Points of Impact

Frontlines, Book 6

By: Marko Kloos

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Humankind may have won the battle, but a new threat looms larger than ever before....

Earth's armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the 20-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present. 

Earth's game changer? New advanced ships and weapons, designed to hunt and kill Lankies and place humanity's militaries on equal footing with their formidable foes. Andrew and his wife, Halley, both now burdened with command responsibilities and in charge of more lives than just their own, are once again in humanity's vanguard as they prepare for this new phase in the war. But the Lankies have their own agenda...and in war, the enemy doesn't usually wait until you are prepared. 

As Andrew is once again plunged into the chaos and violence of war with an unyielding species, he is forced to confront the toll this endless conflict is taking on them all, and the high price of survival...at any cost. 

©2018 Marko Kloos (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Completely unnecessary and boring

So this is a filler book. Pure filler. And not fun filler no, boring filler. Like no action until hour 5. And then its very short.

Instead a third of the book is devoted to a recap of the setting and filling out the details. Which only serves to spotlight how absurd the setting is. The author seems to have literally just arbitarily made every facet of the setting negative. Even if it makes no sense. Earth is covered by smog, even though there are no pollution sources. Just hydrocars, hydrotrains and fusion plants.

Overpopulation is rampant but everything is somehow understaffed.

The government is evil unless being evil would help something, then its incompentent. Just because.

Weapon technology is super advanced, but everything else sucks just because.

And the author keeps treating money as a resource instead of a currency. So for a military series, it has no sensible logistical structure behind it at all. And logistical strategy are like half of what makes a good war story.

The rest of the book is devoted to recapping previous books and some throw away rushed relationship building.

The actual unique developments in the book fill a really short bulletpointed list. Which Im sure all will be recounted verbatim next book. Because they'll want it as filler. So skip this book, wait for the next. Thats my recommendation.

Meeting up with old friends that you actually miss

I feel like I have experienced many elements of this story in previous Frontline novels in some shape or form however, unlike other novels where characters and plot lines can get stale/tedious I enjoyed this book. It was interesting revisiting many of the planets and characters from the previous books after the passage of time and under different circumstances. Overall, I find that I am still interested in finding out how Andrew and Halley‘s story will end, and would really enjoy other stories in the Frontlines universe (e.g. Lazarus brigade, and the future).

Not enough of a story

The whole story of this book revolved around getting a new ship up and running. Then ONE battle. That's kind of a joke for one whole book. Readers deserve more meat. Luke Daniels was, of course, as always, absolutely perfect though. Can't beat Luke.

Tough Read in a Fabulous Series

It pains me to write this review because I completely loved this series, but honestly this book was a flop for me. It seems like 90% of the book was all about mundane and boring events and was missing the action and excitement and imagination from the earlier books. I was really disappointed. But, once again the narrator crushed it. He's fantastic and is great to listen to.

Good but not great

I heard all the other main books of this series, and this is properly the book that has the least action and interesting events. Most of it is catch up from what has happend since the last book, and how the main characters state is. Don't get me wrong, i was not bored and dont regret buying this audio book. Interesting stuff still happens :)

Worst of the series...

I have absolutely enjoyed the entire series following Andrew Grayson. However, this installment of the series seems to be lacking the depth and sincerity in the previous novels. I felt like only the last 3 to 4 chapters had that feel to it that I remember. The first 18 or so chapters could have all been combined into probably about 3 to 4 to set the tone, but then I would’ve wanted an additional chapters after they return to earth to follow their storyA bit more.

Very uneventful addition to series

I’ve enjoyed the series so far but this one indicates that the author is running out of ideas. The Lankies haven’t evolved in any meaningful way while the humans have essentially figured out how to kill them on demand. It’s now Protoss vs Big Zerg. Still nothing on the biology of the lankies or their back story and no progress on communication with them. Yawn. Mostly a bunch of self dialogue about whether to keep doing what he’s been doing with no resolution.

Boring

My hope was that the last book was an anomaly, but after this book I am am afraid Kloos has run out of ideas. I thought I was listening to a diary being read by a Priest and actually dozed off on two occasions. These last two books are thousands of miles from the fast moving, suspense filled hours of enjoyment of the first four books were.

Hope Kloos can get it back with the next book

Not enough combat.

This was the slowest book of his I listened to. I understand the first book being slow to action because you have to introduce the characters but this is book six! I would have like to have the action start before the last 4 chapters of the book. Hopefully the seventh book has more combat action in it.

Disappointing

Marko Kloos delivers us a disappointing book in his Points of Impact, book 6 in his saga. In my opinion this is a book that should never have been allowed to be published.

The publisher seems to be eager to just earn of previous success with this empty shell of a book, and honestly it makes me think twice of picking another one of his books up. It is at the best of times average, and that is a generous assessment of this. Most of the time the storyline is boring and repetitive.
The author did not have to dig deep for this one, and I am sure that an editor could easily just have put this together from notes gathered from the writer.
It lacks so much that should be in a finished product of a book that gets to publishing, but I shall not go on. I urge you to stay away from this one. You will not miss anything in the plot by skipping this book.

The narrator does a good job with what he has been given, the poor man, but it is not enough to rescue this work of utter … from failing, nothing could.

Good but shorter than the rest in the series

Good but the story seems shorter than the rest in the series. I would say there wasn't as much character development in this book. We get glimpses of the protagonist struggling with his mental health but then it seems irrelevant to the rest of the plot. Feels like a 'filler' episode while we wait for more significant events in the next book. Still well worth a read though if you've been following this series.

Disappointing when compared to the previous books

The narration was fine although some of the accents were strained. The story itself did not appear to advance plot of the series overall and was very similar to the other books.

Just Wondering

How come Grayson and Hally marry, but none of their last name's are the same? Shouldn't it be Andrew Grayson and Diana Hally? Or Andrew Hally and Diana Hally?

Pointless

The story is going nowhere slowly. it just feels like padding at this point. I'd give this book a hard pass.

Wait time between books.

My main complaint is that it just take to long between books compared to other series and I feel like the story isn’t really going anywhere. This series is great but I genuinely believe the author doesn’t care for his readers especially now he’s started a new series which is beyond belief.

a nice but disappointing ending.

though this is a nice ending for the main characters we never see the end of the war with the aliens as it ends in another draw.
I hope this series continues because I want to know what happens next.

decent sci-fi

I enjoyed the story, interesting protagonist, some times he's a bit sappy a goody goody for the sake of being portrayed as virtuous. apart from that I really got into the story and have done all 6 books, the pacing is great and the narrator is excellent.

See you on the other side

This is the sixth (but still standalone) book in the excellent Frontlines military S.F.series which has followed the life of Andrew Grayson from his signing up to escape the poverty and hopelessness of the earth ghetto where he grew up, and the promise of real food that the military received, through training, marriage, horrendous battles against an almost unassailable alien enemy, promotions and now the ongoing slog of trying to eliminate the remaining Lankie's on Mars. Earth hadn't lost the war three years before but they hadn't won it either. The threat still remained. Ten years after their youthful enlistments, Andrew is now captain and his pilot wife, Halley, a major but time together is rare and measured in days only.
Earth has finally pooled it's resources to build a new bigger, better ship, the hope for the future. But ten years has taken it's toll on Andrew, he's tired, burdened by the responsibilities of command, and haunted by guilts over things he has done. He's war weary, no longer the idealistic young man of the past. And on now to another new assignment...

This story lacks some of the exhilaration of earlier books, echoing Andrew's own disillusionment, although the battle scenes later in the book are as vibrantly written as ever, forming clear pictures in the mind. Author Marko Kloos' clear and direct style of writing carries all that Andrew see and does and feels directly to the reader, from the terrors of battle to the momentary quietness of brief periods spent hiking through countryside with his wife and the taste of that special cup of coffee. With good dialogue too, it all feels so terrifyingly real.
The whole is further enhanced by the excellent narration of Luke Daniels. The voice of Andrew, he also becomes everyone else with his ability to give seperate and appropriate voices to all of the protagonists, all well cadenced and emotionally tied to the text. A Stirling performance, as always.

Perhaps Points of Impact is not as battle action packed as previous books in the series, but it is nevertheless far superior to most other military S.F.books around, maturing the character of Andrew.as he meets the occasional old friend and enemy, and still survives after ten years of service when so many of his entry time have died.
The whole Frontlines series is highly recommended, this book included, especially in the audio format.
Simply brilliant.

Is this the lastbook in thr series?

Points of Impact review

The story line has become very familiar by now, and a return to New Svalbard seems to be fitting, and underlined by the cracks appearing in Andrew Grayson's mental attitude as we the readers must by now realize something has got to change.
With the appearance of Earth's latest answer to the Lankies' unremitting advance through Earth's colony worlds and the multifarious details of tbe way technical warfare is going, I felt the story suffered from an excess of this type of desciption. Marko Kloos excels when writing his battle lines with absorbing and exciting detail, though the build up in this tale is beginning to loose the edge we experienced during the battle for Mars he told so well in the previous story. I enjoyed reading this one though and the conclusions at the end have a note of nostalga to them.

Boring

I have enjoyed the series so far but this one seemed to be nothing more than a contract filler. Plenty of character level development but nothing substantial. Utterly boring. My advice would be to skip this one and how does more in the next one. Meh.