government conspiracy theories, UFO history, and thrilling space combat come together in an unforgettable interstellar military science fiction adventure.
THE TRUTH HAS ALWAYS BEEN HERE
In the final days of World War II, the Allies ransacked Berlin. Third Reich scientists were highly sought- out prizes for Americans and Russians desperate to possess the Nazi knowledge of nuclear firepower. But they failed to capture one of the most vital members of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle: SS Obergruppenfuhrer Hans Kammler. One of the engineers of Auschwitz, Kammler was also a liaison with the Nazis’ silent partners whose technological wonders nearly helped the Axis win the war—the alien species the Germans called the Eidechse.
More than seven decades later, U. S. Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander Mark Hunter has witnessed the impossible. On a mission in North Korea, an unidentified flying object destroyed a compound developing weapons of mass destruction. Now, he has been recruited to join a government agency that has been harboring a secret alliance with extraterrestrials since 1947. Selected to lead an elite force of soldiers, Hunter will travel across the stars to help humanity stake its claim among greater intelligent life in the universe.
But the aliens who have infiltrated Earth and guided war mongering nations since the twentieth century have their own agendas…
384 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 30, 2020
157 people are currently reading
700 people want to read
About the author
Ian Douglas
99 books575 followersIan Douglas is a pseudonym used by William H. Keith Jr..
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
March 25, 2021
"The whole idea was the cheapest sort of bargain-basement sci-fi."
- pg. 125 (paperback edition)
It's tempting to just let this sentence from the book itself stand as my review, but then I thought, "nah, I love writing bad reviews" and also, "how often do I get to use the word, pap in my reviews?"
This book is repetitive, military, sci-fi pap.
It starts off promising - first with with a time traveling Nazi, and then followed by some Navy SEALs in ghillie suits spying on the North Koreans when a UFO flies over and destroys a nuclear testing site - but then quickly crumbles into a nonsensical, expositional quagmire.
First of all, it's BORING. It's non-stop military jargon and acronyms, made worse by a massive cast of characters who are flatter than Flat Stanley himself (many of whom get names only to immediately die in the alien battle scenes that happen in the last ~75 pages of the book). Hunter, our main dude, is kind of an asshole and your stereotypical military machismo type, but that's about it - at one point he gets butt hurt because a woman with a PhD and vastly more knowledge/experience with aliens than him is explaining things to him and he thinks she's being "condescending" and will really only listen to the other guy in the room (and then this female character, just, vanishes, and isn't mentioned again in the rest of the book). All the women are "amazingly gorgeous" or something along those lines. I'm not going back for a real quote; at least Douglas mostly just refers to their eyes and not their tits, so progress?? I guess.
The aliens are a mixed bag.
(Here be spoilers, I'm not spoiler tagging them because I don't care if I spoil this book for you, but I have delineated them.)
---------------------------------------------
Grays - your basic tiny little gray X-files alien with the big black eyes and no teeth.
Saurians - looks similar to a Gray, but a little taller, scalier, and with gold eyes and crocodile teeth.
Nordics/Talis - Taller, lankier, sexier humans, with bigger sexier eyes. They are gorgeous. They call themselves Talis, and the US government types call them Nordics because they are super blonde and blue-eyed (so, because racism).
Also, none of the above are aliens at all!
Because this book isn't just about time traveling Nazis, it's about time traveling future humans! The Grays and Talis are both humans who have evolved differently. They time travel all over the place, and *WILL* give all the present day humans all kinds of fancy technology, but *WON'T* give them information. Because time travel paradoxes, ursumshit.
The Saurians are time traveling dinosaurs. This is supposed to be a ~~BIG REVEAL~~ or twist or something, because they've been kidnapping humans, and mind controlling Grays, and might also be at war with the Grays, and might have manipulated the human evolutionary path, and might be dino-human hybrids, and might be lizard people taking over the government, and and and...??? No one really seems to know what the Saurians deal is (including Ian Douglas). They definitely helped the Nazis. And they might be helping the US. And they might be helping the Russians? They are definitely helping themselves.
There are some actual aliens, such as the Xaxki/Dreamers and their Guardians, who can somehow dream physical things into existence (like giant battle pillbugs, and actual weapons). They are the best, tiniest part of the book and the new alien worlds being encountered by our humans, and I suspect they will feature more prominently in the sequels, but I'm not going to read those.
---------------------------------------------/end alien spoilers/
Anyway, before you get to the fun Xaxki, you have to slog through all the military jargon, the repetitive nature of chapters and chapters of exposition (sprinkled with copious amounts of "four-niner-niner cleared for launch" style checklists of people with stupid nicknames flying spaceships), and POV switching where each set of characters is having the exact same thoughts (why does my battery pack only give my laser gun 4 shots? they call that Saurian ship a "sports model").
Oh, and the "training" of making a rag-tag bunch of military elites form a cohesive unit. Apparently all this takes is forcing a homophobe to live with the gay guy ala the camp scene in The Parent Trap, and coming up with a new "hoorah" noise to make at each other that indicates they are no longer Navy, Army, Marine, Air Force, etc, but the Just One! Arrrr!
Most of these people die anyway, so it's kind of irrelevant in the long run. They have basically no training on their weapons for REASONS and there is a lot of disobeying orders, a little bit of the old Independence Day-style beating up an alien because people are bigger, and of course a giant deus ex machina to save the day.
Wrap it all up in more sci-fi jargon than is necessary trying to (poorly) explain the tech, and how they need to avoid creating paradoxes, while at the same time they've clearly been creating new timelines in a vast multiverse while doing all of their exploring and such. Like, dude, pick a damn lane, is this space travel and aliens? or is this multiverse and parallel evolutions? Because this ~waves hands~ is not working.
In sum, this is not a good book. It lacks clear plot direction, any semblance of character development, and its attempt at being comprehensible is scattershot at best.
Lastly, because this is hilarious and in the epilogue... (More spoilers ahead)
It basically rips off a time travel paradox scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
(Note: I don't read enough time travel novels to know if JKR ripped off this scene from anywhere else herself, but I can't recall it in anything else I've read.)
Remember when Harry and Hermione are attacked by the Dementors and saved at the last minute by a Patronus cast by some unknown figure that Harry mistakes for his dad? And then when the two of them travel back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius, it turns out Harry saved them himself? Yeah, Douglas sort of does the same thing, minus the saving part.
At the beginning when Hunter sees the UFO over North Korea, he sees an alien waving to him from the space ship. In the epilogue, he gets taken on a secret mission, and it turns out he's gone back in time aboard a not-actually-so-alien space ship to North Korea and he's waving to himself.
- pg. 125 (paperback edition)
It's tempting to just let this sentence from the book itself stand as my review, but then I thought, "nah, I love writing bad reviews" and also, "how often do I get to use the word, pap in my reviews?"
This book is repetitive, military, sci-fi pap.
It starts off promising - first with with a time traveling Nazi, and then followed by some Navy SEALs in ghillie suits spying on the North Koreans when a UFO flies over and destroys a nuclear testing site - but then quickly crumbles into a nonsensical, expositional quagmire.
First of all, it's BORING. It's non-stop military jargon and acronyms, made worse by a massive cast of characters who are flatter than Flat Stanley himself (many of whom get names only to immediately die in the alien battle scenes that happen in the last ~75 pages of the book). Hunter, our main dude, is kind of an asshole and your stereotypical military machismo type, but that's about it - at one point he gets butt hurt because a woman with a PhD and vastly more knowledge/experience with aliens than him is explaining things to him and he thinks she's being "condescending" and will really only listen to the other guy in the room (and then this female character, just, vanishes, and isn't mentioned again in the rest of the book). All the women are "amazingly gorgeous" or something along those lines. I'm not going back for a real quote; at least Douglas mostly just refers to their eyes and not their tits, so progress?? I guess.
The aliens are a mixed bag.
(Here be spoilers, I'm not spoiler tagging them because I don't care if I spoil this book for you, but I have delineated them.)
---------------------------------------------
Grays - your basic tiny little gray X-files alien with the big black eyes and no teeth.
Saurians - looks similar to a Gray, but a little taller, scalier, and with gold eyes and crocodile teeth.
Nordics/Talis - Taller, lankier, sexier humans, with bigger sexier eyes. They are gorgeous. They call themselves Talis, and the US government types call them Nordics because they are super blonde and blue-eyed (so, because racism).
Also, none of the above are aliens at all!
Because this book isn't just about time traveling Nazis, it's about time traveling future humans! The Grays and Talis are both humans who have evolved differently. They time travel all over the place, and *WILL* give all the present day humans all kinds of fancy technology, but *WON'T* give them information. Because time travel paradoxes, ursumshit.
The Saurians are time traveling dinosaurs. This is supposed to be a ~~BIG REVEAL~~ or twist or something, because they've been kidnapping humans, and mind controlling Grays, and might also be at war with the Grays, and might have manipulated the human evolutionary path, and might be dino-human hybrids, and might be lizard people taking over the government, and and and...??? No one really seems to know what the Saurians deal is (including Ian Douglas). They definitely helped the Nazis. And they might be helping the US. And they might be helping the Russians? They are definitely helping themselves.
There are some actual aliens, such as the Xaxki/Dreamers and their Guardians, who can somehow dream physical things into existence (like giant battle pillbugs, and actual weapons). They are the best, tiniest part of the book and the new alien worlds being encountered by our humans, and I suspect they will feature more prominently in the sequels, but I'm not going to read those.
---------------------------------------------/end alien spoilers/
Anyway, before you get to the fun Xaxki, you have to slog through all the military jargon, the repetitive nature of chapters and chapters of exposition (sprinkled with copious amounts of "four-niner-niner cleared for launch" style checklists of people with stupid nicknames flying spaceships), and POV switching where each set of characters is having the exact same thoughts (why does my battery pack only give my laser gun 4 shots? they call that Saurian ship a "sports model").
Oh, and the "training" of making a rag-tag bunch of military elites form a cohesive unit. Apparently all this takes is forcing a homophobe to live with the gay guy ala the camp scene in The Parent Trap, and coming up with a new "hoorah" noise to make at each other that indicates they are no longer Navy, Army, Marine, Air Force, etc, but the Just One! Arrrr!
Most of these people die anyway, so it's kind of irrelevant in the long run. They have basically no training on their weapons for REASONS and there is a lot of disobeying orders, a little bit of the old Independence Day-style beating up an alien because people are bigger, and of course a giant deus ex machina to save the day.
Wrap it all up in more sci-fi jargon than is necessary trying to (poorly) explain the tech, and how they need to avoid creating paradoxes, while at the same time they've clearly been creating new timelines in a vast multiverse while doing all of their exploring and such. Like, dude, pick a damn lane, is this space travel and aliens? or is this multiverse and parallel evolutions? Because this ~waves hands~ is not working.
In sum, this is not a good book. It lacks clear plot direction, any semblance of character development, and its attempt at being comprehensible is scattershot at best.
Lastly, because this is hilarious and in the epilogue... (More spoilers ahead)
It basically rips off a time travel paradox scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
(Note: I don't read enough time travel novels to know if JKR ripped off this scene from anywhere else herself, but I can't recall it in anything else I've read.)
Remember when Harry and Hermione are attacked by the Dementors and saved at the last minute by a Patronus cast by some unknown figure that Harry mistakes for his dad? And then when the two of them travel back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius, it turns out Harry saved them himself? Yeah, Douglas sort of does the same thing, minus the saving part.
At the beginning when Hunter sees the UFO over North Korea, he sees an alien waving to him from the space ship. In the epilogue, he gets taken on a secret mission, and it turns out he's gone back in time aboard a not-actually-so-alien space ship to North Korea and he's waving to himself.
Read
October 20, 2020 The only picked up this book because of the name and what I have heard about the real Solar warden secret space program. To the untrained eye it would seem that most of the book is based of fictional word play but if you know anything about UFO history you'll find more truths than fiction. First signs of truth is the JFK speaking on a agreement with Aliens from a past President is fact! As is the Dulce wars at Dulce base in New Mexico. Then we talk about Area 51 fact just like the dark side of the moon is fact based of live video footage from the first moon mission. The moon is at least 500 million years older than earth fact the two bodies share little to none of the same physical make which points to different points of origins. The moon is not solid as stated in the book find any round solid object and hit it with a hammer I guarantee it will not ring. Then if look at the talk about Planet Serpo I read the book it is very legit plus it show you highly classified documents to prove its really happen. To push a point there are way too many truths to ignore here. Time travel is real we live in one infinite moment time is and can be curved thank E=MC pioneer for this one. The whole talk about being on mars and we've been there is truth.....Pounder this why is it the the earth is the only inner planet with a moon ??? that is 1/3 the size but it is tidally locked to earth only showing one side while at it moves away from earth and a few inches every year?? This is great book the real issue is trying to weed out the fake parts.... There are three know whistle blowers from the secret space program One is Cory Goode ..... the weapon are real so is the Technology the statement made Lockheed Martin CFO we now have the technology to take E.T. Home is true ..This is a great truth branded as fiction to some degree.. I just touched on some of the truths but their are many more.....great book very well done
May 31, 2020
Fantastic book, I loved the aliens and how this world worked, and I can't wait to explore more of it!
June 26, 2020
Solar Warden by Ian Douglas
This is the beginning of a series and I am really looking forward to reading more. The premise is that all of the rumors about Area 51 and aliens’ visits have a grain of truth. Mark Hunter, a Navy SEAL, finds himself directing a mixed band of special ops troops. Said troops are to provide security for a starship.
The author suggests through his Hunter character that the secretiveness of the government program and the hiding of the actual existence of alien being should be corrected.
The plot draws from some actual suppositions in the past which enhances its credibility.
There were some pages that caused eyes to glaze over with paradoxical premises.
Overall, the book was very good and I look forward to the next volume.
As an aside, considering the number of potentially inhabitable planets in just our galaxy, it is the height of arrogance to assume we are the only intelligent (often questionable) life to be found.
This is the beginning of a series and I am really looking forward to reading more. The premise is that all of the rumors about Area 51 and aliens’ visits have a grain of truth. Mark Hunter, a Navy SEAL, finds himself directing a mixed band of special ops troops. Said troops are to provide security for a starship.
The author suggests through his Hunter character that the secretiveness of the government program and the hiding of the actual existence of alien being should be corrected.
The plot draws from some actual suppositions in the past which enhances its credibility.
There were some pages that caused eyes to glaze over with paradoxical premises.
Overall, the book was very good and I look forward to the next volume.
As an aside, considering the number of potentially inhabitable planets in just our galaxy, it is the height of arrogance to assume we are the only intelligent (often questionable) life to be found.
June 22, 2020
Received an ARC for this review.
Ian Douglas blew my mind with this book. When I read his book, I thought, no way he can weave alien visitor myth with a current tech sci-fi story. And then he did. And did well! His main characters went through change, he had well-defined antagonists, and the alien species development was superb. Very, very well written book.
Ian Douglas blew my mind with this book. When I read his book, I thought, no way he can weave alien visitor myth with a current tech sci-fi story. And then he did. And did well! His main characters went through change, he had well-defined antagonists, and the alien species development was superb. Very, very well written book.
not-interested
March 27, 2021Amy's 1-star review convinced me to pass this one by: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Here's her quote from the book: "The whole idea was the cheapest sort of bargain-basement sci-fi."
- pg. 125 (paperback edition)
She makes a convincing case. Reject pile.
Here's her quote from the book: "The whole idea was the cheapest sort of bargain-basement sci-fi."
- pg. 125 (paperback edition)
She makes a convincing case. Reject pile.
August 1, 2022
Good start to a new series. A little formulaic, but good.
July 13, 2020
This is the first book in the "Solar Warden" series by Ian Douglas a.k.a. William H. Keith. This book spans a time period from WWII and to the present. It tells the tale of alien influence and government conspiracies. It also ventures into interstellar space with a crew of elite military personnel and civilian scientists to try to stake humanity's claim among the greater intelligent life forms in the universe. A great read in the Space Opera/Military Science Fiction genre. As usual Ian Douglas a.k.a. William H. Keith doesn't disappoint.
July 20, 2020
One of the best books I have read in 2020. & I have read s lot of books.
July 15, 2020
Excellent First Book
Fun, enjoyable and interesting. Learned some real facts which is always a plus. Fiction blends well with history. Has a real military feel and comradery. The characters I enjoyed learning about and look forward to more adventures.
Fun, enjoyable and interesting. Learned some real facts which is always a plus. Fiction blends well with history. Has a real military feel and comradery. The characters I enjoyed learning about and look forward to more adventures.
August 1, 2020
Alien Secrets (Solar Warden #1) by Ian Douglas has a little bit of everything, and that may well be part of the problem with this book. It is based on an interesting concept, but it seems to have been a bit too much for this particular writer.
Douglas tries to create a story in which earth has already fallen under the influence of space aliens. Well, actually earthlings from a different time, two different times, in truth. One group of human aliens are actually evolved dinosaurs with opposable claws who had developed a highly industrialized society with space/time travel and had colonized space before the asetroid destroyed every piece of evidence of them here on earth. Another group of true human descendants come from over 1,000,000 years in the future. They also seem to be at war with each other. It even has a time traveling Nazi who, with the aid of said aliens, fled Germany in 1945 and landed in Pennsylvania in 1965. And all those stories we have all heard about in our tabloids about UFO sightings, alien abductions, etc etc etc are all true, and are all part of a government conspiracy (some are government space crafts funded by secret black money never explained). Even Reagan's attempted assassination was tied into the book. Afterall, he initiated the SDI defense which was seen as a potential threat by some of these alien forces, so one group of mind controlling aliens forced several humans in that California crowd, including the aforementioned Nazi, to try to assassinate him. And speaking of abductions, apparently the Grays, the human descendants of the far future, have some sort of genetic bottleneck going on so they have to come back a million years to our time and kidnap humans in order to harvest sperm and ova to refresh their genetic pool. At this point I almost threw the book across the living room. But then, it is a Kindle download and I really would have been upset. It reminded me somewhat of those cheap Japanese monster films of the 1950s and 1960s. I'm almost surprised we didn't see Rodan or Mothra appear in its pages, or even Flash Gordan. We did see combat in a far off galaxy where these human specimens were being held captive. And who was tasked to save them? A team of Navy SEALS! No specific training on the weapons or terrain, just SEALS. No disrespect intended to their abilities, but I think perhaps this might have been a little above their pay grade. And, of course, they succeed. A Navy SEAL team beating up on two different alien forces from the future. Come on, Man!
I gave it a second star because of the possibility of exploring a war between forces that have the ability to travel through time. Wow, that concept makes my brain hurt. But that came into play only in that the force were already present and in the convenience of getting from one galaxy to another in a "timely" fashion.
This is apparently part 1 of a series. In my opinion, leave them on the shelf. I won this download free from Goodrerads.com.
Douglas tries to create a story in which earth has already fallen under the influence of space aliens. Well, actually earthlings from a different time, two different times, in truth. One group of human aliens are actually evolved dinosaurs with opposable claws who had developed a highly industrialized society with space/time travel and had colonized space before the asetroid destroyed every piece of evidence of them here on earth. Another group of true human descendants come from over 1,000,000 years in the future. They also seem to be at war with each other. It even has a time traveling Nazi who, with the aid of said aliens, fled Germany in 1945 and landed in Pennsylvania in 1965. And all those stories we have all heard about in our tabloids about UFO sightings, alien abductions, etc etc etc are all true, and are all part of a government conspiracy (some are government space crafts funded by secret black money never explained). Even Reagan's attempted assassination was tied into the book. Afterall, he initiated the SDI defense which was seen as a potential threat by some of these alien forces, so one group of mind controlling aliens forced several humans in that California crowd, including the aforementioned Nazi, to try to assassinate him. And speaking of abductions, apparently the Grays, the human descendants of the far future, have some sort of genetic bottleneck going on so they have to come back a million years to our time and kidnap humans in order to harvest sperm and ova to refresh their genetic pool. At this point I almost threw the book across the living room. But then, it is a Kindle download and I really would have been upset. It reminded me somewhat of those cheap Japanese monster films of the 1950s and 1960s. I'm almost surprised we didn't see Rodan or Mothra appear in its pages, or even Flash Gordan. We did see combat in a far off galaxy where these human specimens were being held captive. And who was tasked to save them? A team of Navy SEALS! No specific training on the weapons or terrain, just SEALS. No disrespect intended to their abilities, but I think perhaps this might have been a little above their pay grade. And, of course, they succeed. A Navy SEAL team beating up on two different alien forces from the future. Come on, Man!
I gave it a second star because of the possibility of exploring a war between forces that have the ability to travel through time. Wow, that concept makes my brain hurt. But that came into play only in that the force were already present and in the convenience of getting from one galaxy to another in a "timely" fashion.
This is apparently part 1 of a series. In my opinion, leave them on the shelf. I won this download free from Goodrerads.com.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2020
Uniquely masterful introduction to what will be a great series!
Be ready to spend time on the web checking abundant references to UFOlogy , SciFi and history . Douglas weaves a deep tapestry of the cosmos we only thought we knew! More complex than some of his other work with nuances and character!
A bit slow on the necessary world building but a very satisfying read! I am definitely geared for whats next - Aldebaran!
Be ready to spend time on the web checking abundant references to UFOlogy , SciFi and history . Douglas weaves a deep tapestry of the cosmos we only thought we knew! More complex than some of his other work with nuances and character!
A bit slow on the necessary world building but a very satisfying read! I am definitely geared for whats next - Aldebaran!
August 1, 2020
I made it through hence it gets three stars.
It's OK but if Rick and Morty taught us anything, it's leave time travel on the shelf. Way too much crap gets opened up with that.
Not going to be continuing on with the series, honestly baffled at the fanboyz reviews. It was OK, something to listen to while I did other stuff but meh.
It's OK but if Rick and Morty taught us anything, it's leave time travel on the shelf. Way too much crap gets opened up with that.
Not going to be continuing on with the series, honestly baffled at the fanboyz reviews. It was OK, something to listen to while I did other stuff but meh.
September 3, 2020
I’ve read just about all of the books written under the penname Ian Douglas, going back to the very beginning of the Galactic Marine saga. So 19+ books over at least as many years. I’ve also read his submarine books written under a different name (though I didn’t realize until later both were the same person). So when I saw he had a new series, I grabbed it.
I know going in that the story will be a mishmash of fiction and fact. The plots recently have tended towards pulpy (my term). The author I also know will spend pages telling us readers about some topic, while the characters wait for us to return to their conversation. I was looking for an escapist ride. But this book doesn’t rise to the best of the Star Carrier series or Galactic Marines. It is average at best, getting itself tangled in what it wants to be.
Here, we follow a SEAL officer from his selection into the Solar Warden program through to fighting aliens in another star system. There is a super heavy dose of UFO mythology that has bolted onto it special forces, space navy and confusing alien intrigue. Add in time travel and it all begins to fall apart. There are too many competing ideas flying around. Plus I really dislike time travel stories.
Oh, NAZI’s too, just for an added pizazz (with a shoutout in the expository paragraphs of a chapter for Iron Sky, a movie spoof about NAZI’s in space).
While the book is a fast read, there are a number of items that detract from the flow. Mix of metric & English measurements. Skype calls in Space! iPads that can hook into alien internets. Anti-Grav, artificial gravity, etc but a cylinder shaped ship? Human crews that seem to know what they are doing, but are also new at interstellar voyages?
I think there is potential here for many more books. But it needs to have a lot more focus. Skip the time travel, that will get more and more silly. I’ll wait to see what the next installment is about before jumping back in. At least this is better than TV.
I know going in that the story will be a mishmash of fiction and fact. The plots recently have tended towards pulpy (my term). The author I also know will spend pages telling us readers about some topic, while the characters wait for us to return to their conversation. I was looking for an escapist ride. But this book doesn’t rise to the best of the Star Carrier series or Galactic Marines. It is average at best, getting itself tangled in what it wants to be.
Here, we follow a SEAL officer from his selection into the Solar Warden program through to fighting aliens in another star system. There is a super heavy dose of UFO mythology that has bolted onto it special forces, space navy and confusing alien intrigue. Add in time travel and it all begins to fall apart. There are too many competing ideas flying around. Plus I really dislike time travel stories.
Oh, NAZI’s too, just for an added pizazz (with a shoutout in the expository paragraphs of a chapter for Iron Sky, a movie spoof about NAZI’s in space).
While the book is a fast read, there are a number of items that detract from the flow. Mix of metric & English measurements. Skype calls in Space! iPads that can hook into alien internets. Anti-Grav, artificial gravity, etc but a cylinder shaped ship? Human crews that seem to know what they are doing, but are also new at interstellar voyages?
I think there is potential here for many more books. But it needs to have a lot more focus. Skip the time travel, that will get more and more silly. I’ll wait to see what the next installment is about before jumping back in. At least this is better than TV.
January 26, 2023
Alien Secrets (Solar Warden #1) by Ian Douglas
This is the first installment in a series...
Mark Francis Hunter, a Navy Lieutenant is on a special forces operation in North Korea, surveying their nuclear development, when something that could be described as a UFO takes the North Korean site and destroyed all their nuclear capabilities.
As he's being debriefed, he decides to tell the truth and what follows is confirmation from the government that alien civilizations have been on Earth for many centuries. He gets recruited to an extremely ultra-secret mission to provide the military capability to a mission that will take him first to the moon, then to the Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 of the Zeta Reticuli system, and finally to the Aldebaran star system.
As it turns out, humans have been interacting with several alien species - The reptilian Saurians and the Greys. Then there is time travel and a series of humans from 11,000 years in the future that have traveled back to Earth to make sure we don't annihilate ourselves.
Narrated from the third person point of view, the book is a mess. The plot makes no sense and it is narrated in many different timelines. The characters are too many to keep track of them - between the different aliens, the people from the future, and the humans. I never cared for any of them. There are too many theories being used - antigravity, time travel, space travel, multiple universes, and the time continuum. The book shows how different US Presidents have dealt with the alien species, including Eisenhower who signed a treaty with the aliens to get technology in exchange for permission to abduct humans for the aliens to study our DNA.
I did not enjoy the book and I do not recommend it.
This is the first installment in a series...
Mark Francis Hunter, a Navy Lieutenant is on a special forces operation in North Korea, surveying their nuclear development, when something that could be described as a UFO takes the North Korean site and destroyed all their nuclear capabilities.
As he's being debriefed, he decides to tell the truth and what follows is confirmation from the government that alien civilizations have been on Earth for many centuries. He gets recruited to an extremely ultra-secret mission to provide the military capability to a mission that will take him first to the moon, then to the Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 of the Zeta Reticuli system, and finally to the Aldebaran star system.
As it turns out, humans have been interacting with several alien species - The reptilian Saurians and the Greys. Then there is time travel and a series of humans from 11,000 years in the future that have traveled back to Earth to make sure we don't annihilate ourselves.
Narrated from the third person point of view, the book is a mess. The plot makes no sense and it is narrated in many different timelines. The characters are too many to keep track of them - between the different aliens, the people from the future, and the humans. I never cared for any of them. There are too many theories being used - antigravity, time travel, space travel, multiple universes, and the time continuum. The book shows how different US Presidents have dealt with the alien species, including Eisenhower who signed a treaty with the aliens to get technology in exchange for permission to abduct humans for the aliens to study our DNA.
I did not enjoy the book and I do not recommend it.
January 19, 2024
I thought it might be interesting, but at 369 pages it didn't really make it. I only skimmed towards the end. The heavy emphasis on navy / marine discipline bullshit and acronyms lost points from me. Perhaps the government conspiracy theory / heavy handed secrecy stuff - "we know where your family lives" - could have worked without that, and with a bit more intelligent SF concepts. The connection to WW2 and an evil Nazi transported to the future was a hook that landed in seaweed and caught no fish. The time travel concept has been done many times before, better than here. Apparently here it results in a "metaverse" of different timelines.
Then we have the aliens. There are aliens that are not really aliens - maybe humans were created by these aliens or we evolved from them, or something. If only this author could summarise instead of burying the reader in incomprehensible detail. What's your address, Ian, I still have my text from high school - "Precis writing for senior forms". I'll part with it after 60 years (that was a GREAT book).
Then there are some real aliens, which our marine heroes end up fighting, but they need the help of other aliens. Of course, they win - this time.
Our hero is Cmdr. Hunter, a typical macho American hero. Any women he comes across are all beautiful, ugly ones do not exist for this author. He has leadership skills at the platoon leader level, but he's clearly very junior in the overall hierarchy of the military and intelligence spectrum. Character development is practically non-existent, and often someone appears for a page or two and is never seen again.
Too bad, really, it seems to be a space opera performed by the junior high second string orchestra.
Rating 2.8.
Then we have the aliens. There are aliens that are not really aliens - maybe humans were created by these aliens or we evolved from them, or something. If only this author could summarise instead of burying the reader in incomprehensible detail. What's your address, Ian, I still have my text from high school - "Precis writing for senior forms". I'll part with it after 60 years (that was a GREAT book).
Then there are some real aliens, which our marine heroes end up fighting, but they need the help of other aliens. Of course, they win - this time.
Our hero is Cmdr. Hunter, a typical macho American hero. Any women he comes across are all beautiful, ugly ones do not exist for this author. He has leadership skills at the platoon leader level, but he's clearly very junior in the overall hierarchy of the military and intelligence spectrum. Character development is practically non-existent, and often someone appears for a page or two and is never seen again.
Too bad, really, it seems to be a space opera performed by the junior high second string orchestra.
Rating 2.8.
January 5, 2022
This book was rather disappointing as far as I am concerned. The book blurb sounded interesting but the story was, in my opinion, just a hot mess.
It starts off well enough with US Navy SEAL Mark Hunter witnessing this famous UFO mentioned in the book blurb but as soon as the “real” story begins it is really going down hill.
First of all the author jumps straight into (drumroll) time travel. Oh crap! That’s the most destructive plot element of them all. It is almost never done right and when it is done right it is really not that interesting. In this book it goes the way it almost always does and creates a mess. Add to this Nazis in space, time traveling Nazis, time traveling aliens, humans from the future, bullshit politics interfering in military matters and so on and so forth.
The author tries to do a bit of techno babble to explain the time travel aspect and ties faster than light travel into the capability of travel through time in the process. Of course we get a, less than successful, attempt to explain why going back in time doesn’t necessarily have a catastrophically effect on the present and the future as well. It is a mix of far out speculations loosely based on highly theoretical concepts and utter nonsense.
The story is illogical, confusing and circular (what would you expect with time travel bullshit). Needless to say I won’t continue this series.
It starts off well enough with US Navy SEAL Mark Hunter witnessing this famous UFO mentioned in the book blurb but as soon as the “real” story begins it is really going down hill.
First of all the author jumps straight into (drumroll) time travel. Oh crap! That’s the most destructive plot element of them all. It is almost never done right and when it is done right it is really not that interesting. In this book it goes the way it almost always does and creates a mess. Add to this Nazis in space, time traveling Nazis, time traveling aliens, humans from the future, bullshit politics interfering in military matters and so on and so forth.
The author tries to do a bit of techno babble to explain the time travel aspect and ties faster than light travel into the capability of travel through time in the process. Of course we get a, less than successful, attempt to explain why going back in time doesn’t necessarily have a catastrophically effect on the present and the future as well. It is a mix of far out speculations loosely based on highly theoretical concepts and utter nonsense.
The story is illogical, confusing and circular (what would you expect with time travel bullshit). Needless to say I won’t continue this series.
January 9, 2022
3.5/5 stars
I received this book as a result of winning a giveaway.
This is a well written (what I have come to expect from this author) military scifi story where Alien visits to and presence on Earth are real and not just part of present day mythology. This has led the US (to some extent allied with other nations on earth) to in deep secret build a space fleet using both reverse engineered alien technology and direct technological help from aliens and we go along on its first extra-solar system deployment. Aside from faster than light travel there is also a factor of time travel.
I enjoyed the story, but it definitely requires some suspension of disbelief that is generally not that difficult, but when it comes to combat with what are described as still much more highly advanced alien cultures things get a little rough, where I had some moment where I ended up rolling my eyes and questioning my commitment to this book a bit. Add to that the fact that in several instances certain aliens showed very out of character changes in behavior and responses to situations made me come out of reading feeling that while it has a strong and interesting base there were enough elements that felt really forced to make the story go in a certain direction to deduct 1.5 stars. I have a long list of books to read, so I am not sure that reading any follow ups is going to be high on the priority list, but it is definitely on the list.
I received this book as a result of winning a giveaway.
This is a well written (what I have come to expect from this author) military scifi story where Alien visits to and presence on Earth are real and not just part of present day mythology. This has led the US (to some extent allied with other nations on earth) to in deep secret build a space fleet using both reverse engineered alien technology and direct technological help from aliens and we go along on its first extra-solar system deployment. Aside from faster than light travel there is also a factor of time travel.
I enjoyed the story, but it definitely requires some suspension of disbelief that is generally not that difficult, but when it comes to combat with what are described as still much more highly advanced alien cultures things get a little rough, where I had some moment where I ended up rolling my eyes and questioning my commitment to this book a bit. Add to that the fact that in several instances certain aliens showed very out of character changes in behavior and responses to situations made me come out of reading feeling that while it has a strong and interesting base there were enough elements that felt really forced to make the story go in a certain direction to deduct 1.5 stars. I have a long list of books to read, so I am not sure that reading any follow ups is going to be high on the priority list, but it is definitely on the list.
May 2, 2024
Solar Warden: Alien Secrets by Ian Douglas
**What I Liked:** It's an interesting but cheap premise- aliens are in contact with various governments around the earth, but it's all secret. It's been ongoing since prior to WW2. The aliens can time travel, too. It has kind of a Harry Potter secret-world-that-exists-around us vibe, which is fun. Some of the action is fun and engaging.
**What I didn't like:** The characters are flat as can be. It's way too ambitious with the sci fi technologies levied before us, to the point where it breaks suspension of disbelief. There isn't much in the way of humor. The scale of human interstellar space flight and bases on the moon and mars and all, and it being able to be kept a secret also breaks suspension of disbelief. I kind of wish I listened to the review that said not to read it, because by the end, i seriously just didn't care
**Would I recommend it?** There is so much good sci fi out there. I'm sorry to say that this isn't an example.
**What I Liked:** It's an interesting but cheap premise- aliens are in contact with various governments around the earth, but it's all secret. It's been ongoing since prior to WW2. The aliens can time travel, too. It has kind of a Harry Potter secret-world-that-exists-around us vibe, which is fun. Some of the action is fun and engaging.
**What I didn't like:** The characters are flat as can be. It's way too ambitious with the sci fi technologies levied before us, to the point where it breaks suspension of disbelief. There isn't much in the way of humor. The scale of human interstellar space flight and bases on the moon and mars and all, and it being able to be kept a secret also breaks suspension of disbelief. I kind of wish I listened to the review that said not to read it, because by the end, i seriously just didn't care
**Would I recommend it?** There is so much good sci fi out there. I'm sorry to say that this isn't an example.
July 13, 2020
A solid start to a multi novel sci-fi story mixing together UFO and government conspiracy theories going back to WWII and the Nazi's with secret space fleets and extraterrestrial space combat action. This book is good hard sci-fi with a military edge although it has a time travel element the rules of when it is and when it is not possible seem a bit unclear. The world building is a mix of fast and slow but meant to take place over the course of a larger story with several alien species claiming earth as their home and many of the revelations leading to more mysteries. There are lots of characters that get a little mixed together until you sort out the important ones from the supporting characters but they all have their parts to play in the story. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
August 10, 2020
I enjoyed this book, and I'm not always a fan of "Boots on the Ground" type of military novel.
I loved the "Truth is out there" type of plot line and really enjoyed the stance of we don't really have it all figured out but we're trying. I really feel that if Aliens are real and they are here, this is exactly what it would be like. We can't tell who is good and who is bad, our mind sets are so different that good and bad don't even apply sometimes. There is no handbook, and trying to plan ahead can even make things harder.
If there is other life, this will be our reality. We will not be top dogs, we will not be even 3rd string players. If wee are lucky, we will be the cute little stray dogs that fetch foul balls and maybe get adopted by a player that feels sorry for us. We have teeth and we can fight the best of them, but we really have no idea what is going on.
I loved the "Truth is out there" type of plot line and really enjoyed the stance of we don't really have it all figured out but we're trying. I really feel that if Aliens are real and they are here, this is exactly what it would be like. We can't tell who is good and who is bad, our mind sets are so different that good and bad don't even apply sometimes. There is no handbook, and trying to plan ahead can even make things harder.
If there is other life, this will be our reality. We will not be top dogs, we will not be even 3rd string players. If wee are lucky, we will be the cute little stray dogs that fetch foul balls and maybe get adopted by a player that feels sorry for us. We have teeth and we can fight the best of them, but we really have no idea what is going on.
September 9, 2025
Tome 1 d'une série
À l'insu de presque tout le monde, les extraterrestres se sont infiltrés dans les opérations du monde depuis les années 1930s. Ils ont contribué au développement technique des nazis et, par la suite, au développement des américains. Et cela comprend le développement de vaisseaux spatiaux. Justement...
Un roman assez spécial qui comprend un mélange d'uchronie et de science-fiction militaire. Les complotistes ont inspiré l'auteur qui s'en donne à pure joie. On a des extraterrestres qui ont aidé les nazis pour leur développement technologique (fusée, moteur à réaction, etc.), les petits gris qui viennent de notre futur éloigné, les nordiques (quasi aryens) qui viennent de notre futur plus proche et des humanoïdes avec des traits de lézard. Mais on a aussi des extraterrestres extrêmement nombreux et avancés. Ce qui donne une aventure spatiale, à notre époque, avec des vaisseaux qui voyagent dans l'espace et le temps (un moyen de dépasser la vitesse de la lumière).
Par contre, le fait de se promener à plusieurs époques ralentit le rythme avec des faits plus ou moins importants.
J'ai aimé, mais je m'attendais à plus avec un des auteurs préférés.
À l'insu de presque tout le monde, les extraterrestres se sont infiltrés dans les opérations du monde depuis les années 1930s. Ils ont contribué au développement technique des nazis et, par la suite, au développement des américains. Et cela comprend le développement de vaisseaux spatiaux. Justement...
Un roman assez spécial qui comprend un mélange d'uchronie et de science-fiction militaire. Les complotistes ont inspiré l'auteur qui s'en donne à pure joie. On a des extraterrestres qui ont aidé les nazis pour leur développement technologique (fusée, moteur à réaction, etc.), les petits gris qui viennent de notre futur éloigné, les nordiques (quasi aryens) qui viennent de notre futur plus proche et des humanoïdes avec des traits de lézard. Mais on a aussi des extraterrestres extrêmement nombreux et avancés. Ce qui donne une aventure spatiale, à notre époque, avec des vaisseaux qui voyagent dans l'espace et le temps (un moyen de dépasser la vitesse de la lumière).
Par contre, le fait de se promener à plusieurs époques ralentit le rythme avec des faits plus ou moins importants.
J'ai aimé, mais je m'attendais à plus avec un des auteurs préférés.
February 6, 2021
Take all the UFO theories you've heard, and probably some you haven't, add in some time travel, humanoid and non-humanoid aliens, Star Trek, V, maybe a little Star Wars, impossible and possible technology, stir with a couple of conspiracy theories and military action and you have one hard-to-put-down sci-fi thriller.
At the heart of it all is, I think it is a story about man trying to cope or find his place in a universe that is very ancient with life forms that we can probably never totally comprehend. But it is all nicely fitted in to an exciting story. And this is to be the first of a series, definitely looking forward to others/
At the heart of it all is, I think it is a story about man trying to cope or find his place in a universe that is very ancient with life forms that we can probably never totally comprehend. But it is all nicely fitted in to an exciting story. And this is to be the first of a series, definitely looking forward to others/
August 4, 2020
Holy expositions Batman! This book is one of the worst books I’ve ever encountered. I’ll start by mentioning I DNF’d as the amount of exposition, which is intended to build the world, was fairly ridiculous. This is pure military sci-fi that is heavy on the military, tries on the science, and reads like Tom Clancy tried his hand at exploring space but sacrificed character development, pacing, and original thought for a pure cash grab. I will never get the time I spent on this book back. All copies of this book should be collected and shot into the sun.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 27, 2020
I read this book because the book is set in the world of UFO conspiracy theories, based on the premise that we have a secret space program, bases on the backside of the moon and a secret space fleet engaged in interstellar warfare. I'm writing a book based on the same premise and wanted to see how Ian Douglas handled it.
He handled it pretty well. He's a Navy veteran and the space fleet stuff rings true. He also posits some Bug-eyed Monsters that are beyond where the conspiracy theories go, but they're pretty good BEMs.
It's a good action story with an authentic ring to it.
He handled it pretty well. He's a Navy veteran and the space fleet stuff rings true. He also posits some Bug-eyed Monsters that are beyond where the conspiracy theories go, but they're pretty good BEMs.
It's a good action story with an authentic ring to it.
July 14, 2021
Okay, 90-plus pages into this one I've decided to call it DNF. The one-star rating is my code for "I can't read this"; it's not a judgment of quality, the book is competently written. Just that the premise, heavily researched, seems to be that all the alien contact conspiracy theories are actually true. And presumably after our hero sits through chapters and chapters worth of history, something is going to happen. (Oh, and Einstein proved that space and time are the same thing. I don't think so.)
September 16, 2020
While the premise was intriguing, I found the execution somewhat lacking. Mostly, my problem was with the so-called "military"-style with a lot of foul language and lots of time spent in dealing with things having mostly to do with military structure and culture and nothing to do with the main story. Too bad. I will say, however, that if you are a fan of the military sci-fi genre, you will probably enjoy this book.
July 20, 2023
It started out great but once Hunter and the crew got into their 'space' it just dragged until the end. My favorite takeaways were all the stories around how the Apollo astronauts were being watched by the aliens when we first went to the moon as well as how movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and others were crafted to slowly bring the general public into accepting the possibility of other life amongst the stars.
February 15, 2025
Decent military SF. I listened to the audiobook, and with the jumping around a bit, particularly early on, it was hard to follow. Same problem with the long quotes in the beginning of chapters. The first half of the book was a bit slow. The second half was more engaging. And I think Hunter's team being put together in such haphazard fashion, limited training, and late briefing wasn't very believable.
March 21, 2021
Not bad. Filled with the action you'd expect in an Ian Douglas novel. I just wish he'd stop using the tired trope of the loss of a woman as a means of motivating his protagonists. All the books of his that I've read has the love interest dying, divorcing or suffering death of personality then divorcing. It makes one wonder if the author has issues with women.
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