Another exciting and very interesting book by Marko Kloos. I really hope he Keeps this series going. And I think he will. Even thought he main character is a female name Alex Archer, she’s not your ordinary female, especially after what she’s been through. When we left the last book Alex was in a North American Commonwealth (NAC) Defense Corps recruiting office talking to a bunch of Sergeants. She was lost. Since living Scorpio, Alex has been living or existing in a Public Residence Cluster (PRC) and going to school. She knows no one and no one knows her very much unlike the eight years she spent in the vault on Scorpio. She needs something else in her life, so as you probably guessed, she enlisted.
She has completed Basic Training and is now attending the School of Infantry. Her current instructor is a Major Grayson whom you are familiar with if you’ve read any of Mr. Kloos’ other “Frontlines” books. Alex is leaning how to be a real soldier. She wants to be like the only soldiers she’s known and that was the small cadre of soldiers stuck in the vault on Scorpio with her. She did go out on salvage runs with Alex her dog and several of the troops and NCOs in that small unit even though she wasn’t in the military. Now is she and just trying to fit in.
That hasn’t quite worked since she’s one a very few colonist that do join the Corps. And, as happened frequently, someone has revealed that she is one of the surviving Scorpio 150 as they are called. That brings her some notoriety that she really doesn’t want. Yet, in her training now to kill Lankies, she seeing her fellow soldiers make unrealistic assumptions about how they will survive close encounters with a Lanky or, heaven forbid, several Lankies. Once they know she is one of the Scorpio 150 and the fact that she has seen Lankies closeup, some accept her first hand knowledge and try to use it. Some other young soldiers try to downplay her experiences and put on more bravado than they really will have. Alex knows because she’s been there, done that.
I like to read stories where we follow young people through their training ordeals and see how they make it through them. While all the training she does is through simulations, Alex knows first hand that it’s a lot worse with confronted with the real thing. She’s seen armor piercing bullets bounce off Lankies while they just keep on coming after you. Still, she can’t quite make some of these young soldiers understand the sheer terror of having a 20-meter monster bearing down on you. There’s nothing you really can do. While on Scorpio, she was taught to always run and hide whenever confronted with a Lanky because they had no real way to kill them. Now, she may be expected to turn and fight with weapons they hope can kill Lankies, but she knows she still going to be terrified.
Alex makes it through the School of Infantry and then gets her first real duty assignment. She going to the Fifth Regiment, Fifty-Third Battalion at Joint Base Burlington. She also finds that two other soldiers in her SOI class are going to the same place. She finds out that it’s cold and snowy where she’s going but that’s a good change from the desert-like planet Scorpio where she spent most of her young life. She’s looking forward to getting integrated into her new unit and eventually fitting into a squad.
When Alex and her two compatriots arrive at JB Burlington, they find out the unit is getting ready to deploy. So things are happening fast. Alex doesn’t know if she’s ready to leave Earth after having only been there a short time, but she has no one here since her parents as well as an Uncle that died on Earth. She also knows she doesn’t have a choice so she accepts her situation as it is and hopes she does her job as she’s been trained.
Little does Alex know that she’s in for another terrifying adventure. While the battalion’s mission is to find a lost Russian battalion on a desolate, but cold planet a long way from Earth. She hopes they don’t have to deal with any Lankies. But her hopes are pretty much dashed right away. If she had imagined the worst that could happen, she’d probably not be close to what’s really going to happen. Here’s hoping she lives through this because she might have an opportunity of a lifetime coming up.
I don’t know why this book is titled “Corvus” since the place Alex goes to is Alchiba Three, in the Alpha Corvi System. I guess the author understands, but I don’t. The third book, “Cygnus”, won’t be published until o/a 8 December 2026. That’s a long ways away unfortunately, but I’m putting it on my reading list.
==[Note 1 (12/23/2025): I’m no longer associated with Amazon and will no longer provide any links to books from that website. You can usually find books that you like at your usual source.]==
==[Note 2: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be posted on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. ]==