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Attack on Thebes
- Orion War Series, Book 5
- Narrated by: Cris Dukehart
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
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Attack on Thebes
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Summary
The drums of war thunder across the stars.... The final negotiations between the Silstrand Alliance and the Scipian Empire are complete, and it's time for Tanis and Sera to part ways.
Sera must return to Khardine, where new challenges await, and preprations for the march on Airtha begin. Meanwhile Tanis turns toward the Praesepe Cluster. There, a handfull of interstellar nations hold out against the encroaching Nietzschean Empire. Sera's Hand agents are certain that the Nietzscheans are backed by Orion, and Nadine is sent in ahead to connect with agents in Septhia before the I2 arrives.
Tanis and Bob have an additional goal. They want to learn more about the technology that Peter Rhoads used to control his fleet. Technology that had its origins in the former Genevian Alliance, and may still exist in a group of mercenaries known as the Marauders.
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What listeners say about Attack on Thebes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Robert
- 17-11-22
Average quality at best.
This review is written mostly from the point of view of a reader of the Rika’s Marauders series.
I’m certain that this novel is of average to high quality if taken solely as part of the Orion War’s series, which appears to be a very high concept, high-power setting with large amounts of space magic.
However unfortunately, the author chose to cross this setting over with the much lower powered and grittier setting of Rika’s Marauders, and does so by interweaving the novels, having an indelible impact on both series.
If you’re primarily a reader of Orion Wars, or do not mind being essentially required to read a book from what - to all intents and purposes - might as well be another setting in order to read a ‘complete’ omnibus, then I suspect this book ties up a lot of loose ends and explores a lot of plots.
If on the other hand you were reading a series about gritty space mercenaries in a galaxy gone to hell because humans keep fighting each other, the revelations in this book are deeply disappointing, as the central characters are simply better in every way, but are also deeply arrogant about their position and look down upon people who’ve had their lives blown apart as being ‘needlessly distrustful’ - this is somewhat made up for when said ‘poor tech’ civilisations turn out (inevitably) to be part of the larger war as pawns and the ‘transcend’ and ‘IFS’ fleets and characters actually suffer.
But the plot being introduced here is something totally out of place in Rika’s universe that not only utterly sidelines her conflict (which for half the book, looked like it might have been done in an appropriate fashion) but does so on a sadly ridiculous scale, with one ship taking the sustained fire of 35,000 other vessels.
Worse - the (newly, from our point of view) introduced main character goes from being rendered weak and hopeless to becoming a transcendent human-AI pairing. All the new humans are even more machine-human hybrids than the MECs, and do not regard this as abnormal - but of course, have vastly superior technology.
It’s not all bad, there are cool moments, and I’m hoping Rika book 5 can solve the problems of a vast superpower turning up to fix all the characters lives. If I were inclined to read Orion War’s (which I cannot afford to do) I may be more charitable, as there does seem to be an excellent series of space magic and AI/human interaction and bonding there.
But as one part of two (or more) books in which the cruel and hard effects of the grand high tech war which the Intrepid crew are part of, it fails - they almost seem to sail through without regard for the horror and suffering for the larger conflicts due to their ability to save anyone they care about, and the Godlike AI behind everything is a very selfish divinity indeed.
Finally, sadly the narrator appears to be poorly informed about basic pronunciation of elements in the Rika books, such as Kelly and Kelli having the same name, or the *Foe*hammer not having an r in the middle of it, Forehammer sounds like a method for perfecting your golf swing. Which is quite surprising, as she otherwise does such a good job of conveying Rika and the others I would think she is the same narrator - honestly, I’ve not checked as it doesn’t actually change the cringing.
Given that perhaps 4h of this book actually involve Rika, and the others setup a lot of background that… well, I hope it’s integration is handled better, I’d honestly say you’re better skipping this, even if Rika does conduct what would be at least half a books worth of plot-critical combat actions off-screen if you do so.
Would I spend a credit on this?
No, absolutely not. Wait for the Orion War’s to come out in omnibus.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Matthew Sagar
- 28-01-24
Scale
The depth and scale of this series is magnificent- it keeps me coming back for more! Excellent narration
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