Aftershocks

The Palladium Wars, Book 1

By: Marko Kloos

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

“A new series that promises to be just as engrossing [as Frontlines]…the action just as exciting, the science just as solid, the tension just as high. I gulped down the first book in a day, and I am already eager for the next one.”—George R. R. Martin

Across the six-planet expanse of the Gaia System, the Earthlike Gretia struggles to stabilize in the wake of an interplanetary war. Amid an uneasy alliance to maintain economies, resources, and populations, Aden Robertson reemerges. After devoting fifteen years of his life to the reviled losing side, with the blood of half a million casualties on his hands, Aden is looking for a way to move on. He’s not the only one.

A naval officer has borne witness to inconceivable attacks on a salvaged fleet. A sergeant with the occupation forces is treading increasingly hostile ground. And a young woman, thrust into responsibility as vice president of her family’s raw materials empire, faces a threat she never anticipated.

Now, on the cusp of an explosive and wide-reaching insurrection, Aden plunges once again into the brutal life he longed to forget. He’s been on the wrong side of war before. But this time, the new enemy has yet to reveal themselves...or their dangerous endgame.

©2019 Marko Kloos (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Aftershocks...looks at the impact of war and how easy it is for conflict to be reignited...[an] exciting new universe.”—Kirkus Reviews

Just a piece of a well written book.

Just a piece of a well written book. I would much rather pay more money and buy the whole book at once.
a "credit is not a credit " when it only buys only a part of a very unfinished story.
rbd

I wasn't ready

I was not ready for this book to end. Now I have to wait patiently for the next one. The story was great and held my attention and the narrator Luke Daniels was awesome as usual.

Kloos is a master

Another great series by Marco. I cannot wait for book 2. Bravo! Keep them coming.

Wow! Another great Kloos series to devour!

Kloos is wonderful at building interesting and believable worlds in his stories. This is obviously going to follow that pattern. We listened to this on what would have been a tedious trip, and it made it so enjoyable. We can hardly wait for the next book, since we’ve read all his other ones. Great setup and interesting new characters.
Thank you Marko Kloos, wherever you are! You’ve brought us great entertainment.

Good story, but a few recording errors.

There were repeating lines and a couple of bad subs or cuts, but still a good book.

loved it!

usually I read 40k sci fi and while this a lot more human, it still scratched the itch for military sci fi!

Can’t wait for part 2-?

Great part 1. Since this was released mid 2019 I can’t imagine (though I strongly hope) that parts 2-? Will be release quickly.

was really surprised where the book was going to

I can't wait for the second book to come out now found this book to be very interesting in a very different point of view and kind of fun in a weird way

Good, but not his best work

First, I'm a fan of Marco Kloos. The Frontline series is my favorite contemporary science fiction work. This book is very good and worth your time and money. However, if you are a fan of his work, be warned, it is not his best.
In the review, I will share what I liked and what I feel could have been better without spoilers. My goal is to help other readers enjoy the work by setting the right expectations and also with the hope that someone will share my advice with Mr. Kloos. He is such a talented writer and yet I believe could be even better.
First, what I liked. The story is unique. Mr. Kloos is an imaginative storyteller who is well educated and clever when it comes to creating an allegory for difficult subjects. His characters are well developed with shortcomings, self-doubts and enough humanity to make them likable and relatable. I wish more writers had that ability and insight.
What I had issues with. He switched from the first person to third person narrative for this book and whoever was doing his content editing didn’t point out the mistakes that he was making in that format. It’s like a musician switching from country music to jazz. It can be done, but the artist needs to learn the basics of the new discipline to avoid amateur mistakes. In this case, Mr. Kloos was over describing everything with the narrator as he was establishing each world, character, and situation. If the narrator was a character, such as he was in the Frontline series that was told from the perspective of one character, then it would have flowed much better. But in this book, he is trying to tell the story from the viewpoint of four different characters who have four very unique perspectives. That’s great because that approach makes the story richer and more compelling. Yet, here the reader has to go through more than half the book before we get past what feels like the set description in a play. The other problem is that he tends to repeat key points that he has just mentioned a few pages earlier as if he wasn’t sure if that was covered already. I would like to think that is an oversight because if it is done intentionally then that would mean he assumes the reader is not capable of recalling something they just read or heard. This is a complaint that was brought up by the readers of his last few books where he spent a lot of time retelling events from earlier books as if the reader would get lost if he hadn't spent 2000 words retelling those parts. To see similar repetitiveness in book one of a series is concerning. It’s an indication that Mr. Kloos is not employing a diligent content editor.
Again, this book is worth getting in print or in audio. Luke Daniels does a wonderful job with this book. However, I might suggest to Mr. Kloos to start auditioning new voice artist. As good as Mr. Daniels is, there is a limit to his character voices and many of them sound like characters in Mr. Kloos’s other books. A new artist for a new series would help the reader see the work as original.

Interesting

A new take on an fun line of books. I would highly recommend this series in total.