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Young Midshipman Ichiro Sato joined the Terran Navy to escape a tyrannical father and find freedom among the stars. He had no idea when he boarded the survey starship Aurora for his first assignment that he and his crew would make humanity’s first contact with a sentient alien species. Little did he know that this fateful encounter would trigger a catastrophic galactic war...
deesy58
Posted August 4, 2012
This book has all the cohesion of a bowl of marbles. It reads more like a collection of vignettes than it does as a novel. Characters are constantly being introduced with great detail, then being killed-off in the story. There appears to be little cohesive plot or character development. Comparisons to historical military figures and units from France and the US are gratuitous, contributing nothing to the essential story line (what little of it there is). Reading this book was a lot like reading a comic book, but without the pictures. The author needs to work on his writing skills.
There are several places in the e-book where the font mysteriously becomes bold for a few sentences, then returns to normal. There are a few editing errors, but not too many. The book is just too disjointed.
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 31, 2012
The "In Her Name" series falls in to the genre of Space Opera similar to David Weber or John Ringo books. Being self-published, this series is quite good. Starting with First Contact, the author begins a solid space narrative that carries through six volumes of 700-100 pages. Amazingly he is able to develop alien characters of depth and feeling while still retaining thier "alien-ness". The human charaters are like-wise well concieved. What is a little thin is the technology definitions for the humans. There really is no attempt to explain FTL travel or space combat other than shooting very big guns at eachother. The alien technology is actually much better composed.
Overall this series is very good.
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.**book review and giveaway**
TBR Reviewer: B.H (Brutally honest)
I love science fiction and the cover instantly grabbed my attention. I really had high hopes for this book, the plot sounded full of adventure and as I said I love Sci Fi.
The beginning is primarily introductions and it is slow moving. Mr. Hicks would have been better off cutting it short or getting right into the action of the 'first contact' which turns out to be a slaughter. The fight is constantly interrupted by flashbacks about certain crewmembers. Paragraphs about their lives, small tidbits about them all while the aliens are boarding and creating chaos on this ship, it slows down the pace considerably. When the aliens finally capture the survivors, it does get better. The story moves faster but not enough to be a good pace. It's still very sluggish and I often found myself wanting to X out the PDF and go do something else. There was a lot of head hoping that proved to hinder the story. It also needs more editing; I noticed a few things that knocked me out of the space voyage and back to my cluttered desk.
I hate when the author reveals something about the future ahead of time. Such as Mr. Hicks writing, 'They had no way of knowing that all but one of them would be dead in a few short hours.' That ruins the spontaneity, the surprise. When the attack comes, I don't want to know the ending before the first blow is struck. Readers should live in the moment as the characters do. This happens a few times throughout the book.
The plot was good, had a bit of a Stargate feel to it (A favorite of mine.) but I quickly found myself not wanting to continue because the issues mentioned above. The story was there and I am slightly interested in the next novel. Perhaps that would be more engaging and faster paced.
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 12, 2011
By about 2/3 of the way through First Contact it had replaced Confederation as my favorite of the In Her Name books, granted this might change with Legend of the Sword but this is where I stand now. The book still feels like it is part of Hicks world but it also feels very different from the original Trilogy. Where as those books had a very Star Wars feel by the end First Contact felt more like Warhammer 40,000, which isn't a bad thing for a story that is more out right military Sci-Fi.
I really enjoyed the new characters that were brought into the mix and how detailed that battle got which is something that I felt was lost from the massive scale that was the first trilogy. While it took me a little while to get going on First Contact once I did I couldn't put the book down and was up till almost 3:30 last night finishing it off.
Like a good prequel it sets up the story for what is to come while building off of it, and not trampling on what made the original good, or filling the pages with massive retcons. Though knowing that this was written long after the First group of books, you can feel the tech seem to increase exponentially, due to one being written in the 90s and the other the 2000s, kind of like the Original Star Trek and Enterprise, but it wasn't horrifically distracting.
Can't wait to see where this trilogy goes with Legend of the Sword and then Dead Soul in the fall.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted June 5, 2012
They gave me the first one free to get me hooked. It worked. I am definitely buying the rest.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 30, 2013
Let's face it, things are bad any time you are hundreds of pages into a book yet still hoping it will get better. While the story did improve in the final third, not nearly enough to offset my dissatisfaction. The author's writing style seemed rather long winded and slow moving, using considerable text for minimal effect of movement of the story. Worse, I felt absolutely no empathy or interest in any of characters, leaving me generally uninterested in the story. Based on the sample chapter from the next book in the series, I suspect it will be more of the same.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 12, 2012
Great Books!
Anyone who loves a good old fashioned, rousing science fiction read should give this a try. What is impressive to me is how much you become invested in these characters, both human and alien throughout the series. Michael Hicks has created an alien race that is terrifying yet still strangely sympathetic...at first contact they are your worst nightmare of an advanced alien civilization bent on the destruction of mankind but we come to slowly understand and even empathize with this extremely violent race of alien female warriors and on the other side, the human characters are just as well written.
You get much more than a fabulous military sci-fi adventure (although for those who love action, battle scenes and even gore, there is plenty to be found) but at the heart of this series is simply a fabulous story.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted June 29, 2012
This book was better than i thought it would be. Now i can't put it down. This book is AWESOME!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 3, 2012
This book kept my interest and am looking forward to reading the next book in the series!
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 14, 2013
Lots of detail
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 3, 2013
Well written and engrossing, this story is a great read in the same calibre as Starship Troopers and other space epics. I could hardly put it down, and look forward to reading the next book.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 30, 2013
As I read this book, I was struck with a sense that this was definitely something different. The characters on both sides were written in a clear, vibrant style. A great war story wrapped in good science fiction. Such detail in the story of the invading aliens is such a rarity in any book. I loved it and look forward to the next book in.this series. Well done.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.mvo64
Posted January 1, 2013
I Also Recommend:
I found this a wonderful read. This is a good book to start with, as I could not put it down. The entire series is worth the money to own.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.OMG2012
Posted October 26, 2012
Scifi is not normally on my top list for reading. I down loaded this one by accident, and liked it so well I down loaded his second book. Well written, story easy to follow, characters are personalble, and once you start reading you don't want to stop. look forward to other books by michael r hicks.
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Posted October 5, 2012
Enjoyed this book .Had trouble putting it down.
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Posted September 6, 2012
I only read the first 50 pages i got fed up with the language you would think that in the future todays cuss words wiuld be old fasioned
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted September 2, 2012
Battle action, space fights, awesome aliens, and memorable heros. Exciting page turner.
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Posted August 22, 2012
I am hooked. I really appreciate that this author has created an alien culture that is in no way a reflection of human values.
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Posted August 2, 2012
Very good book lots of entangled plots
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Posted July 30, 2012
I really enjoyed reading this book, could not stop to tell the truth.
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Overview
Young Midshipman Ichiro Sato joined the Terran Navy to escape a tyrannical father and find freedom among the stars. He had no idea when he boarded the survey starship Aurora for his first assignment that he and his crew would make humanity’s first contact with a sentient alien species. Little did he know that this fateful encounter would trigger a catastrophic galactic war...