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Brigadier General #2
Fire Density
Brigadier General Dean’s new life continues. Now he is Cadet Igor Lavroff, who has managed to defeat a fatal disease, enroll in the Planetary Commando Academy and survive in battle on an enemy-occupied planet.
He is still far from completing the task assigned to him by his command in his past life. But he moves steadily towards his goal, despite the intrigues he faces, the backstabbing and the large-scale alien offensive threatening to destroy the Earth Federation long before Dean can fulfill his mission.
He is still far from completing the task assigned to him by his command in his past life. But he moves steadily towards his goal, despite the intrigues he faces, the backstabbing and the large-scale alien offensive threatening to destroy the Earth Federation long before Dean can fulfill his mission.
126 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 7, 2020
75 people are currently reading
4 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 18, 2021
I got 72% of the way through book 3 before I gave up so I'm giving all of the first three books the same review.
These books tell an over all interesting story, at least to likes of me, which is why I got as far as I did. The author, however, makes some incredibly stupid story choices which irritated me to the point of where I stopped reading.
So human "group A" (my name for them) are 100 years into slowly losing a war against alien "frogs". Group A discovers "wave" tech (I forget if that is what the author called it). This tech does two things: First, it dectects humans (and at least some of their thoughts) at great distances. This allows Group A humans to discover Group B humans. Group B is thousands of light years away and roughly 300 years behind in tech. Group B is 30 years into losing a war with aliens.
Second, "wave" tech allows one human consciousness to be merged with another under the right circumstances. Those circumstances lead to a Group A Brigadier General being placed into the head of a 15 year old Group B boy. This boy then joins a military academy and founds a business advancing Group B military tech.
The stupid crap: First is that the high and might of the Group B military-industrial complex are attempting to use the war to "take over". This makes no sense for two reasons: The first is that this group of conspirators should absolutely know humans are losing war. What do they think the aliens are going to do with them when they take over????? The aliens don't communicate with humas so, for all these idiots know, the aliens view as food..
Second, the conspirators allies in the military are the worst of the worst. Even if they succeed in taking over, how would they win an already mostly lost war with this idiots? More, what do they think the actually competent professional military types are going to do? The military knows its is losing so the conspirators couldn't really trust any of the military. After all, since the military are all looking at death regardless why wouldn't one of them shoot a conspirator if given the chance? It has already come out publicly once that the conspiracy is contributing to losing the war (the true conspirators weren't exposed, just a bunch of their corporate lackeys).
Next, but quite possibly, the most stupid thing of all: Based on no evidence the conspirators conclude that the Brigadier General is in the 15 year old boy. Seriously. The conspirators know nothing of "wave" tech, all they know is that a 15 year old awoke from a coma to go from average to genius. Child prodigies are a thing and yet somehow the conspirators have video of the MC psychoanalyzed and come up with "he's possessed by an old man". Further that conclusion DOES NOTHING TO EXPLAIN THE MC's TECH KNOWLEDGE!!! So why does this bizarre passage even exist??? (Frankly, it almost certainly exists because the author wanted to give the reader some foreshadowing of the bad guys but the author could have just had the bad guys discussing the threat the MC poses. That would have been consistent with the author's world building and left out the insanity.)
Finally, there is the MC's stupidity of not introducing tech fast enough. MC's excuse: Group B humans aren't ready. Meanwhile the Group B humans are losing battle after battle with aliens only gaining speed, in part due to new alien ships the humans can't really oppose. Essentially, at the point I stopped the Group B humans should lose. Obviously that's not the story since there are currently 3 more books in this series but the author has spent too much time and energy showing all the reasons the humans should lose. It is to the point where human victory has become unbelievable AND THAT IS WITHOUT THE LAST OF AMAZINGLY STUPID STORY CHOICES:
The conspirators' big plan to get the president out of the way: Hypnotize him into taking command of a doomed fleet himself. Ignoring the stupidity of the whole "hypnotize the president" story line, the fleet sent on this doomed mission is THE LAST COMBAT EFFECTIVE HUMAN FLEET. HOW DOES THIS CONSPIRACY MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL. THEY APPEAR TO BE ACTIVELY WORKING TO LOSE THE WAR AND THE AUTHOR HAS TOLD US THAT THEY DON'T HAVE SOME KIND OF AGREEMENT WITH THE ALIENS. THE CONSPIRATORS ARE, FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES WORKIGN AT BEING IMPRISONED (AT BEST) BY ALIENS.
Finally, on the poor planning front: each of these books are an installment. This author does nothing to prvide story resolution. This is somewhat mollified by the story focus on the journey of the Brigadier General, but, all in all, the overall plotting of these books is poor unless you consider it as a mechanism to draw out the story to sell 6 short books instead of one or two good books.
Bottom line: The stupid story lines became overwhelming, especially in light of the poor plotting.
These books tell an over all interesting story, at least to likes of me, which is why I got as far as I did. The author, however, makes some incredibly stupid story choices which irritated me to the point of where I stopped reading.
So human "group A" (my name for them) are 100 years into slowly losing a war against alien "frogs". Group A discovers "wave" tech (I forget if that is what the author called it). This tech does two things: First, it dectects humans (and at least some of their thoughts) at great distances. This allows Group A humans to discover Group B humans. Group B is thousands of light years away and roughly 300 years behind in tech. Group B is 30 years into losing a war with aliens.
Second, "wave" tech allows one human consciousness to be merged with another under the right circumstances. Those circumstances lead to a Group A Brigadier General being placed into the head of a 15 year old Group B boy. This boy then joins a military academy and founds a business advancing Group B military tech.
The stupid crap: First is that the high and might of the Group B military-industrial complex are attempting to use the war to "take over". This makes no sense for two reasons: The first is that this group of conspirators should absolutely know humans are losing war. What do they think the aliens are going to do with them when they take over????? The aliens don't communicate with humas so, for all these idiots know, the aliens view as food..
Second, the conspirators allies in the military are the worst of the worst. Even if they succeed in taking over, how would they win an already mostly lost war with this idiots? More, what do they think the actually competent professional military types are going to do? The military knows its is losing so the conspirators couldn't really trust any of the military. After all, since the military are all looking at death regardless why wouldn't one of them shoot a conspirator if given the chance? It has already come out publicly once that the conspiracy is contributing to losing the war (the true conspirators weren't exposed, just a bunch of their corporate lackeys).
Next, but quite possibly, the most stupid thing of all: Based on no evidence the conspirators conclude that the Brigadier General is in the 15 year old boy. Seriously. The conspirators know nothing of "wave" tech, all they know is that a 15 year old awoke from a coma to go from average to genius. Child prodigies are a thing and yet somehow the conspirators have video of the MC psychoanalyzed and come up with "he's possessed by an old man". Further that conclusion DOES NOTHING TO EXPLAIN THE MC's TECH KNOWLEDGE!!! So why does this bizarre passage even exist??? (Frankly, it almost certainly exists because the author wanted to give the reader some foreshadowing of the bad guys but the author could have just had the bad guys discussing the threat the MC poses. That would have been consistent with the author's world building and left out the insanity.)
Finally, there is the MC's stupidity of not introducing tech fast enough. MC's excuse: Group B humans aren't ready. Meanwhile the Group B humans are losing battle after battle with aliens only gaining speed, in part due to new alien ships the humans can't really oppose. Essentially, at the point I stopped the Group B humans should lose. Obviously that's not the story since there are currently 3 more books in this series but the author has spent too much time and energy showing all the reasons the humans should lose. It is to the point where human victory has become unbelievable AND THAT IS WITHOUT THE LAST OF AMAZINGLY STUPID STORY CHOICES:
The conspirators' big plan to get the president out of the way: Hypnotize him into taking command of a doomed fleet himself. Ignoring the stupidity of the whole "hypnotize the president" story line, the fleet sent on this doomed mission is THE LAST COMBAT EFFECTIVE HUMAN FLEET. HOW DOES THIS CONSPIRACY MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL. THEY APPEAR TO BE ACTIVELY WORKING TO LOSE THE WAR AND THE AUTHOR HAS TOLD US THAT THEY DON'T HAVE SOME KIND OF AGREEMENT WITH THE ALIENS. THE CONSPIRATORS ARE, FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES WORKIGN AT BEING IMPRISONED (AT BEST) BY ALIENS.
Finally, on the poor planning front: each of these books are an installment. This author does nothing to prvide story resolution. This is somewhat mollified by the story focus on the journey of the Brigadier General, but, all in all, the overall plotting of these books is poor unless you consider it as a mechanism to draw out the story to sell 6 short books instead of one or two good books.
Bottom line: The stupid story lines became overwhelming, especially in light of the poor plotting.
April 15, 2021
Not an Easy Read
The struggle to comprehend continues and I send thanks to the two professors who taught me Russian so many years ago for giving me the foundation needed to follow this narrative. I like the storyline and hope that maybe, some day the author will manage a better English translation of his story.
In this installment our hero manages, against major odds, to construct a win where others might have failed. Events do seem to “magically” align to his needs but all is well that ends well in my mind.
The struggle to comprehend continues and I send thanks to the two professors who taught me Russian so many years ago for giving me the foundation needed to follow this narrative. I like the storyline and hope that maybe, some day the author will manage a better English translation of his story.
In this installment our hero manages, against major odds, to construct a win where others might have failed. Events do seem to “magically” align to his needs but all is well that ends well in my mind.
March 1, 2021
Well worth reading
The story line is good and retains your interest. The predictability of the main character is a problem, and more interaction between characters could have negated this while simultaneously enhancing the story development. The battle scenes are superb. The editing needs to improve. All in all, a good read.
The story line is good and retains your interest. The predictability of the main character is a problem, and more interaction between characters could have negated this while simultaneously enhancing the story development. The battle scenes are superb. The editing needs to improve. All in all, a good read.
March 3, 2021
Not happy!
To put a successful General in the enlisted ranks is greatly stupid. No matter how good your enlisted men are, they are cannon fodder, their job is to hold ground and die. To waste a proven leader at that just because "we've always done it like that" is not a good idea. Other than that, it was a good words in a row.
To put a successful General in the enlisted ranks is greatly stupid. No matter how good your enlisted men are, they are cannon fodder, their job is to hold ground and die. To waste a proven leader at that just because "we've always done it like that" is not a good idea. Other than that, it was a good words in a row.
April 6, 2021
POWERFULLY WRITTEN.
As space operas/space marines stories go this is a damn good book. Its not a gritty mud & spurting blood combat story. It dances a bit better than that. Really good read. Maybe a touch more mud & blood needed or our hero looks too sqeaky shiny pretty annoying boring. Which he isnt yet.
As space operas/space marines stories go this is a damn good book. Its not a gritty mud & spurting blood combat story. It dances a bit better than that. Really good read. Maybe a touch more mud & blood needed or our hero looks too sqeaky shiny pretty annoying boring. Which he isnt yet.
June 1, 2021
A very quick read that was very entertaining.
Again the hero has surprising success, but the background was in place for it to happen. Some great ideas and some plot changes but well done.
Again the hero has surprising success, but the background was in place for it to happen. Some great ideas and some plot changes but well done.
February 26, 2022
Poorly written military fiction.
We don't address anyone with their full title, except when introducing them. For example you would address a Major General as general. A staff sergeant as sergeant.
We don't address anyone with their full title, except when introducing them. For example you would address a Major General as general. A staff sergeant as sergeant.
January 18, 2022
Good plot, bad grammar
The characters and plot are engaging. Reading will require working through odd sentence structures. Still and enjoyable military coming of age series.
The characters and plot are engaging. Reading will require working through odd sentence structures. Still and enjoyable military coming of age series.
Read
July 28, 2022Rating: minus 1
Kathleen McGuire wrote a good review. I recommend that you give her a read. I will not try to reinvent what she has done better than I could.
For a glimpse into my Goodreads experiences, please read my review of either "Dark Horse", a nice story by Diener or Powers of the Earth (a sorry book) and the comments of a Claes Rees, Jr/cgr710 (a self-identified NeoNazi). He is an intellectual, he told me so.
GLORY TO UKRAINE !!!
If you haven't bothered to read either, please look at another's review. Thank you.
There is little on which to comment, as regards the book. There are alien races in two galaxies at war with humanity in each. Humanity is trying desperately to lose both wars. Did I mention that I like aliens. Aliens are cool. War is not cool. That should cover it. I fear being labeled an intellectual by yet another secondary school scholar.
While the story is stale and has been written at least once by perhaps 50% of Amazon's stable of low end writers, the aliens were interesting. The Russian characters were refreshing also.
Amazon has only 4 categories of genre fiction. The Serviceable, the Low Effort, the Minimal Effort and No Effort. It is a chore to wade through 2 to 3 dozen of the latter three categories to find a book or series in the first. If you are not ready to abandon science fiction entirely, consider that all the streaming services offer fairly good genre tales. The worst of them will still feature better writing than most of english language print. Netflix also has a large multilingual library which is a nice bonus.
I discovered Curiosity Stream/Nebula by accident and was very pleased with its collection of educational video. At $15 USD for a year's subscription, its worth a look.
For a real community of sane readers, I turn to YouTube, not Goodreads. It also carries channels covering all my other interests. Some favorites are.
UA Courage, Tara Mooknee, Novara Media, Munecat, Some More News, May Moon Narrowboat, Mrs Betty Bower, Tulia, Tom Nicholas, France 24, Alize, Alice Cappelle, Jessica Gagnon, Art by Annamarie, Double Down News, The Narrowboat Pirate, Northern Narrowboaters, Between the Wars, The Great War, Lady knight the Brave, A Clockwork Reader, Sabine Hossenfelder, The Templin Institute, Second Thought, Noah Sampson, Military History Visualized, Spacedock, Real Engineering, Celtica, Avalishvili, Philosophy Tube, The Gravel Institute, Dr Becky, Certifiably Ingame, Kings and Generals, Quinn's Ideas, The Narrowboat Chef, Boat Time, Ship Happens, Casual Navigation, Chloe Stafler, Natalia Tsarikova, St Petersburg Me, Real Engineering, Ana Psychology, Mythology and Fiction Explained, Rebecca Watson, Elena Taber, Noelle Gallagher, Hello Future Me, The Juice Media, We're in Hell, Mala Armia Janosika, Jill Bearup, Autumn's Boutique, A Cup of Nicole, Emmie, Book Odyssey, The Budget Museum, Books with Chloe, Shift Alt X, Between the Lines, Lindybeige, Niki Proshin, Avalishvili, Diane Callahan Quotidian Writer, Adult Wednesday Addams, Ben and Emily, What Vivi did next, AstronautX, The History of the Universe, History Hit, Lucy Thomas, The Snake Charmer, Practical Engineering, Answer in Progress, The Royal Institution, Quinn's Ideas, Lilly's expat life, Perun, Bookslike Whoa, Books and Lala, Jessie Gender, The Shades of Orange, Lily Alexander, Olly Richards, Jump Gate, Sarah Z, Patrick is a Navajo, Three Arrows, Invicta, Camper Vibe, DW News, Chris and Shell, Digital Engine, Overly Sarcastic Productions, MWG Studios, Eleanor Morton, 2Cellos, Danica Patrick, Filaxim Historia, Odyssey, Natasha's Adventures, Useful Idiots.
I wish you a sunny morning, an exciting afternoon, a contemplative evening and a splendid night.
The past is just as much a mystery as the future.
Sir Reginald Hargreeves
Kathleen McGuire wrote a good review. I recommend that you give her a read. I will not try to reinvent what she has done better than I could.
For a glimpse into my Goodreads experiences, please read my review of either "Dark Horse", a nice story by Diener or Powers of the Earth (a sorry book) and the comments of a Claes Rees, Jr/cgr710 (a self-identified NeoNazi). He is an intellectual, he told me so.
GLORY TO UKRAINE !!!
If you haven't bothered to read either, please look at another's review. Thank you.
There is little on which to comment, as regards the book. There are alien races in two galaxies at war with humanity in each. Humanity is trying desperately to lose both wars. Did I mention that I like aliens. Aliens are cool. War is not cool. That should cover it. I fear being labeled an intellectual by yet another secondary school scholar.
While the story is stale and has been written at least once by perhaps 50% of Amazon's stable of low end writers, the aliens were interesting. The Russian characters were refreshing also.
Amazon has only 4 categories of genre fiction. The Serviceable, the Low Effort, the Minimal Effort and No Effort. It is a chore to wade through 2 to 3 dozen of the latter three categories to find a book or series in the first. If you are not ready to abandon science fiction entirely, consider that all the streaming services offer fairly good genre tales. The worst of them will still feature better writing than most of english language print. Netflix also has a large multilingual library which is a nice bonus.
I discovered Curiosity Stream/Nebula by accident and was very pleased with its collection of educational video. At $15 USD for a year's subscription, its worth a look.
For a real community of sane readers, I turn to YouTube, not Goodreads. It also carries channels covering all my other interests. Some favorites are.
UA Courage, Tara Mooknee, Novara Media, Munecat, Some More News, May Moon Narrowboat, Mrs Betty Bower, Tulia, Tom Nicholas, France 24, Alize, Alice Cappelle, Jessica Gagnon, Art by Annamarie, Double Down News, The Narrowboat Pirate, Northern Narrowboaters, Between the Wars, The Great War, Lady knight the Brave, A Clockwork Reader, Sabine Hossenfelder, The Templin Institute, Second Thought, Noah Sampson, Military History Visualized, Spacedock, Real Engineering, Celtica, Avalishvili, Philosophy Tube, The Gravel Institute, Dr Becky, Certifiably Ingame, Kings and Generals, Quinn's Ideas, The Narrowboat Chef, Boat Time, Ship Happens, Casual Navigation, Chloe Stafler, Natalia Tsarikova, St Petersburg Me, Real Engineering, Ana Psychology, Mythology and Fiction Explained, Rebecca Watson, Elena Taber, Noelle Gallagher, Hello Future Me, The Juice Media, We're in Hell, Mala Armia Janosika, Jill Bearup, Autumn's Boutique, A Cup of Nicole, Emmie, Book Odyssey, The Budget Museum, Books with Chloe, Shift Alt X, Between the Lines, Lindybeige, Niki Proshin, Avalishvili, Diane Callahan Quotidian Writer, Adult Wednesday Addams, Ben and Emily, What Vivi did next, AstronautX, The History of the Universe, History Hit, Lucy Thomas, The Snake Charmer, Practical Engineering, Answer in Progress, The Royal Institution, Quinn's Ideas, Lilly's expat life, Perun, Bookslike Whoa, Books and Lala, Jessie Gender, The Shades of Orange, Lily Alexander, Olly Richards, Jump Gate, Sarah Z, Patrick is a Navajo, Three Arrows, Invicta, Camper Vibe, DW News, Chris and Shell, Digital Engine, Overly Sarcastic Productions, MWG Studios, Eleanor Morton, 2Cellos, Danica Patrick, Filaxim Historia, Odyssey, Natasha's Adventures, Useful Idiots.
I wish you a sunny morning, an exciting afternoon, a contemplative evening and a splendid night.
The past is just as much a mystery as the future.
Sir Reginald Hargreeves
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews