Customer Reviews

Nature of the Beast (Military Science Fiction Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoyed The Face of the Enemy enough to buy this sequel and I am glad that I did. From a literary perspective, it is an improvement on almost every level. The character development is more rich, the plot tighter, and the battle scenes more compelling.

Picking up shortly after the first book, the focus of The Nature of the Beast is direct military confrontation with the Remor. Humanity is launching its first real counteroffensive, but its commander and his troops are not exactly the cream of the crop of the Interstallar Defense League. At least on the surface. To make matters worse, the IDL force has to deal with a large contingent of civilian volunteers from a a star nation whose human government has refused to sign up with the IDL. They are eager, but naive, underequipped, and undertrained.

In addition to following the IDL's preparations, you learn about life on a Remor occupied planet. Which is kind of surprising because you got the impression from the first book that there would be no humans left after the Remor got done with them. But it seems that the Remor have their uses for humans which makes the Remor far more heinous than had they simply just exterminated them all.

Fawkes follows both narrative threads in a balanced manner, giving each sufficient attention so that when the narratives converge, the story moves along smoothly and naturally.

The battles in space and on the ground are more detailed and developed than in his first installment, though not as global as you will find in other science fiction. Though in the first book, the IDL characters sometimes seemed a little one dimensional, here they have more depth. More honor. And certainly more justification.

In the first book you learned more about humanity and its varied governments, motivations, and space nations. This book tells us a lot more about the Remor and, perhaps, their motivations. In my opinion, Fawkes has done a good job of "setting the board" for future books about this universe.

This is not a horror story but the villains are as horrible set of monsters as you can find or imagine.
The hero's sort of are a militant alliance of many human star systems are are just as onery and hard to get along with as any other competeing sets of Politicians. The story is about a group of professional soldiers fighting with inadequate everything and how they win against the odds by thinking, planning, training and then standing fast against serious danger.
a great read spent all night.
I have read 2 books in this series and I recommend both.
I am waiting for a third.
I am waiting for anything by this author

This book is absolutely riveting. There's a little bit of everything here from cutting edge technology, to adventure, to bothersome grandstanders, to scary aliens, to romance and heroic exploits. Fawkes has hit another homerun!

It's odd that in the movies they always make a series of goofy mistakes when they tackle Sci-Fi. It's odd because movies cost a fortune to create. You would think that they would hire someone to look into their basic physics. But no, movies are a couple decades behind novels in that way. This little book is more plausible and mature than "Avatar" or "District 9". It's a military action story about troops engaging an extraterrestrial enemy. I've read a number of such books this last year, this was among the best.

In both Avatar and District 9 the moral of the story is that Earth people are evil and so you should side with the extraterrestrials to help them exterminate all humans. This book celebrates the defeat of the aliens. It's kinda old fashion I guess, and politically incorrect.

Not a bad series, and has a well-placed climax, but the world-building suffers from one particularly uberstalwart human culture and the need to balance humanity against a species that technologically should be kicking their behinds. The combat scenes were also not up to the standards of some of the more widely known works in the genre, lacking in detail and an overview of the tactics and strategy employed. Nonetheless, there was appealing characters and the plotting was well-handled enough to make finishing it no chore. Mildly recommended.

really, really enjoyed this book!

If you read the first book, you are going to love this one, its better, more action and more fun...

a great read!

While it may be necessary to go back and read previous chapters due to the sheer complexity of the story, all told it's a good book. I'd read it again & I'm just starting the sequel.

Day after tomorrow stuff - lots of suspense without alot of gore. Good for adults and young adults. Good price.

The remor are mankinds worst fears realized. Humanity must rely on an officer thought inferior in abilities or honor, but he delivers results. Moved to the far fringes of humanity, he faces a struggle that his mixed fleet of almost advesarial h=umans, results happen and humanity may not perish. The book keeps you on the edge and the ending is not what I expected, but it was well done.