Review: I wanted to give 5 stars I just couldn't
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 26, 2014
The book was good, there was just a little too much 'phenomenal cosmic whatever' in the escalation of hostilities.  We had the great promise of slogging it out in the mud and the blood of the space lanes, as we turned out hands a-viking.  We could have had a slow build and felt enthused by our accomplishments and groaned with our defeats.  Instead once again massive casualties and an incredible escalation in scale robbed us of this joy.So long as you don't mind being robbed like this, it really is a good book.  Wiley tactics, fearsome foes, and incredible alien artifacts all await.  Its just that, unlike say B.V. Larson's starforce series, much of the joy of the great and steady build by heroic human forces is lost.  In the Swarm series we take massive casualties but you always have the sensation that the organization survives, learns from its mistakes and will come back even stronger than ever if given half the chance.  Heppner on the other hand has shown a clear propensity to annihilate any organization the MC builds, resetting him back as close to square one as possible while still being an active participant.If you like the doom star series you will like this but if you didn't, I give you only about a 20%, as there have been some improvements in story, characters and this is a different concept from that series.The Deposed King