David VanDyke

part of galactic empires, edited by patty jansen..
not a horrible story, but not a great one. a generation ship slash war armada takes off from earth towards a colony "owned" by a race of beings intent on conquering earth. given relativity and an inability to neither travel faster than light, nor obtain information on the fate of earth, this group of rag-tag warriors is trying to do the impossible -- find a world they can live on, remove the enemy from that world, and repopulate that world with what may be all that's left of humanity...

interesting world building, if nothing else. and, while the physics seems reasonable through most of the book, it falls all over itself in creating a species capable of creating weapons up to and including living fusion reactors, weapons, and ships... still, if you allow this, the story isn't all that bad...… (more)

A reverse plague created by scientist that the government wanted total control of to “sell” to people for millions. Who wouldn’t pay for the cure for cancer, HIV, or anything else. The XHD virus, considered the Eden’s Plague, cured the sick, fixed the maimed, and had a “virtue effect”, which stamped out corruption among those infected. People will not be able to commit violent crimes, or even emotional violence. Their conscience will not allow it. This virus was purposely spread to improve the world, but the government saw it as a threat to its power and control over the people. So, when it was first spread onboard a cruise ship, the government officials nuked it and blamed it on terrorists. When it entered the water supply in Los Angeles and West Virginia, the government nuked the areas, killing millions, and blamed it on terrorists. They spread their propaganda and lies against the Eden Plague to keep the people afraid of the virus and to coerce the unaffected to rat out those affected, neighbors, friends and even family members. The Eden Plague was a war for independence, freedom and liberty, even though it upset the established order. The USA had become a police state and ruled under martial law as the government tried to contain control. Holocaust-like encampments began to spring up all across the US to detain, permanently, those infected.

The trilogy started out pretty typical doomsday, talking of military tactics and weapons and crap, but did get more interesting as it went along focusing on Reaper’s life and then Skull’s life and making their way through the US to safety. But, now I’ve had enough of this series, even though there are quite a bit more to read.… (more)