Invasion

Today's post is on 'Invasion Book One of the Secret World Chronicle' By Mercedes Lackey with Steve Libbey, Cody Martin and Dennis Lee. It is published by Baen and is 567 pages long excluding a sample of book two. The cover has an iron eagle screaming with flames behind it. The story is told in two parts in 15 chapters. The intended reader is anyone who likes superheros, good writing and saving the world. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

First line is- The blue-skinned, blue-haired woman known by the callsign "Belladonna Blue" leaned into the oval hatch of the captain's cubby.

In World War 2 metahumans were the ones who really won the war. Metahumans are humans with something extra, like being able to fly or throw flames. Well the world is mostly at peace in 2011. Metahumans are the real police force of the world and most countries are happy to just not have another war like WW2. But something strange is going on. At the headquarters of the metahumans called Echo when a soldier from WW2 walks up and demands to see the head of Echo Alex Tesla. He is a famous meta from Germany and he says that he has very important information about a coming attack. Of course no one listens to him until it is too late. All around the world at once all the metahumans are attacked; by gaint mechas with a swastikas on their arms. Everywhere there is an Echo station or in Russia where they house their metas. The battles are short but brutal. In about three hours over twice-thirds of the worlds metas are dead and that is not counting the normal humans. Soon metas from all sides are having to choose which side they want to be on fighting for the nazis or for humanity.

I really enjoyed this book. I grew up watching the X-Men so metahumans and mutants are so my thing. That said before I go on about how much I loved this book and series, I will discuss my problems with it. It is only 15 chapters long and it is almost 600 pages. The chapters are really dense with so much happening that you really need to read it about once a day like I did, or you will forget things. Some of the characters are Russian and sometimes they speak Russian without being translated. Now on to the things I loved about this book. I love that it is based from real characters that the authors played on City of Heros, a pretty good MMO (btw it is free to play so try it I have.). The characters are really heroes, I love heroes. One of characters Red Djinni is both good and bad, he is a great anti-hero, he is an interesting ass. The first part is broken into different character perspectives so the reader goes from Belladonna to Vikky to Djinni. There are angels and there is a great big save the world story. All in all I really enjoyed this book. I cannot wait to get my hands on the second volume.

I give this one a five out of five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought my copy from my local bookstore.