I’d not had good luck with this author before reading the first book of this duology, but I thought that “Injection Burn” was fun. Since it was really only half of a book I continued to the second part of the duology. Unfortunately, I was very bored by this book which was all about fighting aliens or escaping from aliens. There was a lot of action, but that isn’t enough for me. It was exactly a book of ideas and it has an extremely annoying love triangle. This probably will be my last attempt with this author. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This was not an easy book to jump in on. You need to already be invested in the Dire Earth series. Otherwise, it is confusing and just not as compelling as it should be.

After the destruction of their ships, Captains Skyler Luiken and Gloria Tsandi with their crews are stranded within enemy compounds, scattered and separated with no escape and surrounded by the Scipio; having survived a huge attack, and now must find a way to find their comrades, defeat an armada, and get out alive.

Despite the flurry of characters, this is an interesting space opera with some high handed concepts that feel bigger than they really are. Other than my personal curiosity about the previous books in this series, this one stands alone just fine. It's enjoyable, the characters and writing kept me interested but not enough to get truly lost in it and I found myself easily distracted instead of engaged. It comes in, does its thing, then it leaves fulfilling its task. Not bad, though. 3 out of 5.

"Escape Velocity" eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Jason M. Hough (https://www.jasonhough.com/). Mr. Hough has published six novels. This is the fifth in his "A Dire Earth" series.

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Language. The story is set in the far future. Space craft Captains Skyler Luiken and Gloria Tsandi, along with their respective crews, have smashed through the Swarm Blockade around the planet Carthage. Now they are scattered across the planet surface and the space stations circling in orbit.

They must fight their way back together and find a way to get away from Carthage. Each crew member faces their own challenges.

I enjoyed the 7.5 hours I spent reading this 434 page science fiction novel. This novel picked up immediately after the end of the first novel of the series. Even though I had read the first novel, I found myself confused and wondering what was going on as this novel began. Unless you read them back-to-back, the transition between novels is not smooth. The cover art is OK. I give this novel a 3.7 (rounded up to a 4) out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Escape Velocity (and this duology) will appeal to those who enjoyed all three books of the Dire Earth series. It has many of the same elements: exploration, the unknown, luck, humans being their own worst enemy, plenty of action, multiple POVs, and a lot of big concepts. But those who have not read the previous three books need not worry - although we have some of the characters from the previous books, this does stand on its own and readers likely will not get lost. Since we have one story here not broken up by an arc (and ending on a cliff hanger), I'll review the duology here.

Story: Skyler and his ragtag band are aboard a Builder ship - traveling for only a few months but in a time bubble where a thousand years have passed. His mission: go to the Builders home planet and free them from the aliens who have enslaved them. Captain Gloria Tsandi also has a mission - prevent the Scipio alien horde from capturing a human ship and gaining fold technology. She's to go in behind enemy lines, recover or destroy a missing human ship, and then get out. Although Gloria and Skyler were born a millennium apart, their missions will converge as the Builders plan a deep game in order to free their people.

For those who wanted to know more about the builders, this is your series. We get quite a bit of detail about them - from how they look to why they released the plague forge on Earth and created the Subs. The information is doled out nicely and slowly amidst the action. Pure sci fi fans will enjoy that this pretty much takes place in space - with plenty of battles and pew pew. But Hough doesn't spare the alien details and it doesn't take three books to get to the knowledge.

As with previous books, there are plenty of surprises and the humans themselves are always their worst enemy. And if humans are the saviors of the builders, it's not because of their ingenuity or mettle. It's because they have dumb luck that always puts them in the right place at the right time to find the right answer. I know many didn't like that aspect of the original Dire Earth Trilogy so keep that in mind here.

If I have one nitpick, it's that the books still feel vaguely sexist and misogynistic. Even with a strong characters like Gloria and Sam, they somehow come off more as male but written as female - rather than true female characters. When the men are weak, they are annoying. When the women are weak, they are very girly and ineffectual. It can get annoying dealing with women unable to make a decision or waffling in the book.

So yes, this continues the story neatly and you'll find a lot of the same very wordy descriptions of alien 'things'. I found this particular duology flowed much more smoothly and went faster than the previous trilogy, however. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Jason Hough introduced the space elevator in The Darwin Elevator. In the fifth book of the Dire Earth Cycle, crews from two different ships, one with a crew from the original trilogy, and one who left centuries later, have met up on the Creators' world. At the end of book 4, Injection Burn, they are stranded after their ship is destroyed. In Escape Velocity, they have to figure out how they will survive and return to earth.

Hough builds an amazing picture of the Creators' world. Some of the characters have ended up on the surface, where the effects of the plague still linger after centuries. Some end up in orbit, where a series of space elevators and space stations house the Scipio's base for invading other worlds. Some end up on a moon, where they learn what happened to a previous mission from earth.

I love the way the three strands come together, not randomly, but by design. As in the rest of the books in the series, Hough is strong on details and heavy on the action. The humans, whose creative thinking and adaptability are the reason they were even send on this mission, have to adjust and adapt in their fight against an enemy that is overwhelming in number and, in many ways, technologically more advanced.

The Dire Earth Cycle has been fun to read, and Escape Velocity brings it to a satisfying conclusion. Whether or not Mr. Hough continues with Dire Earth, I will definitely be looking forward to whatever else he writes.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

This is the second half of and conclusion to the Dire Earth duology that began with Injection Burn. This duology itself is also a follow up to the Dire Earth cycle, a trilogy of novels published a few years back. I haven’t read the Dire Earth cycle novels, but these books do a wonderful job of filling in any gaps that may be present for readers new to the series. I never felt like I was missing anything, but undoubtedly there are little character details that are probably improved by a more complete understanding from having read the trilogy.

If Injection Burn was basically “get there”, Escape Velocity is very much “get it done and get home in one piece”. It hits the ground running at the same breakneck pace established in Injection Burn, and never really hits pause. At the end of Injection Burn our characters have been forcefully separated, thrown in different directions by their AI ship in a last ditch effort to accomplish their collective goal. We have three main group POVs to follow, each fighting for survival on a hostile alien world, trying to find each other, trying to gather their bearings and figure out how to do what they need to with nearly everything (even the air) trying to kill them.

It’s a great conclusion to this story, but leaves the universe open enough for more. I’m particularly interested in what may come after this. There’s a lot of potential for some really interesting far future Earth society stuff, as well as more information about some of the alien societies present here.

Jason M. HoughI was introduced to Jason M. Hough through his fantastic sci-fi spy thriller Zero World a couple years back, which I absorbed (and need more of! Don’t be shortsighted Del Rey, make it happen). It was the most original science fiction novel I’ve read in a long while. He writes really straightforward prose that gets out of the way and lets the fun flow straight to the brain. You often forget you’re reading a book, instead you’re just experiencing the story. It reads so effortlessly.

I’d recommend these books for fans of the The Expanse novels for sure. They’re very much written in a similar style: huge, narratively driven ideas, delivered in a fun, highly-readable package. Like classic era science fiction for a new generation. Blockbuster page-turners with great characters, adventure and thrills. These are great summer reads.

Escape Velocity is part of the Dire Earth series. This should not be read as a standalone. There is a lot of violence, it is a Alien military thriller, so it might not be suitable for more sensitive readers. This is a military thriller so much of the storyline revolves around fighting and military tactics.

The book blurb adequately describes the storyline so I'm not going to repeat all of that info here. This is a military thriller filled with aliens who are nased on what was the original earth planet and the warriors who are fighting for the survival of their earth and all of humanity. As usual, everything is not as it seems. I look forward to reading more of this series.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and Del Rey books. I chose to write a review for other readers.

Skyler is back, Gloria is back, the crews are back and the Swarm Blockade has been breached! A few minor details they have all landed scattered across the planet Carthage and its space stations, a little battered, a little bruised and in a lot of trouble. Getting back to Earth? Not looking like they will be making the one thousand light year journey without a ship. So why not take out the nasty aliens on their own turf? Sounds like a plan for fools or heroes, but our space travelers are not fools…

Hang on tight as we blast off once again with Jason M. Hough and his latest outer space nail biter, ESCAPE VELOCITY. Talk about being rocketed right into the story! Our heroes don’t even know if they can breathe the air for sure…and just how long will their suits continue to protect, hydrate and feed them? Weapons, what about weapons, what will work, what won’t, how long will they last as they play hide n seek with the enemy on their own turf? Only good old human ingenuity and the will to succeed and survive keep our heroes moving, in search of missing crewmen and a way off the galactic Hell they find themselves in.

Jason M. Hough has another richly detailed, action-packed story that is a pure adrenaline rush from start to finish! There will be no fly-on-the-wall voyeurism, you WILL become part of the story, the action and the true brilliance that is ESCAPE VELOCITY, and you won’t be able to help it. Truly a gem from the stars and beyond!

I received an ARC edition from Del Rey in exchange for my honest review.

Series: The Dire Earth Cycle - Book 5 -Duology Book 2
Publisher: Del Rey (June 27, 2017)
Publication Date: June 27, 2017
Genre: Science Fiction
Print Length: 432 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com

I was given a preview copy of this book by netgalley, which was great as I would definitely have bought this book.

I'll give my review of this together with the first book, injection burn. These books are exactly what the 80's action movie taglines were made for "high octane", "adrenaline rush" etc.

I was a huge fan of the dire earth cycle books, with an author I hadn't heard anything about. The story was complex and I grew to love the characters. In the new duology, if you haven't read the first books, the character definitions would be very light. I didn't get immersed into the story so much as sucked into the action. These books were fun!

Like all good action movies, you have to suspend your belief somewhat as the coincidences and unlikely escapades are beyond the usual scifi incredibility, but I read the two books in a few days, and they were not that short, so I definitely enjoyed them.

if you loved the first books, these aren't the same, but you'll still enjoy the read.

uh, hell yeah! awesome cover with an awesome cast and MC. Dont see a ton of black MCs carrying a SFF book! Loved!