Reddit reviews The Course of Empire (Course of Empire Series Book 1)
We found 8 Reddit comments about The Course of Empire (Course of Empire Series Book 1). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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http://www.amazon.com/The-Course-Empire-Series-ebook/dp/B00ARPEJC8/ref=zg_bs_6157858011_f_50
>creating a world to critique and poke holes in an existing work,
At this point, my hand shoots up. But it wasn't just one book, it was several, or even a whole genre. Another point I'd like to stress is that for me to put a whole load of mental energy into picking holes in a book, the book has to be worth it. I have to have spent quite a lot of time living in that author's world in order to notice where its metaphorical foundations are shaky.
To pick just one example of a book series that (a) really caught my imagination and (b) spurred me to say, "no, that isn't how it would work, what would really happen is this" - and then put "this" into my own worldbuilding - is the Course of Empire Series. The first two books were by Eric Flint and KD Wentworth, then after Kathy Wentworth's sad death in 2008, David Carrico took over as Flint's co-author.
The books feature a successful invasion of Earth by an alien species called the Jao. Some of them are right evil bastards, but many of them are pretty decent and it turns out that when they said they were protecting us from an infinitely worse evil, a genocidal species called the Ekhat, that was no lie.
Well, I've always liked alien invasion stories, particularly where the invaders weren't pure evil and might even sympathise with the Earthlings. "The Cuckoo's Peace" isn't my first venture into that type of story. So I read the three Jao books avidly, and would heartily recommend them. Lots of space battles, which I haven't tried to imitate, and a sympathetic portrayal of human "collaborators", which I have. But I couldn't help noticing that the strategy followed by the human Resistance in those books is just... pointless. For anyone who's read the books, what on Earth was that business in Salem meant to achieve? What were they saving those tanks for? Likewise the training and strategy followed by the Jao's human janissaries, the old national armies having been absorbed into the Jao forces, didn't look as if it would have much effect against either the Ekhat or the Resistance. From what we saw of the ex-US forces, they seemed to still be training for WWIII out of sheer inertia.
One thing that emerged out of that was that all of the human Resistance groups in my story have almost given up on acting like a guerrilla army traditionally does. (Not that they've given up the fight; one group in particular is willing to kill millions of humans to achieve liberation.) Due to the specific way the "invasion" (not everyone would call it that) in my story works, the counter-insurgency strategy used against the rebels is also quite unusual. But I think it makes more sense than the one in the Jao books.
As I said, the Jao series is just one of several works that have inspired me to "respond" in this way. I'm addicted to nitpicking. The Connected Worlds in my story also owes a lot to the Federation in Star Trek (another series of which I am a huge fan) as seen from the point of view of those on the receiving end of its insufferable smugness. Occasionally the writers of Deep Space Nine did touch on this topic themselves.
Course of Empire - You'll go through the first third of the book thinking that I'm recommending exactly what you are sick of reading. If you can get through that first third of the book you'll be rewarded with a much more complex story.
Quick, spoiler-free synopsis - Big bad brutish aliens invade earth and do all sorts of destructive stuff to prove how big and bad they are (they blow up Mt. Everest just to prove they are badass). 20 years later, the rest of the story takes place. I can't say much else. The Jao are well developed aliens who are not just masked humans.
TL:DR - It's FREE on the kindle right now, so if you don't like it it doesn't cost you anything.
I really enjoyed Ready Player one!
Some of my favorite sci-fi:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Heinlein
Course of Empire, by Eric Flint and KD Wentworth
Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy, by Robert J Sawyer (Trilogy starting with Farseer)
Uplift Series, by David Brin, (trilogy, starting with Sundiver)
A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge
In "The Course of Empire" https://www.amazon.com/Course-Empire-Book-ebook/dp/B00ARPEJC8 the human resistance used improvised chaff and steam devices to block the lasers of the invading aliens. The resistance lost (not a spoiler) but they tried to convince their new alien masters not to strip captured tanks of their superior human-built kinetic weapons and replace them with inferior lasers.
A not-very-well-known but amazing scifi book that I think you might like is The Course Of Empire.
I've read Leviathan Wakes and (imho) Course Of Empire is every bit as good!
The Jao Empire series (Course of Empire, Crucible of Empire, Span of Empire)