King's Fall

Odyssey One #8

by Evan Currie

The Empire has suffered the existence of their enemies for too long as it is, and her Majesty has determined to put an end to the impudent defiance, the consequences be damned.

Eric Weston has seen this coming, but without being able to find a way to avoid it, all he could do was prepare... along with the rest of the Earth. With several Imperial Fleets coming down on their heads, all the stops have been pulled and there are no more rules of engagement. Everything is on the table, but for all that, Eric knows it won't... it can't... be enough.

Eric Weston has lived through battles that became wars, wars that became peace, and peace that threatened everything he knew.

Now, he has to find an answer to a question he never wanted to be faced with.

What do you do when your enemy puts your back to the wall and you can't find a way out?

Eric doesn't know the right answer, but he knows his answer. Never put an enemy on Death Ground unless you're sure you can survive their fall. If you strike at a king, even killing him can prove fatal.

King's Fall brings the Imperial Arc of the best selling Odyssey One series to a brutal conclusion.

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Audiobook, Amazon, Military Science Fiction, Fantasy

527 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 17, 2022

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very disappointing ending to the series. I found several typos and punctuation errors. This book definitely could have benefited by having an editor (even if it is his wife doing it for free). One criticism I have of Mr. Currie's books lately is the pacing. There are scenes which take 3 chapters to tell and others that take 8. Now, there are no hard and fast rules of scene and chapter breaks, but this book and the previous 2 books suffer from switching POVs all the time which then stretches the story out.

Lastly, the ending was rushed and with most major threads resolved and some remained unresolved in a grand finale of destruction. There are other ways to deal with implacable, nearly indestructible enemies and this way was just downright disappointing. Not fatalistic, not a Wagnerian crescendo like Hitler and diehard SS, but a helium balloon that has been slowly leaking out for the last 3 months.

[Darth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Czy spodziewałam się po tytule tego co się wydarzyło? TAK. Czy miałam nadzieję, że jednak skończy się to inaczej? TAK. Czy miałam wilgotne oczy? TAK. Czy podobały mi się i książką i seria? OCZYWIŚCIE, ŻE TAK.

Okej, muszę ochłonąć.

Była to chyba najlepsza z serii, ale jak przypomnę sobie początek, to zadaję sobie tylko pytanie: DLACZEGO?? DLACZEGO TO MUSIAŁO SIĘ TAK SKOŃCZYĆ??

Oczywiście, znowu było sporo głębokich przemyśleń. Oto cytat:
"Cała sytuacja BYŁA dziwaczna, ale to coś Ericowi uświadomiło.
Dziwaczne było dobre.
Sprawiało, że ludzie uważali. Że myśleli. Mogli nie lubić dziwactw, ale trudno je było ignorować.
Ludzie ignorują i akceptują zbyt wiele tylko dlatego, że jest to normalne.
Eric wolał, by otaczało go dziwaczne, a nie normalne,
nawet jeśli nie było to komfortowe.
Zło nie kryło się w mroku, żyło sobie spokojnie w małych
miasteczkach i na przedmieściach, na planetach, gdzie obywatele Imperium nie przejmowali się tym, co robi ich
Wojsko czy rząd, byle tylko mogli wieść swoje spokojne życie bez żadnych większych zmartwień.
[...]
Zło nie było wyjątkowe, pełne chwały i spektakularne
Zło było banalne."

Teraz to naprawdę muszę ochłonąć 🥹😭🤯
🫡🫡

35 minut później

Trochę ochłonęłam.
Uważam, że zakończenie otwarte i nie obraziłabym się za jeszcze jeden tom (sugestia do Autora, gdyby to jakimś trafem przeczytał)

Rozumiem, że Czytelnicy mają pole do popisu dla wyobraźni. ALE niektóre wątki na prawdę są zastanawiające. Ja potrzebuję wiedzieć: kim na czarne dziury jest Saul?? W sensie niby wiem. Ale za mało. Chcę jego dowodu osobistego (nie żeby takowy posiadał). To jedna zagadka. Kilku innym sprawom też przydałoby się wytłumaczenie od Autora.

Tak emocjonalnie podeszłam do tej książki, ponieważ ta seria to było moje pierwsze poważne (poważne? Ok, z marines nic nie jest poważne) science-fiction i to wprowadziło mnie w ten Wszechświat. Przez te 3 lata, odkąd po raz pierwszy sięgnęłam po pierwszy tom zdążyłam się zżyć z bohaterami.

Było to super przeżycie. I mogę z całym swoim sercem polecić tę serię każdemu. Wiadomo, miała swoje lepsze i gorsze momenty, ale jako całość 👌👌

Jeszcze raz 🫡🫡 całej flocie Sojuszu Ziemskiego i Priminae

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

At long last! The thrilling conclusion of the "Odyssey One" series! I've seen a lot of trash talk about this book and the previous entry over editing issues and yes, there are a few more typos here and there but does that take away from my enjoyment of the book? Never!

I thought the ending was a good mixture of inevitable while throwing in enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. If this truly is the ending (and it may not be) I still have many unanswered questions about the Gods in the book as well as the origin of Man that he teases but Currie doesn't owe me any answers either way. He entertained me and created a fantastic new space series that kept me turning page after page. Well done!

[Thesmoothkdr · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very unsatisfying ending

I have enjoyed this series since the start, but had noticed that the last few books had declined in quality. Was shocked to see how far this one declined. Typos, misspellings, character names magically changing, etc., made it a grind to even finish the book. While the end game was relatively spelled out, the book jumped all over the place and rushed the actual ending to what had been a great series. Maybe the Archangel books are more fun to write and the author’s focus is moving there? Either way, I’d rather have just left the future open-ended and stopped reading at Odysseus Ascendant.

[Pat Doherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is in my top 3 (Evan Currie) books. I have been following Evan for many, many years. Hopefully this is not your first Odyssey or you will be totally lost. But if you have then you are in for a real treat. Could not put it down. I felt that the story almost wrote itself.
This book has everything in it. Maybe to much, there could be a companion book during the same timeline form another point of view. I’d buy that also. The one part I kind of skipped was the civilian ships everything else was glorious. Thanks for Another Great Book Evan

[Neal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful series. But this book was poorly written and edited. I've read many Currie series and he writes wonderful SF. This book, however, was flat. I agree with others that it read like a rush job to "get it over with".

For example. Steph was virtually non-existent in this book. Prometheus razed the empire, yet couldn't be used to wipe out the enemy fleet. Bo was never developed as a character. In fact, character development disappeared in this book.

I'm glad I finished the series. But I'm a bit disappointed in the final installment.

[Bruce R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spoilers within! Worst downer of an ending ever (almost). I know that sometimes heroes die in the end, but Eric Weston had pulled the fleet out every time until this book. The author's biggest error, in my opinion, was that he introduced several gods into the series and never explored their potential as allies in the war. In the end, as Earth was lost and the gods were a non-factor. All that buildup for nothing! It was hugely disappointing, after enjoying the series right up until the final chapter of the final book.

[Donna Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

their are no ending.

This is a wonderfully saddening ending. We get want we want but find the cost a bitter pill to swallow. If this is the end I can except that but i truly hope this is just a new beginning. A sweeping of the field to introduce new people and their stories into this amazing universe.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

Evan currie can write an amazing story, and the believability of his writing is spot on! I was completely hooked the entire read, and cannot wait until the retribution arc begins.

My only complaint is the hand waiving around the numbers. Webare told no concrete numbers on any fleets battles. We ha e hundreds, dozens, several, but nothing solid. I think we have 40 or so heroics on defense, and 300 or so imperial cruisers, and from the numbers we fry somewhere around 100-150 imperials, but actually having numbers would've been better for me. (Not even every step of the way, but how many ships escaped, what was left of the imperial fleet, what were the starting fleet sizes, it would've helped me envision things better)

[Lawrence Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG. I finished this in tears

The only thing wrong with this book is that it needed a bit more and better proofing.

This a fitting and well written ending to Odyssey One. I was hoping it would end a bit differently, but we all can read the title, yes?

I’ve read every book and I was hoping Admiral Weston had some more tricks up his sleeve. But there is obviously a lot more coming.

If you’ve read the other books, this a must read. If you haven’t, start with book 1. This is a most excellent series, written with excellent strategic and tactical acumen.

[Kevin White · Rating 1 out of 5]

arrrggghhh!!

I would have given the book a 10 if not for the ending!!!!!!!! I really hope Evan is holding something back and this isn’t the end of the series!!!!!! He could at least given us a hint!!!!!!

[Kahless · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a disappointing end (if it is indeed the end) of the Odyssey saga. A fair amount of loose threads makes me hope we haven't seen the end of Admiral Weston just yet though.

More typos than I usually notice in an Evan Currie book though; not sure what happened with the editing.

[Jon Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just wow. Totally not the ending I expected.

This would be 5 stars if the editing wasn't so atrocious.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty solid ending to a series that I really enjoyed but also found unsatisfying. I liked the ending and hope we get another series in this universe. That said... I have too many questions about choices charaters made and the book's pacing, that I can't say the series ended on a high note.

A few nitpicks (and SPOILERS):






It felt like the author forgot some details from the earlier books.....

-What happened to the Super dreadnaught Imperial ships from book 7? The Fleet Commander of 3rd Fleet was on one in that book, but they're never mentioned again.
-In book 7, when Third Fleet attacks Earth, IIRC, they attack with 400+ ships. In book 8, Third Fleet is down to 40ish ships (they didn't lose that many in #7) and when the Empire sends multiple fleets to Earth they only seem to have about 400 total... Maybe I missed the accounting, but seems like there should have been more ships there. The smaller Kardashev system in book 7 destroys 100 ships in its first attack/salvo. In this book, a much greater Kardashev system... well, it never says how many ships are destroyed. Doesn't seem like it was a much greater number though... Couldn't have been because the fleet wasn't significantly larger.
-That said, the author did seem to try and be vague about the number of ships attacking Earth. It was a little annoying. Did the Empire lose half their ships? A quarter? How many were left at the end? Had to be a significant number for the Priminae to cut out and flee.
-I didn't like how fast the Rogues are able to foment rebellion. The pacing of that arc next to the main fleet battle arc seemed poorly done and very rushed. I wish that part had been left for a later book or an epilogue.
-What was the point of Boudicca and Odysseus learning their "archery" when it was barely used against the enemy? At the end, when they were fighting, it's very unclear how effective they were.
-Why wouldn't they use Prometheus until the very end? It's a superweapon that fired one shot in defense of Earth? Ok, the fleets are a hard target cause they've moving. Still seems like they'd have fired more than once during that battle... fine. Why not start eliminating Imperial shipyards once their fleet was en route to Earth? Let 'em know they'd have trouble replacing their losses!
-Boudicca and Odysseus & the Prometheus weapon were all very underutilized in the last quarter of the book. Just seems like they all coulda been doing more.

[Thomas Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

So many typos.

The story while continuing, ends in this installment on a really down note. Sure we know that things will turn around in the next books but no one likes to end on a really big downer. The reason for the one star though is the massive number of grammatical errors, missing text, and even nonsensical sentences or whole paragraphs. I wonder was this work even edited by an actual live person, or did someone just tap a key to have some badly programmed so called AI bot completely screw it up. Seriously Mr. Evan Currie hire a proofreader and editor. If you already have them and they are responsible for letting this happen then they should be immediately fired and replaced by spider monkeys which would perform an infinitely better service in that capacity. Kindle does have the feature which allows the reader to report errors. At first I did attempt to do so but quickly stopped as the entries went into the hundreds and I came to the realization that this book was already out there and my or anyone else's input was a waste of time.
In conclusion, if you can slog your way through hundreds of missing words and completely garbled nonsensical passages then this is an acceptable installment in this series. Otherwise wait for the rewrite!!!!

[Christopher Bonar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am pretty disappointed by the way this story progressed. Like many writers today, Currie can't help but inject his thoughts and opinions on the real world and political climate into his narrative. I could overlook these parts if they didn't come at the expense of continued character development or the plot, but the time wasted explaining sociological forces and the evils of humanity could have been used to make characters less predictable and bland. The Priminae barely make an appearance, Weston spends some more time second guessing his choices, and every other character gets nothing more than a brief cameo before doomsday. This series began as one man, one ship and a small crew overcoming incredible odds to thwart a large and inexplicably evil alien force. It has now fallen into the gravity well of modern day politics and reads as a lazy, rushed, and error-ridden Twitter feed written by someone who is spending too much time on social media and not enough time developing his craft. I would give it fewer stars if I wasn't such a fan of the premise and earlier books in this series.

[Ali · Rating 1 out of 5]

Decent story but riddled with errors

Overall the series is pretty good military scifi. Decent science, plenty of action and doesn't tax the brain cells. Pulp has its plsce.

The writing is poor throughout, all characters have the same voice and Currie has an annoying literary tick. Every other statement gets a qualifier: "at the least" seems to be his favourite. The text is littered with them, but that's ok because this is best skim read anyway.

The problem with the text in this edition is the sheer volume of outright errors. Missing words, incorrect words, misspelling character names, with a frequency of one every other page.

A schoolchild should know the difference between taught and taut. An author should know the difference between demesne and damascene. Currie and his editor (if there is any one who will admit to it) know neither. Just two examples from a myriad. I got tired of reporting them on the Kindle edition because I'm not getting paid.

Not good enough.

[Vicki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jesan or Jehan is the commander of the third fleet? So many typos/wrong words. Needs editing in the worst way. The ending is completely deeply unsatisfying. The enemies numbers are never really elaborated, but you get the idea there's around a thousand (discounting the parasites) They are casually picked off by the dozens and more but the numbers are never given. The damage to the enemy seems much bigger than the end would indicate, and the tech they are keeping away at all costs will surely be grabbed on Ranquil when they murder that planet too. Did the blast on Kreike kill father??? one can only hope.

[James A. Gentry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent story, very poor editing

The story is definitely interesting and well crafted, but I catalogued 64 errors during my read and I know there were more. It was a game to me, so if reading through errors annoys you, skip it. Otherwise, it’s worth the read. I do however have no idea how that many errors made it through. Even MS Word does a better job with grammar and spelling…

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problems with the typos and content errors are VERY distracting - I find it hard to believe that this book was allowed onto the market in this state. The ending is a little abrupt for my taste - at the end of an eight novel series I would have preferred some closure, especially as some main characters do not (?) survive, and a significant chapter in Terran life is apparently ending. All in all a clumsy book, and those mistakes…so many mistakes.

[Cynthia Slaughter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Space military sci-fi

The conclusion of the Odysseus series is dramatic but leaves some characters in play to continue this saga. I know favorite characters must die occasionally but I am hoping in a future story line that somehow Odysseus survived the destruction of his ship and managed to save Eric in some fashion.

[J. Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really below standard

Evan just seems to want to get this series over with. I like most the books but did he fire his editor? I lost count of the amount of typos are plain wrong words like looking instead of luring. How does an author at this level get away with this??? Shame on you evan. I could not finish the book. The mistakes were too jarring

[Alex Shehovsov · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the love of kittens, please proof read.

First off, I generally thoroughly enjoy Mr. Currie's writing. The storylines, the language, the thought process. This time however, I have to force myself to keep reading in the face of multiple awful typographic errors. Dear author, you can do much, much better.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

While a the author is a gifted storyteller, for the love of God Evan hire an editor. Typo after typo after missed word after strange transposition detract from what would be solid work worth celebrating.

Cripes,
I'm available for final proofreading and would do it for a paper book copy at the end.

[Andrew Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can't help but think that the ending was rushed. I mean Eric dodged the bullet before right. Even so an addendum detailing the status of both the Imperials and earth post conflict would have been a way of gently easing us out and giving "hope" for the future...

[Vitaly · Rating 2 out of 5]

horrible ending (spoiler alert!)

Really? After all these books the author had to have such a sad ending? Come on, Evan Currie - Not cool!

[Andre Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

good story overall

Ending was a bit abrupt and sad. Wanted a bit more action ad a more satisfying end. Story was good, but the previous books were better by far.

[Michael Houlihan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read Archangel trilogy before this one!

Love the entire series. Sad Amazon did not suggest the archangel trilogy after Odysseus Ascendant. Would have filled in so many gaps.

[Mike Sheedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining read, but…
Typos, missing words (not acceptable in this day and age).
Significant plot deficiencies
Weak ending.

[Yoshiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

POPKulturowy Kociołek:
Imperium od dłuższego czasu tolerowało istnienie swoich wrogów. Prędzej czy później wszystko ma jednak swój kres. Władca postanowił więc ostatecznie rozprawić się ze wszystkimi swoimi przeciwnikami, niezależnie jakie pociągnie to konsekwencje. Eric Weston doskonale wiedział, że moment ten kiedyś nastąpi. Starał się on więc przygotować Ziemię do obrony. Nikt nie może się jednak równać potędze floty Imperium, szczególnie w momencie, kiedy wszelkie stare zasady walki zostają zepchnięte całkowicie na bok. Teraz liczy się tylko przetrwanie i uniknięcie całkowitej eksterminacji. Ratunek z całej tej sytuacji może być tylko jeden. Rzucenie wszystkiego na jedną kartę, nawet jeśli szanse powodzenia pewnego zadania są równe zeru.

Sam zarys fabuły książki Odyssey One: Zmierzch Królów tom 8 dosadnie pokazuje, że na fanów cyklu czeka tu sporo wrażeń. Każdy, kto zdecyduje się sięgnąć po ten tytuł, powinien zakończyć jego lekturę z szerokim i szczerym uśmiechem zadowolenia na twarzy. Jest to bowiem najbardziej dramatyczna, najbardziej widowiskowa, najbardziej emocjonalna, najbardziej zaskakująca i najbardziej zachwycająca odsłona serii.

Świat przedstawiony w książce jest więcej niż angażujący. Autor skupia się nie tylko na zaawansowanej i fascynującej technologii czy ekscytujących wojskowych potyczkach, ale również na piętrzących się intrygach i wielkiej polityce gdzie zawsze pojawiają się jakieś niedopowiedzenia.

Kolejnym plusem dzieła są mocno zapadające w pamięci czytelnika postacie. Większość z zaprezentowanych bohaterów ma zarówno wyróżniający się charakter, jak i skrywa swoje pewne mroczne sekrety determinujące ich życie. Z niekłamaną przyjemnością przewraca się więc kolejne strony, aby zobaczyć jak potoczą się dalej ich losy....

https://popkulturowykociolek.pl/odyss...