The book is a part 1 in a series. It was published in May 2009 and as of 2012 (nearly 4 years later) there is no ending to the story. The writing is engaging and characters well drawn, however it is a CHRISTIAN re-telling, where the 'path of light' is stuffed down to the readers throat one too many times. Another problem I had with this book is that it is predictable, no twist or turns. Also the female characters are in the story only as an afterthought. They are lowly 'tenders of ancient technologies' and get killed en mass with 1 exception.
(CAUTION PARTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW:)
One low born Dino fights his way up the army ladder and becomes special ops troop. On routine mission he rescues an technician (female) who got her self turned into box for transporting an AI program. After much hardship, he delivers the AI to a lab where she completes ancient weapon which they deploy to save the empire from the invading army, even though he is warned like 9 times that in the long run the weapon will destroy everything. Then the lab self destructs and no one knows if the weapon was destroyed or not. (Reader will note that after AI transfers into the interface of the Starfire, no other mention is made of the Leila technician's body which was forcibly took over...nor do we really know how did the AI ended up trapping Leila in the surgical table to alter her.) Now to the ending. The ancient seer tells our hero that he doomed the world, and disappears. Hero gets a medal for saving empire and the Megaldon (emperor) whispers to our hero of the great might of the empire and its wrath directed to extract revenge 10x over. Hero considered that to be a just course of action. The end.... or to be continued.
(CAUTION PARTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW:)
One low born Dino fights his way up the army ladder and becomes special ops troop. On routine mission he rescues an technician (female) who got her self turned into box for transporting an AI program. After much hardship, he delivers the AI to a lab where she completes ancient weapon which they deploy to save the empire from the invading army, even though he is warned like 9 times that in the long run the weapon will destroy everything. Then the lab self destructs and no one knows if the weapon was destroyed or not. (Reader will note that after AI transfers into the interface of the Starfire, no other mention is made of the Leila technician's body which was forcibly took over...nor do we really know how did the AI ended up trapping Leila in the surgical table to alter her.) Now to the ending. The ancient seer tells our hero that he doomed the world, and disappears. Hero gets a medal for saving empire and the Megaldon (emperor) whispers to our hero of the great might of the empire and its wrath directed to extract revenge 10x over. Hero considered that to be a just course of action. The end.... or to be continued.
