Retribution (Age of Expansion: The Ascension Myth #6)

God Bless You, Ellie! Your skill grows, like the edges of an explosion of light in the firmament… Well, enough waxing poetica… Regardless, Young Lady, you really can tell a great story! Thank-You!

Molly Bates and her crew are back in fine fettle! As this is a family oriented website, I’ll be good… Also, no spoilers… HOWEVER, Retribution: Age of Expansion is yet another reason for ditching NETFLIX, and READING!!! Much more satisfying… Interstellar Bad Guys aren’t smart enough to quake in their boots, when Molly and her crew are around. Law and order are things rare to her home planet, but… Yeah, no spoilers… And, remember her letter to Bethany Anne? Well- Oh, yeah… What about some friends from… NO SPOILERS!!! Sheesh… Tying up loose ends from across time, and the galaxy, is fun, but when you can’t talk about it… One way trips out of airlocks, can be a drag…

ENOUGH, ALREADY!!! Buy this book! Read it, and Enjoy! You’ll thank yourself for the time well spent in slipping the surly bonds of Earth…

Five out of Five Stars!!!

The age of expansion series started off really well. It had energy, vigour, a sense of humour and an interesting heroine. Over the series all of these elements have been diminishing. I hope this is the nadir of the series.
The uniqueness of Molly and her crew has been lost in the background mush of the Kurtherian universe/etheric Federation. I was worried that this would happen once the deus ex machina idea of giving Molly nanocytes cropped up. Molly barely appears in this book (well she does but not in any convincing way). There’s not much with Neechie either. More sphinx cat please.
The plot is in general fairly linear with not much suspense. Having read this book I almost feel as if I could have written it myself. Not a good thing. This reads as a bland, grey book. There were a couple of moments of tension with the crew being fired on by nasty space missiles but those moments passed too quickly. I really don’t know why Giles Kurns became a main character but this book would have been much better if he had died on the asteroid. The sooner the plots concentrate on the original team and lose the KG characters the better the series will become (again). If book 7 isn’t a lot better then it might be time to abandon this series.

Only because of Molly is this a 5-star book. Molly is very special and she is the heart and soul of this series.. Again, the best parts of the book are of Molly and her team interacting directly with the Kuetherian Federation, the rest of it gets to be a bit of overblown window dressing. So we need more Molly, and Molly’s kick-ass team, doing Bethany Anne stuff. Let’s forget about catching bad guys back home, trying to be good little social justice warriors, and start being the real deal, part of BA’s posse. The whole business of Giles, his capture, his escape, the mission success; really pales in comparison to the potential story about the medallion that Giles recovered before all the above silliness started. Times a wasting, need to get Molly focused.

Ell Clarke continues to give us a good storyline with characters that fit in seamlessly with the Kurtherian Gambit Universe that Michael Anderle started. Her main character, Molly Bates, continues to lead her team to success even though she still doubts her own ability to be a good leader. She struggles to make the right decisions and Still doubts herself even when her team is completely on board. The mark of a good leader IMHO.

In the latest installment we find Molly and Co. once again dealing with a megalomaniacal butt wipe with lots of firepower and delusions of destroying the Etheric Federation. From a hidden asteroid base to Gaitune 7 to Lance Reynolds’ ship Molly and Oz continue to serve the Federation with snark and humor as well as some judicious butt kicking when warranted.

If you haven’t read book 1 Awakened do yourself a favor and pick it up. Ell Clarke has taken her
Creation and developed her characters to the point that she leaves you wanting more at then of each book. Add that to the fact that the author, Ell Clarke, is a sweetheart who actually interacts with her readers through multiple platforms and you will see why people say Clarke makes smart girls cool.

Well done Ellie.

Oh and don’t forget to read the authors notes by Ell and Michael at the end for a good laugh or three.

Have you ever been aggravated because the author doesn’t change writing styles or the, “inner voice” from character to character? Or that there is a major change in the characters point of view, but internal dialog still sounds like book 1? It’s always been a pet peeve of mine. Enter the master, Ell Leigh Clarke to school them in how it’s done. Molly is changing, and Ell does an AMAZING job communicating that in her dialog. New missions, new people in the group, and some solid foreshadowing on the future of the series in this book. Even, if you read between the lines Molly can’t even see, a potential love triangle. A great edition, keeping up the thread of excellence that has been involved in this whole series. Thanks Ell. Thank you for a character that is really relatable to us emotionally challenged geeks. I also look forward to your collaboration on the Michael series, and the future of Molly. Dont stay up too late looking at root canal porn. 😉

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