Descent

The Palladium Wars, Book 4

By: Marko Kloos

Narrated by: Seth Podowitz

A nationalist uprising triggers an interstellar wrest for control in an epic novel of embattled worlds by the author of Citadel and the Frontlines series.

POW Aden Jansen has lost a decade of his life to both the war and internment when he’s recruited by the Alliance. He’s to return to Gretia as an undercover Blackguard operative and destroy Odin’s Wolves—an insurgency that’s setting his home world afire. The mission comes with a full pardon and a chance to reclaim his identity. It also means rejoining his friends and family in space. That’s motive enough. If he can succeed—and survive.

Dunstan Park is on piracy patrol to track down the spaceborne arm of the uprising. Meanwhile, the rebels’ insidious terrorist cells are targets for battle-hardened insurgent hunter Idina Chaudhary and her Palladian commandos. As for Aden’s sister, Solveig, she’s put herself in the line of fire before, but discovering who’s bankrolling Odin’s Wolves is as dangerous as it is personal.

As Aden works his way back into the confidence of his comrades, the stealth campaign to sow discontent descends into chaos. At risk: Aden’s legacy, and the very stability of a galaxy struggling for peace against all odds.

©2024 Marko Kloos (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Descent is an action packed science fiction adventure that is a 'must' for the growing legions of Marko Kloos fans. A fun read from cover to cover…” —Midwest Book Review

Series suffers from different narrators for each book

This series is suffering from each book having a different narrator. The narrator for this book sounds like Wil Wheaton with a sinus infection and apathetic view on life.

The book also felt short, with an abrupt non ending.

SKIP THIS ONE (ʘ╭ ͟ʖ╮ʘ)

The majority of Book 4 is 'remembering', retellings from previous book(s). And scarcely moves the story along. If you read the first three, you can skip this one and not miss whatever story, if any, is being told. A good guess: book-5 retells anything you might miss in book-4.

The story is good but the performance is meh

With all the books in the series the writer has done a great job with the sciency aspect of space travel. However, the thing that is really bringing down this series for me is the performance of the narration. Every book has been a different narrator. The narrator for this book Seth Podowitz seemed to switch the accents around for different characters which made listening to the book a bit confusing for a while.

Short story

As others have mentioned I was surprised when the epilogue started. The book is very short and the story just feels like the start of an idea that just ends after getting the base setup. Took awhile to get use to a new narrator, but after a bit he was great.

There's a problem with the books.

There's a huge problem with this series, and it's that the books are way to short so you basically take a short hit and then its back to waiting.
Other than that they are basically perfect.