This is Stocker’s war the way we like it!

After several volumes where Ed Stocker plays a secondary role, this book has him back in command and running the offense against the evil Admiral Singh. Although he is in the Command Center, and not leading the actual fighting, he is there on scene, and involved! They are setting a trap for Singh at Corinthian hoping to put an end to the tyranny of Singh as well as Wolfbane. Jasmine is here also, with Mandy and Mindy playing important roles.

Ever since Blake died, and Col Stocker (I still hear it that way, even though I believe it is supposed to be Stalker) took on more administrative duties than he ever had as Sergeant, the remaining 80 or so Marines have not felt as tightly-knit as they did in the first few books. There is an attempt in this book to bring some of that back, but it falls flat. Seriously, they need to accept the fall of the Empire and Earth, and go ahead and build a new Slaughter House on Avalon, or somewhere else, so they can quit lamenting its loss, and can start training new real Marines.

There is lots of military action, lots of death, lots of horror on the ground, but just a little in space, and there are enemies to hate and some to sympathize with. There is a little impressive tech, but mostly just battle descriptions. There is very little of the moralizing found in other volumes condemning education, politics, and society, so it proceeds smoothly from scene to scene. However, it is not always easy to keep the people straight since they have at least 3 names: first, last, and rank. It is hard to tell if the people in any given scene are the good guys or the bad guys unless one of the people named above is in it.

Jeffrey Kafer continues to narrate the series, and I have the same disgruntlements with his reading as in every book. His voice is good and tough for the genre, but although there is some distinction between men’s and women’s voices, they still all sound the same. In this book especially, I found many times where his reading would have been greatly improved with emphasis placed differently. Nevertheless, other listeners love him and find no fault.

I have enjoyed this series so far, except for Reality Check, and look forward to the next several books, since the war is far from over.