Star Marines

The Legacy Trilogy, Book 3

De: Ian Douglas

Narrado por: David Drummond

With the planet's fighting men and women deployed across the galaxy - battling in the noble cause of enslaved humanity - the insidious Xul have reached across space to devastate the unsuspecting Earth with asteroid fire. Without warning, a once-majestic world is reduced to near-rubble - and the very future of humankind is in dire jeopardy.

Interplanetary leaders are on the brink of abandoning Earth and its colonies to an overwhelming enemy. But Brigadier General Garroway of the Marine Interstellar Expeditionary Unit is unwilling to concede defeat - not as long as there's a single marine willing to give his or her life in defense of their embattled homeworld. The ultimate battle is about to be waged - with breathtaking new attack technology, an ancient code of courage, and the help of an ally race that once inhabited the Earth - in a war that will alter the universe forever....

©2007 William H. Keith, Jr. (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers

Good storry but the narrator needs help

The story starts to go a bit off the rails into the realm of the somewhat stupid at the end and the narrator butchers a few words but otherwise a good audiobook.

Exposition abounds

The story is good and the characters fairly well flushed out. My only issue is the amount of exposition. The worst is when the same bits of exposition are used repeatedly in the same book. I understand when it's used from book to book in order to make each book stand alone but the amount and pacing of the exposition in this book was the worst of the three. Sometimes it would happen right in the middle of an action sequence. If you don't mind occasionally being pulled out of the story for a long bit of physics/history/military history etc then you'll probably like the book.

getting much better

Drummond still makes some of the marines sound like Muppets but for the most part he's gotten much better. the compelling storyline is well worth it.

Great book, mediocre narrator

Love Ian Douglas’s books, but have to say that David Drummond leaves a lot to be desired. His voices for the different characters are so, so bad. Like Bob Saget when he hosted Americans Funniest Home videos bad. Plus he pronounces Camp Lejeune all wrong, not even close to the way the jar heads actually at Lejeune pronunce it. Otherwise, great books though.

Nice Finish!

Nice ending. Lots of action and drama. Good storyline. Sorry to see the saga end!

I forgot Douglas's style

I always enjoy the futuristic "space marine" type stories. I love gadgets, and they always seem to have the coolest gadgets around. These are stories I enjoy just to relax. Nothing too deep.

I have read or listened to a number of books by Ian Douglas, and I had forgotten how he frequently goes into long discussions about things that do not seem to be necessary to the story. They are obviously interesting to Mr. Douglas as he provides a lot of information, but in a written book, you can simply skip large sections without losing the story or important content. This is harder with an audio book.

I like this story, but I only gave it a 3 because probably 10% could have been left out. The performance was OK, but not great.

Good book

Good science fiction. Has enough scientific parts to get you thinking. A very enjoyable "read."

Let’s stop and talk … a lot

More of this book is info dumps, history lessons, and military acronyms than the story of humanity facing Armageddon at the hands of the Xul. So. Much. Telling. So little showing.

Let’s divert and discuss the origin of amphibious vehicles. Did you know Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system? A character says “gung ho” and, yep, let’s stop and explain the origins of the phrase. You know what current day training is like? Well, “two millennia ago, a Jewish rider observing Roman legions … doing training exercises…”

The author has to stop and explain the provenance of each ship’s name, or every operation’s moniker. Why did they call it Operation C-Fire? Well, it’s so clever! Let me tell you about the play on words, and how C stands for ‘sea’ which comes from a particularly noteworthy sea floor… I kid you not.

All that devotion to the minutiae when what I really craved was characters with personality, clever dialogue, and emotionally charged scenes of military sacrifice.