Our Heroine, a software baron (who actually knows how to code -- talk about science fiction!), flees dark forces in a near-future Earth only to be yanked into a strange universe populated with highly evolved, cyberneticly enhanced human-like races. The action gallops along briskly in a strange and original setting. It's pure Space Opera with an evil Empress, a marauding galaxy-consuming alien entity, and rivals who hurl titanic energies against each other. One action sequence follows another as our Heroine and her allies are battered, bruised, and tortured, miraculously recover, then move on to another girl, another weird planet. But before concluding in the somewhat underwhelming final conflict, our Heroine learns to overcome her selfish, controlling tendencies and place her trust in the ability and loyalty of the odd collection of friends she's gathered during her journey. It's an enjoyable and well-written tale, but it runs a little long. Shaving off 20% probably would...

  Whence we learn the history of how the Posleen boiled forth to scourge the spaceways. A small surviving band of Posleen are whisked off Earth by the Indowy / Himmit, and sent off to discover the ancient and forgotten origin of their rampage across the galaxy. A team of human clerics chases them in the hope of converting the race, and leading them back to a peaceful existence in Galactic civilization. The designs of the Aldenata are revealed, and it seems that they themselves burst upon a galaxy already ravaged from a genocidal onslaught of unknown origin. This, and the John Ringo novel "Eye of the Storm", the last two published in the series, seem to be setting up a new existential threat to humanity, presumably those responsible for the pre-Aldenata catastrophe. Nothing has been published since 2009, though. This novel, like the rest of the series, is a well-written Space Opera romp -- leave your slide-rule at the door. I've greatly enjoyed this series, and have read a...