• Insurgency: Spartika

  • The Sleeping Legion, Book 4
  • By: J. R. Handley
  • Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
  • Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (430 ratings)

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Insurgency: Spartika  By  cover art

Insurgency: Spartika

By: J. R. Handley
Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
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Publisher's summary

Your worst nightmare has been awaiting her chance.

The Sleeping Legion has won victories against the Hardits, but the war to liberate Tranquility is far from over.

In the action-packed climax to the Sleeping Legion series, revelations, sacrifices, and mysteries await Lance Scipio and the Legion forces as they face a lethal insurgency led by the most cunning foe they have yet faced: Spartika!

©2017 J. R. Handley; 2018 J. R. Handley (P)2018 Podium Publishing

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Wtf

First book was awesome the rest was stupid kept waiting for it to get better but no endless fights where they get killed and make lance look like an amateur after making him look like a legend in the first one

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Getting Better

This installment of the series has improved over it's predecessors & actully had me disappointed there was no preview of the next to come .

it was set up for a continuation on 2 fronts, one for the planet & it's defense & the other for the new space fleet that gets completed after achieving victory over & eliminating the New Order & Spartika. i don't think that's really a spoiler as it's obvious that has to be accomplished in order for the story to progress. So I could see teo separate series coming out of this, with occasional mingling of a few characters. Has potential.

Our boy Lance was around in the first half and the big issue for me with the story was a series of blunders he made that were out of character & beneath his rank's expectations. That & the fact he didn't lose his command over them.

I didn't see what purpose it served in the story. it muddied up his character & seemed only, at best, a way to kill off some main officers above him. The author seems to like to do away with characters not long after he establishes them as key figures in the story. is this an attempt at realism? Or does he run out of ideas or not know where to take them in the story?

Not having been in the military or through a war, that is the best guess I could come up with for these (to me) frustrating decisions. Seems as soon as you get attached to someone in the story & want to know what happens to them next, how they'll play out in the series, they die, selflessly saving the life of either (& usually), Lance or someone else who got in a quandry also trying to save Lance.

So, it's disconcerting getting to "know" a character who's in the story enough to get a personality & established & 1 or 2 books later, he's dead. There's only 1 character, Basil, who comes to mind, as having been around for most of the series along with Lance. And one of the Jotun officers, maybe?

And the Lance disappears for the later 1/2 of the book. You'll get little pops of him here & there, but he's far from a cental character. This book seems centered on the new Leader of the Human Legion, Nhllapo & Lance is just a side liner.

Even the leader of the Human Legion appears to have been supplanted by Nhllapo, the female human officer that came over from the New Order to the Legion after her XO, Spartika, mutinied, stole her army & tried to kill her. I can't even remember the name of the Jotan Officer that led the Legion originally. It also took me forever to figure out Nhllapo was even human because her name is so strange, I assumed she was a Jotun as most Officers are.

The death of almost all of the 4th alien race, the troublesome warriot culture that are set up as becoming a nemesis to the Legion when the New Order is eliminated - sorry forgot actual name of them, but something with an S that brings Spartans to mind, was a disappointment, just too convenient, like he couldn't think of a way to keep them in the story until the inevitable later conflict develops.

But, have no fear, thanks to incubators & a sort of cloning program, a new batch can be whipped up whenever convenient to bring them back! Here's a spoiler- they do & this time they're going to keep & raise them seperate in hopes of civilizing them into loyal allies because they think it's a cultural problem. Anyone want to bet on how that plays out??? I'm curious how he'll treat that.

Other than that and a few other bits of story line dropped or killed off, this book was more interesting and a bit easier to follow most of the time.

And by now, I finally figured out who was who and which side they were on, without the aid of a narrator who differentiates voices, as one usually has. I still had difficulty realizing scenes had changed, like from one section of the battle to another within a chapter, but the nice long descriptive headers, the ones that others complained about, I found very useful in making it clear where we were & what was going on.

Especially when I needed to go back & pick up from the last part I remembered, as in upon waking in the morning, as I set a timer when going to sleep & usually fall asleep before it's up, I often have to go back several chapters so I don't miss storyline.

I still managed to miss some big things in each book though. In this one, I missed where Lance discovers there's a big White Knights space fleet out there somewhere "nearby" that he thinks is commanded by Jotan officers who may be convinced to join they, or in lieu of that, they can commandeer.

I went back numerous times trying to find that spot in the story but without success. Sorry, I digress & that's not a fault of the story, just my own difficulty in zoning out to the drone of the narrator or falling asleep & losing my place.

Anyway, not likely anyone's read this far, but in summary, this book seemed a bit more well thought out & had more character development in it than some of the others. While IMO, it still wouldn't rate as top notch military science fiction, it's better than some of the ridiculousness that tries to pass for printworthy fiction in these days of mass self publishing through Amazon's graces - which though it is a great opportunity for new writers to spread their wings & get noticed & I think that's fantastic, it also means there's a lot more really bad fiction out there. This book isn't that, but I wouldn't rank it with Jack Campbell, James Corey, David Weber, Dietmar Wehr, Jason Anspach, JN Chaney, MD Cooper, etc. either.

Not bad, a little flat, getting better, has promise. I'll probably finish the series but I wish desperately, that he get a new narrator, please. I'm sure there's genres Mr. Kafer is great at, but this isn't one of them. And chances are, having a good narrator would greatly improve my perception of this series.

I hope Mr. Handley realizes I'm not nitpicking his story apart because it's fun, or to be mean, but rather just trying to give my honest feedback on what prevented me from enjoying these stories as much as I could.

One reason is to help other readers find what they're looking for & give them my insight - for what it's worth - what's the expression, "Opinions are like butt holes, everybody's got one." I find it helpful to go over reviews before selecting any product, so I try to give back by putting my own out there.

One thing I think it's easy to forget, is that words can be hurtful. I don't know if all authors read reviews of their work, I can't imagine that's always easy, especially when readers find fault with their work, but I hope they can be viewed or used as constructive feedback.

Another is it's also too easy to criticize & forget to compliment. That & as another saying I love puts it "Say what you mean, Mean what you say, But, Don't be Mean when you say it. I hope nothing I've said comes out as mean, as it's not meant to be. And I'm going to try to remember to point out the good along with the bad, IMO.

Unfortunately, I'm not great at that. My Mom was an amazing teacher because she always complimented her students on anything good she found in their work before gently telling them how they might make it even better.

Me? I'm the direct hammer. This is what's wrong, don't do that. Good thing I'm not a teacher. But let me wrap up with what I did like about this series. Backwards, I know, sorry.

There are a lot of great ideas & material in this Series, it just suffers from what seems to me to be a lack of direction? I still don't know what or who The Sleeping Legion is really all about. Besides not having the main character be the same person throughout, It's disconcerting to find the main character changing from book to book. That's OK for spin offs & I love those, but they come after the series, not in it. In this series, I want to know what's happening with Lance.

Having Lance be portrayed as an amazing tactician, marine & a decent, caring human who looks out for others, to then have him turn into an immature, reckless jackass of a soldier, who has no concern for the men under him, around or above him in the next, just boggles the mind.

Major Inconsistencies like this & a confusing overall story line are the issues that bring down what has the potential to otherwise be a kick-butt story. A tiny dash of humor never hurts, either. The storyline might not have much to be happy about, your in desperate situation in the middle of a war for survival, but a little dark humor makes it easier to appreciate.

New narrator is a ABSOLUTE MUST. I'm sure if I had read the print version, I'd like this series a LOT more.

The guidance of a good editor &/or some other successful authors could help Mr. Handley organize & handle his material better & then he could really blossum as a writer, IMO. He's got so much potential & apparently, first hand military knowledge of what it's like being in the thick of things - & this does show in his writing - so I hope he keeps writing & sharing the gifts his personal experiences can become by lending to the realism of his stories.

I hope this series isn't over. I still want to know what's next for Lance. And even Nhapplo, now, or at least, the space fleet. There's too many unanswered questions, loose threads to tie off. Like what became of her 2 adopted sons? And how did this marriage between the Gunny's daughter & Lances Engineer BFF come about?

So the continuation can be 1 series with chapters back & forth between Land & Lance & Nhllapo & Space, or 2 seperate, but as the two are still connected, 1 might be best?

To the person trying to decide to get book 4 or not, I say, you've come this far, might as well finish up. As this book does for this part of the story. Find out how it ends (& sets up for more to come). I thought it got better.

And, probably, most importantly of all, I'd like to end with saying to the Author & Veteran, Thank you for your service.

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2 people found this helpful

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Hard to Put Down

There’s a lot of characters with a lot of crucial roles in this book. You still get plenty of Lance, but quite a few other strong characters that were built up in previous books take the stage. I can’t recommend this book enough. Keep up the killer work JR.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Really enjoyed the story

It took awhile to get the characters straight and figure out the story arc. I listened to all 3 one after the other. Good story, good narration.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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I loved this book!

Is there another book in this series? Please say there is! I really enjoyed the story and the narration.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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  • J
  • 04-29-22

You have to love sci fi to finish the series

Bad leaders all around how can this be . Everyone is competent until they get rank then they go brain dead .

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Solid military sci-fi

Aliens, spacers, marines and plenty of battle. What's not to like? Excellent narration as well! Great stuff.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

great read

Love from book one to the end. The book s flow with no down time

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

riveting!

great series of stories! I'm looking forward to hearing more from the same author!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Nice Series

This seemed like a pretty good conclusion to the series... but it is left wide open for it to continue as well. I liked it.

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