Star Strike is the first book of a triology. If the rest of the triology is as good as this book, I will thoroughly enjoy listening for some months to come. With his opening book Douglas has made me a committed listener and Vietor is the perfect narrator for this series. It is an excellent SciFi book, and a great opening gambit for this series.

Lost interest in the book early on as one of it's main points seemed to be making up new, creative curse phrases. It might be nice if a rating for language would be included with each title so those who would rather not listen to graphic language could choose other titles.

As military fiction goes it rads better then Weber or Ringo. The SF parts are refreshingly (if not uniquely) applied to the matter to keep the plot going. I was turned off and jolted from teh story when the authro seemed the need to introdce/emphasize the origins and loyalty to the "United States" marines. At one point I was rooting for the politicians to shut the marines down and I nromally don't like to do that. It's the same sort of egoisms which turned me off action films. I don't know if I'll bu the second book.

This book consists of a few morsels of science fiction floating in a gelid medium of jingoistic pap. The story follows recruits in the future marine corps, and the narrator grunts out the annoyingly saccharine "esprit" like he's an actual drill instructor. A little of this I could take, but the hours of political diatribes and melodramatic inner soliloquies are downright nauseating. The author actually says "Hoo-Rah" over and over (I think its a marine thing).

I admire the above average understanding of physics, but that's the only positive thing I have to say about this novel. The story is a blatant rip off of Saberhagen's berserkers and Heinlein's starship troopers, without the charm of either.

Yikes!! I couldn't get through even half of it. Too much...FAR TOO MUCH Marine propaganda.

Also, a little weird how the author mixed in the platoon group sex. It reminded me of the scenes in Niven's Lucifer's Hammer where the crazy preacher told the cannibal soldiers that, "Gods angels can do no wrong."

I fear a many a young recruit is going to be sorely disappointed.

It's a good space yarn, and I will get the others in the trilogy, but one chapter repeatedly mentions the golden ratio "phi," and I wanted to shriek every time the narrator pronounced it "pi." You don't have to be a mathematician or SF fan to know how to pronounce phi.