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Star Carrier Books In Order

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Publication Order of Star Carrier Books

Ian Douglas is the pen name of the New York Times best-selling author, William H. Keith. He is the writer of several science fiction military series such as the Legacy Trilogy, Heritage Trilogy, and the Star Carrier Book series. Ian Douglas used to work as a corpsman for the United States Navy. He currently resides in Pennsylvania.

Carrier Series

Star Carrier is the first book in the career book series by William H. Keith. In this book, the author introduces the reader to Eta Botis, a planet that is located 37 light years away from earth. The author terms the planet as wet Venus with a gravitational pull of 2g. Due to unknown reasons, the planet has been colonized by a group of Muslims who had refused to abide by the laws of the Koran after the end of the Islamic wars on earth. Thus, a team of Marine Troopers had been sent to prevent the alien leader, known as Turush from evicting some of the inhabitants of the planet. The book began with the battle group that had been brought by the UNSA Star Carrier, landing on the alien planet. They were present so that they could not only evacuate the Marines who had been captured but they were also there to evacuate the alien prisoners of the war and also as many civilians as they could.

What follows next is a combination of air attacks after another. However, there is very minimal ground action, which makes sense because this book is about space war and more specifically air strikes. As the book begins, the author William Keith, comments that when it comes to air strikes, speed is everything, and this is the core truism in space fighting operations. Here the author is talking about the near relativistic speeds that are required to put a top gun in any space battle. To get the hundreds and thousands of acceleration, which is, required to make the space distance using realistic range, Keith drives his characters in artificial singularities, mini black holes, which are created by tapping the zero point energy for power. The author also makes use of this ability to ensure that the pilots do not crash into one another.

With that said, the main character in this book is Lieutenant Trevor Gray. However, the story tends to shift from one character and loci to the other from time to time. Gray is an individual who was born and raised in the rough sides of the tracks. Gray comes from a federal community that lives in what was left of Manhattan. The federal community is made up of independents who were more than determined to ensure that they separate themselves from technic civilization. Furthermore, the community had managed to pull itself together after experiencing more than a year of climate change, an asteroid impact and Islamic war. Gray is exceedingly happy with the life that he has in ruins. However, when his wife suddenly experiences a stroke, she requires immediate medical attention, which could be found in the civilized part of the town.

Thus, Gray heads to the confederation where he pleads for assistance. When they discover that Gray is a squatter, they decide to offer his wife treatment. The main reason why they offered Gray’s wife treatment was that of the fact that most individuals who were raised in the suburbs were three-dimensional thinkers, which was a great trait for a pilot. The only condition that he is given is that his wife will receive the best treatment possible if he agrees to join the navy. However, according to o Gray, this is not how he remembers everything. When we first meet Gray, he is exceedingly bitter to the fact that he was forced into the army. Furthermore, Gray claims that the therapy his wife was given did not only cure her ailment, but it also cured the attachment she had for him. Once her brain was fixed, she turned into a person who no longer cared for Gray.

Thus, Gray has some exceedingly serious issues that he had to solve. He is forced to survive between the pot shots that emanate from his enemies to the one’s that comes from his friends and colleagues. He is an exceedingly lonely person who was constantly looking for a place to explode. The second installment in the Career book series is Center of Gravity. This story begins some months after the Earth Star troop had successfully managed to protect the earth from an extremely xenophobic race known as the Sh’daar, which had managed to launch meteors towards earth. The xenophobic race was more than determined to ensure that earth and its inhabitants, did not progress technologically, thereby ensuring that it did not rule the universe.

In this book, we are introduced to Rear Admiral Alexander Koenig, who has just been ordered to return to Erath, so that he could attend a meeting which was conducted by the Senate. The main reason why he was ordered back is so that he could bring the flagship back to earth. The seating had a special offering for Admiral Koenig. However, Admiral Koenig was more than certain that the only way the earth was going to win the war, was by taking the war to the Sh’daar. The element of surprise was always going to be of benefit to the Earth’s fleet. Nonetheless, Earth is still paranoid about another impending attack, which was to be launched towards earth by the Sh’adar, thus when Koenig was going to take the fleet, he was going to take it with a small sized troop.

This was indeed something that they had never fathomed humanity was ever going to pull successfully. With that said, will Earth be able to prevail? What kind of technological weapons technology does Sh’adar possess and will earth be able to counter their every move? All in all, the characters in this novel have been well developed, together with the tactical maneuvers and the entire story line. This is an excellent read and is especially suited for any fan of space and military science fiction.

The Star Carrier is a series of novels by Ian Douglas, which is the pseudonym of William H. Keath, J.R. an author known for his series of Galactic Marine series and the Expanded Universe series. Douglas published Earth Strike, the first novel in the series in 2010, which was followed by a new title each year with the sixth title, Book Time published in 2015. The series opens in the 24th century where in a narrative similar to Battlestar Galactica, humanity has developed to the point of becoming a space-going powerhouse. Humanity had come together in a collective of states known as the Terran Confederation, which for five decades had been trading peacefully with the Agletch Collective, a different species in a nearby galaxy. The Sh’daar as the Agletsch call themselves have a significantly bigger empire and are seeking to expand it at all costs. They are now demanding that humanity accepts to become a vassal state of their empire or else lose access to the commerce of their vast empire. Under the Sh’daar Empire is the Turusch vassal race, which has been slowly becoming more powerful, and in the process threatening the sovereignty of humanity.

The lead character in the Star Carrier series is Admiral Alexander Koenig. Koenig is the commanding officer of the Confederation of human forces fighting for the interests of humanity, and their safety. They travel through space on America, the kilometer long spaceship whose sole objective is to fight the Sh’daar and in the process, prevent the annihilation of humankind. A bold and courageous leader, Koenig does not back down from a fight, and will always find a way of turning catastrophe into an opportunity. His courage and determination eventually get him from rogue commander to president of the United States. Over the course of the series, he consolidates his power, eventually managing to stall the advance of the Sh’daar Empire. He also makes the United States of North America the dominant force in the Earth Collective with the mandate to negotiate with the Sh’daar invaders.

The Star Carrier series of novels will be a good fit for any science fiction fan, from those that like the gritty material of authors like Peter F. Hamilton to the pulpier classics such as Starship Troopers and newer works such as Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. When it comes to military science fiction, Douglas is one of the best storytellers in the genre. The Star Carrier series is full of immense confrontations between kilometer long space ships, huge dogfights between individual soldiers, spectacularly epic space wars and anything in between. Set in the far future of the universe, the novels are more of fantasy novels rather than hard science fiction. Overall Douglas does a good job with his research on space flight, astronomy, and aspects of plot. He writes interesting plotlines while taking into account the vastness of space and time in which the stories are set, which is quite a feat. For instance, the Sh’daar are half a billion years away from the Terran Confederacy on Earth. However, reading the series offers better insights into the technological advancement and evolution, and perspectives on time that are sure to change your understanding of how the universe works.

The series of novels has received critical acclaim with the second novel hitting number 22 on the New York Times Bestseller list on its first week. The novels can be said to be a higher quality versions of the Star War Movies of recent years in terms of its action sequences and technologies intorduced. Douglas has done an outstanding job in coming up with plausible technologies that make sense and are believable. Most of the ideas in the books are those that science has been talking about for years and hence are not necessarily hard science fiction. They are what you would call plausible given that they would not break any of the fundamental principles of physics. If you are one for all out action, the Star Carrier series will not disappoint with kinetic projectiles hurtling through space, nuclear tipped missiles and energy beams, crippled fighters going past head over heels, and gigantic ships exploding in massive fireballs.

The first novel in the series and one of the most popular is Earth Strike that was published in 2010. Eta Bootis IV is a planet that is 37 light years away from Earth with a 2g gravity, and a wet habitable climate. After the end of a series of Islamic wars on planet Earth, a group of Muslims has emigrated to the planet and has refused to adhere to a more tolerant version of the Koran agreed upon by all humanity. Nonetheless, when the Turusch from the Sh’daar Empire attack the colony, the Earth sends Marines to defend their brothers. At the opening of the novel, the mission has just gone awry with the UNSA Star Carrier America having to retreat to Earth. However, even as the Marines have to be evacuated, they have managed to capture some Sh’daar aliens, which is the first major intelligence coup of the operation. What follows is an explosive tale of military science fiction as the Earthlings go toe to toe with the technologically advanced Sh’daar who want Eta Bootis IV at any cost.

Another popular novel in the Star Carrier series is Center of Gravity, the second novel in the series. With humanity fast hurtling towards technological transcendence, the warlike Sh’daar increasingly grow wary of the development, and vow not to allow it to happen. With the Sh’daar growing more aggressive, things come to a head and the Marines are forced to head out to the far edges of the Galaxy to fight them off. Admiral Koenig leads the forces mandated to protect Earth from the alien hordes. With the Terran Confederation in turmoil and devoid of finances and personnel, he knows that his decisions will determine the future of humanity. With a direct defensive posture sure to be defeated, Koenig realizes that the only option left is to turn the giant space ship and head for the unknown territories of the enemy. The war for saving the Earth from the hordes of the Sh’daar needs to be fought in the enemy’s turf, where the element of surprise would be most effective.

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