The Meridian Ascent

Rho Agenda Assimilation, Book 3

De: Richard Phillips

Narrado por: MacLeod Andrews

In their battle to save Earth from becoming another conquest of the alien Kasari Collective, Mark and Heather Smythe have struck crucial blows against the enemy. But their best efforts have still failed to derail the completion of the wormhole gateway that would give the insidious extraterrestrial invaders access to the planet - and doom humankind as helpless slaves of the Kasari hive mind.

The Smythes and their intrepid allies - including the mentally altered humans, The Enhanced - stand ready to beat back the Kasari onslaught once and for all. Not by mortal combat, but with scientific cunning. Still, the success of their plan depends on a daring stealth mission into the heart of the aliens' nerve center on Earth. And multiple threats lie in wait - including the ruthless Kasari commander, a brutal double agent with a deadly vendetta to settle, and the alien entity Khal Teth, who wears a human face but is ready to strike with monstrous force.

In this stunning conclusion to the Rho Agenda Assimilation by the bestselling author of The Second Ship, the small but fierce band of altered humans and Earth's resistance fighters face their greatest opportunity to stop the Kasari. But with the remnants of humanity and a battered Earth caught in the cross fire, can they secure a victory without sacrificing everything they're trying to protect?

©2017 Richard Phillips (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Great Book to end a Great Series

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, great series to read

What did you like best about this story?

As an engineer I like to read a lot of sci-fi to exercise my imagination. This book does not disappoint. Lots of far out there ideas and technology that I really enjoyed.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

YES absolutely

Another perfect book

I thorally enjoyed every second of the narratiors ability to make the experience more enjoyable.

Great series

I enjoyed all six of the books. thanks for the many hours of entertainment!

What a great series.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Wonderful adventure, great story, great characters.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

You could make a little guess at how the story would go but the ending was a surprise!

What about MacLeod Andrews’s performance did you like?

Instead of only voicing the characters for what they said each section that was about that characters was done in their voice, it really helped keep track as the story does jump around alot.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yep. Keep me up too late a few times. To be honest I did not want it to end so I stopped listening to it for too long.

Any additional comments?

The only books that really did not hold me where the Ripper back story books, I guess it was the scifi missing not sure, you can skip those and no real loss, we all know Jack is a bad A$$.

Fast paced science fiction. Completely unpredictable, especially the ending.

This can’t be the last in the series…
please, don’t let it be the last in the series.

great storyline.

Great storyline to end the trilogy. The war on earth goes badly,but only because each side pulls dirty tricks.

Love the Series

I love this entire series - I bought the second ship on sale and have never looked back. Well written and excellent narration!

Awesome Series!

Awesome series and great Narrator! Great set of characters, especially Jack and Janet. Well done, highly recommended!

End of the Rho'd

As we enter the last volume of the Rho Agenda Assimilation, the last entry of the trilogy of Rho trilogies, the Ripper is Overlord of Altreia, with Khal Teph still coming after him; Jennifer Smythe and her crew on the Meridian Ascent are finishing their battle with the Kasari on Scion; and the rest of the gang are back on Earth trying to stop the Kasari from assimilating humanity into their stifling Collective.

If you don't understand what any of that means, you have to go back and read the series before you can finish it off with this, the last of its nine entries. But it will be worth it. Richard Phillips has done a great job of crafting a satisfying ending to the world he created back when the Smythes and their friend Heather, still in high school, first found the Altreian ship buried in a cave near their home in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

One thing Phillips does so well, as always in his SF (sadly, not in his fantasy), is to inject credible science into his fiction. This has the added benefit, in a climactic entry filled by necessity with action sequences, of making the action believable rather than an onslaught of mindless battles with predictable suspense. He also corrects a mistake in prior entries by sticking with characters and story lines long enough to reach suitable break points of plot resolution or the ratcheting or release of suspense.

The other thing: instead of just sticking to the story lines already in play and bringing them home, he injects a new element that dovetails with everything else and yet makes a huge difference in the ultimate outcome, without trivializing everything we have spent eight and a half volumes investing ourselves in. (It's not out of the blue new, it's a plot element that was seemingly resolved in an earlier book that comes back into play.)

Phillips has said this is the last entry in the Rho series, but the ending feels like it leaves an opening, should he choose to go that route some day.

End of a long journey

The final chapter in the Rho Agenda series. I feel that the Assimilation trilogy was a better story than the other two, with multiple story lines going on at the same time and each exciting on their own. However, the unfortunate downside is that the story ended when there could have been another trilogy that could have taken the fight to the Kasari and explored the new world created on Earth. Regardless, the whole series was an excellent read.

THIS IF FOR AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY