refers to the Religious people as being idiots who believe in Imaginary Friends, this is just plain rude….), but he intolerance towards the Dr because he doesn’t believe is scary.

The book even went so far as to suggest that miraculously, when an alien race of lizard like Saurian’s is united with the Terran Coalition, that it is discovered that they have a religion as well, Christianity! Yes, an alien race that developed on a different planet, thousands of light years away from us in another part of the galaxy, that is not even close to human, does not speak English, has had no contact with Earth, but somehow develops an identical religious belief?? This kind of went beyond the ridiculous.

It is kind of unfortunate that it had these issues, as in other areas, the book is really quite good. There are some exceptional combat scenes, the Author has put a lot of thought into the detail of them. The technology was really well thought out, with good descriptions, and some interesting bits of tech. And when you were not being absolutely smashed by religion in every aspect of the character, and there did seem to be some potential for the characters, if they weren’t all just zealots. The Author has the ability to write decent characters.

The main character of David Cohen is a good example, if you strip back the religion, he is quite a gritty character, who as a Corporal on a damage control team, realised he had a gift for leadership, something that not a lot of people naturally have (and this is true in the real world – it takes strategy, tactics, charisma, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your people, and yourself, as well as the ability to hold it all together under fire. As such he is pushed through to command school. The Author has done a good job of identifying this, and making a character and back story out of it, that makes a great, gritty in-depth character. However, he is, like everything else, totally smothered in religion, so much so, that like an onion, you have to peel multiple layers back to reach the inner core of the interesting part of the character.

And it isn’t just once that it is mentioned, every time we read about this character, his religious aspects are thrust upon us, more than any other attributes, by 20% into the book, I wanted to yell, “I get it, he’s religious, get on with the story!!”

There was great opportunity with this book, in that the Author actually shows us both sides of the story, so we get to see the enemy point of view as well at various points. This is also clouded by Religion though, even though they aren’t religious, as the enemy goes on about how they are heretics for their beliefs, and how the enemy are evil because of their non-religious beliefs. It was just totally overbearing.

Without wanting to cause any offence to anyone, the other thing that kind of irritated me with this book, was that the Author assumes in the Future, that although the world has come together into a ‘Terran Coalition’, that everybody is following United States traditions, anthems, cultures. There are other countries in the world!!

The book has some the start of some good scenes with PTSD and mental health issues, but again, loses them within this religious fervor, which is sad.

The only scene that seemed to escape was one in which Cohen puts a Journalist back in place, after the Journalist starts to use a live interview to badger and criticise him, instead of an interview, but he slams her for having no idea of what its like in the real world – it is one of the few scenes that was actually well done. If the book had been more like this, and less with the religious dogma it would have been really good.

This book has so much potential but is crushed beneath the weight of its religious dogma, it’s a real shame.

As always, Jeffrey Kaffer is exceptional with his narration, even with something as terrible as this.. He creates some of the best voices, human and alien alike (his saurian is brilliant). He has a wonderful range of male and female voices, so cleverly done, that you can just tell who is who without being told. Kaffer has a wonderful voice, so easy to listen to, he is an outstanding Narrator, and he tells a Mil Sci-Fi story like no one else. If everyone Narrated books as well as Kaffer does, we wouldn’t read again, we would just be listening to audiobooks – he is one of the true Narration Masters.