Review: A very very nice read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 24, 2014
There's a lot to like about this series, and Retaliation is the best so far.  I really appreciate Mr. Weil's writing style.  I found myself being surprised frequently in this book -- other writers are sometimes very predictable.I find a lot of scifi stories perpetuate the 20th century norms of depicting women in 2nd class roles.  Mr. Weil did an excellent job of putting women in the story as equals, fully capable and relevant.  Nicely done, Mr. Weil.I do think that there is some room for improvement in the underlying science throughout the story.  Just a few examples for the author...(I hope you don't mind, Mr. Weil):- in space, the photons of a laser travel in a perfectly straight line as there is no atmosphere to diffuse and disperse the light to the side.  So you would not see a laser beam from the side.  You would only see the beam if it's hitting you or if it's reflecting off the target it's hitting.  There would be no colored laser beams filling a battle scene in space.  (Star Wars is a great example of really bad science!)- in space, there would be no missile trails or smoke, or tracers or burning debris.  These can only occur within an atmosphere.- in a gravity well everything falls straight down to the planet unless it's moving at a high enough lateral velocity to remain in an orbit.  Everything traveling the same speed would have to be in the same orbit, the same distance from the planet.  If a spacecraft was traveling faster than another spacecraft, then they can't be in the same orbit.  A spacecraft would only be able to chase another spacecraft by changing it's lateral velocity and moving from one orbit to another.  So the gravity well would make it impossible for spaceships to fly around and chase each other the way they do in this story.Aside from a few issues with the science, the Retaliation book was very well done and felt as fresh as the very first one.  I recommend it.