SOJALS rating:

Good (3/5)

I first read this on the 14th January 2020 and most recently on the 3rd February 2021

This is the second novel in the Caine Riordan series.

President Ruap, having deposed the legitimate president of Indonesia, is determined to hang on to power. With the support of corrupt megacorp CoDevCo, he has called upon an alliance of two alien races - Hkh'Rkh and the Arat Kur to defend himself against the insurgents

CoDevCo's plans are more ambitious than merely controlling a country. They want the aliens to accept CoDevCo, with its puppet president, as a United Earth Government, allowing them to represent Earth in a confederation of alien civilizations.

Meanwhile the other governments of Earth are not taking kindly to the alien invasion. Most of Earth's combined forces have already been destroyed by the aliens. Now they must use subtlety and guerilla tactics to fight back against the invading force and throw them off the Earth.

A blockbuster novel! I gave up reading it the first time a year ago. The writing felt artificial and plodding. I didn't like the protagonist Caine Riordan. I got angry at what seemed obsessive military detail (a gun is never just a "gun" - it's always something like a "Kalishnikov 420-B recoilless sniper rifle with a T-17 6-pack grenade launcher". But for some reason I picked it up again and ended up unable to put the book down. The insurrection is gripping, the vast, complicated plan to mount the final attack, the various strands coming together elegantly and smoothly to deliver multiple hammer blows to the aliens.

Rock and roll!