Dark Star

After a shocker in his last installment in this series the author has produced a wonderful read here which will entertain you to the end providing you can come to terms with the fact you will be reading the biggest load of bullshit published to date in this series. Aside from the impossibility of the X-Ships you can't help but get into the story, the authors descriptions of what damage is occurring under the X-Ships when they descend their invulnerability, their speed where they came from how they were developed is some very fine reading. As has been mentioned the Teams are not even mentioned until page 90+ which is very unusual in this series but the author requires the pages to not only introduce the X-Ships and characters but set up the plot and storyline. It rocks with MASSIVE action scenes featured and the author introduces HUGE amounts of weapons throughout which either shows intimate knowledge of what he is talking about or intensive research but whichever excellent stuff. I very much enjoyed this one and would certainly recommend it to you.

My first Stony Man - And it was really good. The concept of the X-Ships was unique and original. Also one awesome threat and some good action. It did get a little difficult with the story jumping all over the globe, but with the technology, it made sense. I wish we could had a bit more depth on all of the characters - this would be my only complaint.

I liked this one more than the same author previous entry-Act of War. It started out really well and kept my interest the whole way through till the end of the novel. I liked all the major scenes where the X-ships obilerated the space shuttle and such. I thought the X-ships were really cool weapons. I thought the action sequences were pretty good too. Overall, a pretty good entry.

Special Guest Star: The League of Extraordinary Spies Absurd to the absurd power. Not a single word written about every population in the world would be screaming and in massive panic mode that killer UFOs the size of apartment buildings are going around and destroying all of the space facilities in the world, shredding armies and turning their attention to various famous landmarks by the end of chapter two. This highly absurd threat is strangely compelling -- and you know that everything will be back the way it was by the next novel. It’s like Captain Nemo showing up and blowing up the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. There are a number of clever twists and surprises by the audacity of the villains here, but the reader is tempered with the knowledge that none of the damage will be permanent, ignored or discarded by the next novel. The threat in this one is more suitable as a foe for the Destroyer, Doctor Who or Stargate SG-1 The Stony Man action teams are barely in this one, making appearances close to the 100 page marker. Phoenix Force’s first appearance is the only scene out of order with the rest of the story, as if there was a mandate to have all teams in the story in by the first act. With all of that said, this will go down as a wholly original, compelling and entertaining story. The novel moves fast, zips along quite well. And it generated something I haven’t experienced in some time: tension. I kept wondering how were they going to stop this one. I only wish there was a threat something that didn’t seem like the doomsday weapon one builds to end their Command and Conquer game. Strong recommendation, but hopefully this story is never copied/imitated. I docked a point for “a thousand” heavy machine guns and the lasers all going off at once… The first of the slimmed down 320-page format.