Center of Gravity: Star Carrier: Book Two

Stephen V Cole using wife Leanna's account. I am, BTW, a registered engineer who spent 17 years in military intelligence and 11 in the Texas Guard including three years in command of a combat security company and the rest in personnel, intelligence, and operations staff jobs. My final year was head of brigade operations and training. I also run a game publishing company and once designed a little game with 2000 pages of rules called Star Fleet Battles.This series is great, fun to read not just for great writing but for following real science and physics. In this universe ships can warp faster than light but communication is limited to light speed. Radio signals from that distant star tell you the enemy had a base there 72 years ago. Ships can warp between stars but have to drop out of warp at the outer edge of a star system. From that point fighters and kinetic weapons accelerate to .99 c and ships to .50 c so once the light of your arrival warns the enemy your fighters and kinetic rocks are five minutes behind. The fighters have to fight for nine hours until the ships arrive. Most of the kinetic rocks will miss since their targets try to move. Ships and fighters can fly sideways and backwards to aim their weapons. Unusual tactical situations allowing unusual ways to use weapons do not feel contrived.And what fighters! Carrying dozens of nuclear missiles, sandcasters, particle beam weapons, and cannons firing uranium slugs, one fighter can wreck several warships. If it survives.People ARE the story. The admiral still has to deal with knowing that his every order means the deaths of some of his ships and people. Pilots who grew up in uncivilized ruins in Middle Ages lawless conditions have to struggle against the prejudice of comrades who grew up with computer implants and downloaded college degrees.Aliens are people too and the alien characters are fully developed people not cardboard cutouts.

Center of Gravity picks up shortly after the events of the previous book "Earth Strike: Star Carrier: Book One" left off. As such that previous book is very much required reading.In the previous book we learn that in the future Earth and its handful of colonies are losing a war against a vast interstellar empire. In the last book our heroes barely repelled a large scale invasion of our home solar system. Now in this book our heroes mount a daring large scale offensive operation, taking a fleet of ships deep into enemy space to try and shift the fighting further away from Earth. If the fleet fails the Earth will be left with dangerously few ships to defend itself with.With the stakes set we finally get to see our heroes taking the fight to the alien invaders. Despite the large amount of world building done in book one, Ian Douglas finds a way to shed even more light on the universe he has created. Detailing a great deal more about the culture of this futuristic Earth as well as their alien enemies. On the down side however there are many explanations and details that are recycled and repeated from book one. This is obviously done for the benefit of new readers, however I found myself sometimes skimming over entire pages of repeated technical information for stuff I already read about.In terms of the plot the author does a good job of keeping things largely fresh, although it does feel at times that our heroes are doing surprisingly well for a military that has up to that point been largely losing the war.Overall the book continues to be a very compelling saga that really stands out from the usual crowd of sci-fi works. Its only real flaw is that it can get a tad overwhelming with the amount of detail the author provides about various topics.

This is another fine addition to the collection if you are a lover of Ian Doublas books. His characters can be slightly one dimensional, and the political ramblings are predictable as usual. Our heroes want to fight for freedom, truth, justice, and the right to keep getting into more action packed battles against a host of all-powerful aliens, while the peaceniks at home want to save their own hides and consolidate their own power base by appeasing the aliens. But in the end you don't read Ian Douglas for political intrigue. You read it for the pure space opera, the unparalleled high tech action. Douglas has succeeded in taking carrier based battles into the 25th century, substituting kilometer-long space carriers and near-light speed Starhawks for the nuclear carriers and the jet fighters of today. The world that Douglas has created is one where nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and FTL drive technologies are seamlessly woven into the fabric of the world inhabited by our heroes. They are human beings, ofc, but they are not quite the humans that we know today because of the way that technology has changed the very way in which they interface with the world around them. Overall, no one does space battles better than Ian Douglas, and this book is another worthy addition to the many fine books set in the world that he has created.

I want to start by saying that space voyage books arr by far my favorite. I am really liking the way this author describes the surroundings. I can visualize the star sytem, the planet, the star carrier, and the aliens. He is absolutely phenomenal at world building and how he does it. The plot is continuing on a great course and I already bought book 3 and will be starting it today. If I had to pick one thing that might be a negative about this book, it would be that there is alot of repeating information. Overall a very good book. The character development is on par as well. If you like this type of book, then I do recommend this series.

I have read the first two books and will definitely get the third when it is released.However, I do cringe at some of the mathematical/physical/practical errors that occur. I would be the first to admit that they are few and far apart but for me at least they do briefly spoil my enjoyment when I encounter them. Mostly he has done very well at keeping his calculation and assumptions correct but the one that gets me every time is the velocity of the KK rounds from the fighters which he mentions several times as being 175m/s. My problem with this is that it is half the muzzle velocity of a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and a simple search of Wikipedia shows a US Naval test of a railgun firing a 3.2kg projectile at 5.4km/s "in the late 2000's". Surely in the intervening four centuries and with the vast amounts of energy they seem to have available they should be able to compensate for a shorter 'barrel' and keep the velocity to a useful level. Similarly the carrier can only launch its projectiles at the same speed as the fighters are launched as it uses the same 'barrel'. Surely they should be able to simply use the same energy and so fire a lighter projectile at a higher velocity?Despite these niggles the plot and characters continue to develop and we are introduced to several new alien races.

No warp drive, no mythical 'force', just plain hard theoretical physics! All the space travel contained within is well within the current area of accepted theoretical physics. It just makes the story more possible and believable. The characters are well rounded REAL people and Earth's "Back Story" all to believable as a possible future for us. Why not?The story itself is very enjoyable; earth against 99% of the known galaxy. Of course we'll win..........won't we?Am reading the fourth book now with the fifth pre-ordered. Can't get enough! Who needs Jedi knights and Klingons on the starboard bow? Not me, no Sir!

Ian's take on infant technologies that exist now and their potential in a few hundred years are thoroughly believable, the nanotech stuff in particular. The battle dialogues are fascinating too but perhaps a little too detailed at times. Great storyline, wiith good character continuity. Whilst I appreciate he is successfully portraying how alien other life forms could be, I'm surprised there are no humanoid biped types somewhere in the mix. No matter, just got Singularity and looking forward to the continued story. Keep up the good work.

Good book. Easy to read. It's "hard" sci-fi, so most of technology is "correct". But the book keeps repeating explanations from book One, probably so people whi have not read book one also will understand. I understand the thinking, but it feels repetitive and just a bit too easy.

I purchased this book working on the principle that it's usually worth giving anything a second chance. (well, within reason). I had previously found the first in the series a bit of a drag. It was ok in everything, plot, writing style, everything. But that was it - ok. This one's a major improvement, pacier, more action-packed and generally a smoother read altogether. I don't want to reveal anything about the story but I enjoyed this one much more and all I can say is 'Roll on the 3rd'.