To Drown In Ash: Book Two of the 10th Lunen Regiment Trilogy

by B.C. Laybolt

Ter Ense’s army rends a one hundred kilometre scar of razed territory across the Alseiry Peninsula in a desperate retreat from the Lunen forces, who are bent on reclaiming it in the name of the Triumvirate. Able Seaman Kyris Issep’s past returns to haunt him as he and the 10th Lunen Regiment are trapped when trying to cross The Scar in pursuit. But horror and doom lurk past the dry ash wastes, and the men and women of Issep’s squad quickly find that the terror beyond The Scar is not the hungry jungle or Ter Ense... It is themselves.

377 pages, Paperback

Published August 20, 2018

About the author

Dichotomy. HIT Padawan. Writer. Nurse. Father. Friend.

Reviews

[Jess Van Dyne-Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been waiting for this book to come out - I enjoyed the first immensely and couldn’t wait to see where the author would take us now. This series sings with rich character-building, complex situations that are relayed to the reader detail by detail, layering the book into an experience that will leave you thinking about parts of it for days. Rich and evocative, this is a book that will leave you on-the-edge-of-your-seat, gasping. I never saw the ending coming!

[Sgt Maj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but very Frustrating

Several colonies of Old Earth, after repopulating n reacquiring technology, form a government and are fighting a rebellion on the least populated and probably most unpopular of one their colony planets. Our hero, MC joins army to get revenge against rebellion leader for killing his family. As luck would have it, Hero kills rebels son who had killed his family. He now wants to kill rebel leader and leader wants to kill him.

That summary took quite some time to puzzle through and I could at least understand this Part of the Plot. However, that’s not even half of it. The author hints, implies, suggests and finally after a thousand pages confirms a deadly, evil, horror ridden plot to over throw humanity’s 3-4-5-6-? Planet colonization. BTW , Earth is hardly mentioned nor does the avg Joe have any feelings about their home of origin, forefathers, ancestry, history ..... Nada.

I didn’t realize that it took 5 years for this sequel, otherwise I wouldn’t have read. The authors approach to part 2 of the plot is treating it as a mystery of sorts and giving us, readers, very small doses, here n there. I was confused and frustrated at how he wrote this. After 2 books, approx 1200 pages, I still don’t know if the evil, vile rebellion leaders are aliens or not and, how magic pixie dust, no other explanation, messes with good guys minds where they go insane and kill crazy. Genetic evolution or ?

Very frustrating, confusing read and don’t understand why author couldn’t be more up front w background . Can’t tell you much of this universe nor solid character info. MC, we sympathize but after 2 big books, I never really related any of characters. Ahhh, wait one.... I did hate rebellion people whether alien or what not. Story bordered on horror generated by rebellion folk.

Last, story tempo was uneven and got downright boring at times. Action Ok but overlong, especially because we, I, never got good background of base, setup, technology in play, ......

At the start, author did decent, if somewhat different way of writing about the military portion of story. I stayed with it due to that but that eventually got thin. It was confusing to begin with n didn’t get easier. Oh, the army had Politicos who could execute on the spot. Never clear why they needed.

Not sure about book 3, even if it comes out within a year or two. Only reason would be to find out if he lives after or even kills leader. Author has no problem killing off characters.