Earth Defiant

The Ember War, Book 4

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Earth Defiant

By: Richard Fox

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

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About this listen

Betrayed by allies. Beset by new foes. Earth faces its darkest hour since the Xaros invasion.

The Toth come to the solar system with a fleet of warships, and they demand the only tool that can rekindle the human race. It falls on Marine Lieutenant Hale to negotiate a pact that will save the human race at the cost of its soul - or start a war with a race of alien predators.

Fantasy

Fiction

Military

Science Fiction

Space Opera

War

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This book redeems itself somewhat from it’s previous ‘humanity’ (America, as specifically mentioned at least twice) first prequels with a much more reasonable, if somewhat realpolitik example of interstellar politics under pressure and humanity fighting against all odds.

But the books true high points are the battle sequences, which have really evolved from prior novels and kept me gripped in ways the first few books did!

If it has a major negative point, it’s the shit Ibarra pulls without consequence, I understand he’s supposed to be a tortured and broken messiah, driven by the need to do the necessary in the face of the right. But he engages in extremely dubious behaviour, including selfish mind control and sacrificing living pawns to simply clone them - while preventing anyone else from ‘falling’ to that level (with the exception of some creating rather charming clones soliders best described as stupid Warhammer 40k Space Marines, or smart Ogryn, who I hope feature again for their heroism, even if they’re described as ‘biological machines’ without true free will - I hope the signature one develops some). I really, really can’t stand his ‘needs must’ politics being presented so continuously darkly and yet correctly, it doesn’t feel like balance.

Excellent high points go to the Armour - double points because they’re not always the total winners of every conflict, with the Strike Marines pulling more than their own weight.

Double value points to the Eighth Fleet - Go Dragons! The procee situation is well built up, the revelation of the existence of the Eighth and their Admiral’s eventual… well, that would be a spoiler. Let’s just say it wraps up (for now) a bloody pogrom and intolerance with selfless sacrifice and heroism…

… which was what you’re here for? Right?

The speech at Bastion on the end (no thanks to all you guys in the space UN, space America is going to bring the Toth some pure 100% quadrium freedom!) is actually well done, and doesn’t feel at all like my sarcastic retelling, the speech feels very much like a defiant speech from a planet before the Republic Senate in Star Wars after it’s left alone, complete with hordes of hovering shouting ambassadors/senators.

Crystal Space Squids are still enigmatic and utterly undermining their own system out of apparent frustration with it.

Even the Dotok are a little less… one dimensional, the new pilots driving Gaul up the wall are awesome, as are her awful nicknames and the Ma cousins response.

If it wasn’t clear - this book is more of the same, and that’s going to be the essence of these reviews until the end of the Ember Wars. For more well thought out commentary, check out my in-depth review of each book on second listening on Goodreads.

You can’t afford to skip this one, and you shouldn’t - it’s only brought down by a few ‘same old’ niggles for the series.

Even the narrators accents are tolerable! But only because Scotty McScotson or whomever he is isn’t in this book. It’s possible I’m over rating them as a consequence, so I’ve scored it down a little there - I felt it deserved a 4, but Russian and French speaking readers may want to claw their eardrums out still.

An excellent rip-roaring contribution to the series!