The Tuloriad (Human-Posleen War Series #12)

fans of the series will enjoy this cerebral turn as the Posleen come across less B movie monstrous and more humane

To save humanity, the Posleen aliens had to be defeated as the latter considered the former beneath them on the food chain; a source of sustenance. The final battle leaves mankind struggling but thriving and the Posleen almost extinct. Those few surviving Posleen begin a desperate mission to track their heritage although many of the sentient races belonging to the treacherous Galactic Confederation would prefer the final solution instead of what the Posleen may learn.

At the same time, the Posleen prepares its trek, the victors in the war send missionaries from the major religious groups to convert the heathens to their particular religion. These self appointed emissaries of God catch up to the Posleen researchers. The Poleen are finding shocking evidence of their origins that shake the earthlings and representatives from the other races like the devious Darhel and the legacy of the benign manipulative Aldenata is not the altruism they thought they pursued. Hell and distrust between and even within species is the norm.

The latest entry in the Posleen-Humanity science fiction thriller (adding war to the title seems inappropriate at this point) has less action than usual as John Ringo & Tom Kratman raise fascinating questions about religion, military intervention, and social rules. The story line however is very thin as the concepts for instance of the Muslim marital allowance, the "white man's burden" and the American invasion to take out a brutal bully in Iraq have parallels but never quite explored beyond a slim veneer as the authors detract from the plot with their opinion. Still fans of the series will enjoy this cerebral turn as the Posleen come across less B movie monstrous and more humane with the underlying theme asking do other sentient species have souls.

Harriet Klausner

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Interesting discussion of religion and society

Finished this last night, and I found it to be extremely interesting. Mr. Kratman seems to have taken upon himself the task of exploring religion's role in motivating societies, and how religion and society interact to shape one another. The fact that it "humanized" what had previously been an entirely antagonistic species gives the series as a whole a new dimension. All told, a good read, and an interesting discussion.

Personally, I think some of the reviewers here may have missed the point.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Another good one from the Team of Ringo and Kratman

While this isn't the usual, bang bang, oh cool an earth shattering KABOOM! novels you usually get from Ringo and to and extent Kratman. It is a good read. Tom Kratman's novels while following the bang bang type previously mentioned also tend to be a tad more cerebral..in that they force you to think. This one also engages your grey matter. I'm halfway through and thoroughly enjoying it. It's not just a ripping good time but a thought provoker. It's also a good miserable weather read. which I'm currently dealing with at the moment. If you've never read the series before, thats okay because you get a glimpse in the first chapter of WHY the posleen are doing what their doing. By all means feel free to buy all the posleen verse novels. :) If you've read the other works by Ringo and Kratman to include the original 4books in this univers..you already know you're going to love it right?
Just for chuckle factor there is a species of creature in the book called Abat. Everytime I see the word I can't help but chuckle as I hearken back to the days of Abbot and Costello. 'Hey Abboooooott!' *grin*

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Muddled Plotting and Author POV overwhelm positive aspects of the novel

Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC from the Amazon Vine program.

The Tuloriad is an ancillary novel in the Legacy of Aldenata (Posleen) universe of Eric Flint. The Tuloriad was written in collaboration between Flint and Tom Kratman.

I only knew the basics of the Posleen universe and the premise before taking up this novel. In the Posleen series, alien races make first contact with man, in an effort to manipulate them as warriors against the galaxy-wide threat of the centauroid Posleen, an aggressive warrior species. The novels in the series, in its main lines and its side branches, explore the war between the Posleen and the humans, and other conflicts as well.

The Tuloriad is set after the Posleen have been evicted, with enormous damage, from their occupation of portions of the Earth.The novel follows two strands--a group of humans sent by the Pope to try and give the Posleen a human faith in order to try and civilize them, and a group of the Posleen fleeing after the disaster of the invasion of Earth.

While the military SF aspects of the book and some of the technological speculations and ideas are most interesting (high tech halberdiers for the win!), the rest of the novel is weak and underwritten. Although while I found the sentient embodied AI the most interesting single character, I didn't feel the human "mission" to the Posleen as interesting as the Posleen exodus thread. They were necessary to the finale, but otherwise could have been excised completely.

There was a good novel in here, or bits of one, but its hard to find.

The other problem with the novel is the afterword. Niven says that the technical term for someone who attributes the POV of a novel and its characters to its author is "idiot". However, the afterword makes it clear that the tone and themes of the novel is, indeed, a feature and not a bug.

There are novels and authors who manage to use their faith and religious beliefs in a positive and constructive way.

In this novel, and especially in its afterward, the authors instead use it like a bully club against anyone of divergent beliefs, Muslims and non-believers in particular. If I had read the afterword first, as I sometimes do, I would not have continued with the novel at all. Which is a shame because, despite the weaknesses I said above, there are a few things to find and enjoy in the novel and I would have missed them.

I find I have no desire to return to Ringo's Posleen universe, although I suspect devotees of the universe will enjoy this volume far more than I did.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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