Marko Kloos

Written by one of my favorite authors, Markos Klos, this fourth book in the series has begun focusing on four of the series’ principals; Aden, the main character, Solveig, his sister, Dunstan, a Senior Rhodian Navy ship captain, and Idina, a Palladium piece keeping captain working under the leadership of a multi-planet Gretia consortium.

Aden is asked to infiltrate the Gretian terrorist cell, Odin’s Wolves, which has been destroying planetary infrastructure and killing its citizens. It’s a dangerous mission but, being a Gretian native, he speaks the language with no accent and served the planet’s armed services as a Blackguard Major. The latter gives him cover creds as a disgruntled former prisoned soldier. In return for his services, Aden is promised full Rhodian citizenship.

Unbeknownst to Aden, his sister Solveig is also investigating the terrorist group. As a Vice President at large of the family’s company, she is searching its books and records to uncover proof of her father’s suspected terrorist sponsorship. Idina is independently doing the same on behalf of the multi-planet occupying force. Aden, Solveig, and Idina are all on Gretia, and, it can be presumed, that the latter two will inadvertently sabotage Aden’s undercover persona.

My primary disappointment with The Palladium War series is the slowness with which subsequent books are published. Following a 12-month publishing cycle for books two and three in the series, the fourth book wasn’t published until three years later. Hopefully, the fifth book in the series will come out more quickly.… (meer)

Alex Archer is a dog handler in a remote Earth colony that has been under siege by an alien race
called the Lankies for eight years. She and her loyal shepherd, Ash, are part of a small group of
survivors who live in an underground shelter, scavenging for supplies and avoiding detection.
But their luck runs out when a salvage mission goes wrong and the Lankies discover their
location. Now, Alex and her friends must fight for their lives against the relentless invaders,
while hoping for a rescue that may never come.

Read more on my blog The Thugbrarian Review: https://thugbrarianreview.wordpress.com/2024/02/12/brand-new-science-fiction/… (meer)

The author, Marko Kloos, said this book was difficult to write in 2020 due to Covid 19 and frequent US political disruptions. I think it came out well, however. Kloos told the story from the perspective of four principal characters, each of whom was developed in the first book of the Palladium Wars series. Citadel is book three in that series.

After losing his former ship in the last book, Commander Dunstan Park is assigned to a new top-secret Rhodian navy experimental cruiser equipped with a powerful AI that can quickly hack into, and take over the computer systems of, any ship; he uses the cruiser to go after Rhodia pirates who blew up one of Rhodia’s cities thus killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Park partially accomplishes that mission.

Living under his false identity, Aden and the crew of a merchant ship he’s employed on are attacked by an assassin in retribution for the merchant ship’s crew turning over a nuclear device they found in a shipment they were delivering to Rhodian authorities. One of his crew members, Tristan, was killed in that attack. Grieving the loss of their shipmate and friend, the crew set out to entrap the Gretian nationalists’ members who had anonymously hired them ship the stolen nuclear device. After discovering the nature of that shipment and turning it over to authorities, the Gretian’s took out a contract on their lives. Aden and the rest of the crew agree to act as bait to draw the nationalists into a trap that, hopefully, would lead to their arrest by the Rhodesian Navy. The Navy was able to capture three of the avenging nationalists’ ships with the fourth getting away.

Meanwhile, Idina Chaudhary is on Gretia as part of an occupying force assigned with the protection of alliance dignitaries. The Gretian nationalists attack an armored vehicle that she’s traveling in and then attack and destroy the capital city’s police headquarters, almost killing Solveig Ragnar, Aden’s sister. At the end of the book, a task force of highly trained soldiers is established to root out and destroy the planet’s nationalist fighters.

Solveig returns from a successful diplomatic mission for Ragnar Industries and gets a greater amount of freedom from her father’s control. She can now openly go out with the handsome Gretian police detective introduced in the last book. Visiting him at the police headquarters canteen for a lunch date, the building is attacked and she is almost killed. As she recuperates, she learns that her father may have had some part in that attack. While that disclosure is hinted at, its story will not come out until the next book in this series.

The story in book three, Citadel, is alternately told from the perspective of each of these main characters. Kloos does a good job of keeping the storyline separate but the story increasingly coalesces around the guerilla war being waged by the Gretian nationalists. I hope Kloos can wrap up the series in the next book as I don’t welcome book series, like Kloos’ Frontlines series, that go on indefinitely.

I’ve read several books by Markos Kloos and think that he is a military Sci-Fi writer who adds multi-dimension to his characters. Although they progress slowly, his stories keep me reading. Kloos tends to use cliffhangers to ensure that readers purchase the next book in a series. The primary cliffhanger at the end of Citadel is finding out what role the chief industrialist of Gretia has with the Gretian’s nationalist insurgency.… (meer)