Review: Fairly well done, but has a major hole in its plot
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 29, 2013
I liked "Epiphany,"the first volume in this series, and so went on to read this second volume.This is one of several roughly similar military science fiction/space opera series now on Kindle.  The writing here is a little above average but somewhat awkward, there are some good plot ideas, the wrong word is used here and there but, for me, the main defect is the Mac truck sized hole in the plot.**SPOILER ALERT**We are told in this  particular series that the human race has been exterminated on every world in every one of the more than a thousand parallel universes that the AIs which form the core of what becomes the TSN have explored--sometimes due to inter-human warfare, sometimes due to the catastrophic effects of out of control economic, environmental, or technological forces, but most often due to alien invasions carried out by several different alien species, particularly by the Quarn, an extraordinarily dangerous telepathic, parasitic race that eats humans--body and soul alike, a race capable of enslaving humans and turning them to its own purposes that has devoured and destroyed the human species on each and every human world that the Quarn has invaded.  We are told that the one controlling Quarn, the " Mother," has been here on our Earth for several decades, planning and plotting, getting her slaves into position, and is on the verge of devouring us as well.  The recently arrived and formed TSN, though, has just stumbled on the Quarn, and is closely and clandestinely observing them, with an eye to destroying this existential threat to humanity.The knowledge that the TSN knows of the Quarn and is getting ready to destroy them is so crucial, needs to be so tightly contained that even world leaders--the President, the King of England, President of Israel, their key advisers and others who are made privy to this knowledge, as well as every member of the TSN--has to wear special, invisible gauntlets that alert them to the presence of the Quarn and their slaves, can communicate with the TSN and put out a distress call but, as a last resort, can also kill their wearers, to prevent the Quarn from finding out that the TSN knows about them and is trying to destroy them.Yet, the head of the TSN--after we have seen, over and over again, in different ways and by examples throughout this book, how hungry for a scoop, generally dim-witted,  and untrustworthy the news media are--reveals to/briefs a FOX news crew about this threat without even mentioning the gloves, much less requiring them to wear them as the TSN has required everyone else to do, and just trusts in their word that they won't reveal this world shaking knowledge until they are given permission to do so by the TSN--likely several weeks or months down the road.This is just totally illogical and unlikely and is probably just an oversight by the author, but one that certainly made it very hard to maintain my "suspension of disbelief" after running across it.