A Talent for War

It was fine. I'm not rushing right out to read the next one (or six), but I will keep them in mind when I'm looking for a book to read in the future.

Very interesting capture-the-flag type story, with an incredibly broad cast of characters. It was hard to keep track of them all, though the heart of the story does not require you remember every edge character introduced. Great read.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/RPDJSBN5R46IN?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

Historical Whodunnit?

Alex Benedict's life is immersed in history. He is an antiquities dealer and his late uncle was an archaeologist. When his uncle dies, he is left with his uncle's last remaining mission.

The problem is that he doesn't know what the mission is.

This seems to be 9,000 years in the future, when humanity has expanded into a fair portion of the galaxy and run up against the Ashiyyar, an alien species that communicates telepathically. 200 years before the book, the Ashiyyar was systematically conquering the divided human worlds. A resistance emerged to oppose the aliens and unite the frontier worlds led by the heroic Christoper Sim, who beat the Ashiyyar time and time again, even though he was outnumbered and outgunned. Sim died in an epic way that united humanity against the Ashiyyar.

The mystery seems to involve this history.

The story was an easy read. Ironically, it seemed almost more of a history retrospective than an action adventure book, with long stretches devoted to uncovering bits and pieces of the past. Action-adventure was well-represented throughout the book, particularly at the end where Benedict and his pilot, Chase Kolpath, who is not much of a major character in this book, have to make some tough decisions.

I was going to give this book four stars as a journeyman effort, with a bit of dragging out of the story, but the final chapters managed to convince me that this was a book I would recommend to people looking for a nice bit of space opera.

PSB