Duty, Honor, Planet is the first novel in the 3-book series by Rick Partlow and takes a different twist on the alien invasion theme and is a pretty entertaining read. Officers Jason McKay and Shannon Stark are assigned to the new Intelligence arm of the Republic space navy, with the intention to form a special forces unit. Their first assignment is not glamorous, to guard a high profile Senator’s daughter on a tour of various colony hot spots.
They run into some very odd alien invaders: Blue, large humanoids who are looting the colony planet of all its resources. Oddly, the humanoids have human DNA and appear to be sub-sentient creatures created soldiers. The attack on the colony doesn’t make much sense – until McKay figures out that the attack is likely a dry run for an invasion of Earth. Further, they determine the attackers are from a Russian force rumored to have survived the last war and escaped somewhere.
The rest of the novel proceeds much as we expect with plenty of action and good dialogue and even reasonable character development. The characters never quite come alive for me, but it’s close. There is romance which is also a near miss; our main character sleeps with two ladies and has intense relationships with both – within a day of each other.
Overall this is well-written and well-edited. Pacing is good and the author doesn’t skimp on creating interesting settings and conversational dialogue. I’m not sure I’ll read the sequels.
3 Stars
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