The first 80% of this book is a breath of relatively fresh air among recent unbelievable and stale military sci-fi. The boy-prodigy who is mankind’s only hope trope is pretty heavy but I could ignore it for the potential I saw in the overall story after the main character was established.
The idea that human’s unique thinking and diverging path of technological advancement gives them niche but exploitable advantages against a much more advanced foe is believable and a solid base for many realistic and believable stories. It had me checking my credit count to see if I could buy and binge the new few books.
Unfortunately the author throws all this away in the last 20% where the story takes a sharp turn into goofy AI and unexplainable space magic that is prevalent in so much sci-fi today. How can anyone be invested in what is happening when the main character does something amazing and the only answer to “How?” is “I don’t know. That’s impossible!” over and over again.