Scorpio

Frontlines: Evolution, Book 1

By: Marko Kloos

Narrated by: Arielle DeLisle

Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

On a distant Earth colony, an orphaned survivor of an alien invasion discovers that the greatest world-ending dangers aren’t behind her.

It’s been eight years since an alien invasion drove a small surviving group of settlers to seek refuge in an underground shelter. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the ragtag band has maintained a narrowly functioning colony due to communal effort and salvage runs. Alex Archer has her own duties as a dog handler. While this off-world colony may be harsh, Ash, Alex’s black shepherd raised to sense threats, makes living in it a little nicer.

But the tenuous hide-and-seek with the monstrous species known as the Lankies is about to come to an end for Alex and her close-knit crew of soldiers, techs, and friends. When a salvage operation goes catastrophically wrong, the Lankies home in on the humans.

With hopes of a rescue long faded, all Alex has left is will—and the fear that there’s so much more to lose.

©2023 Marko Kloos (P)2023 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Kloos has created a believable universe and a fast-moving story of resilience, rescue, and reintegration that reads like a combination of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War (2004) and Andy Weir’s The Martian (2014).”—Booklist

“Kloos is well on his way to becoming one of the genre’s best assets.”—io9

“There is nobody who does [military science fiction] better than Marko Kloos.”—George R. R. Martin

Great start to new chapter in the war

The book started a little slow but quickly sped up and can't wait to see where the rest of the war goes

Oh, this is an origin story? My Mistake.

After reading the synopsis and reviews of Scorpio, I decided to give it a go. I believe this was a free Amazon first read. I enjoy "what if" stories such as dystopian futures or space exploration adventures. So, let's see where this thing goes.

Minor spoilers ahead: When the book opens, you're sitting shotgun with Alex Archer, her dog Ash, and a salvage team on a remote planet inhabited by a straggle of human colonists and building-sized aliens called Lankies. However, after 40% through the book, the salvage team (or what's left of it) is finally arriving back at base camp. Sure, some stuff happens in that 40%: the convoy gets stuck in a deluge, Lankies try hanging out with the humans, etc. But almost half the book on one scenario? Then, after an awesome attempt at a Lankies surprise party, my faith was almost restored. ... Until the remainder of the book is dedicated to Alex living on a military drop ship and not knowing what to do with her life. And you know what I eventually learned? Absolutely nothing. This book is so devoid of plot that, literally, only in the last few pages of the last chapter did Alex make a decision and finally point the story(?) into predictable headwinds.

So, in the end, similar to the salvage team's M.U.L.E. hopelessly churning up mud with its tires, this book never finds any grip until the very last page.

The one shining win for this book is Arielle DeLisle's performance. She was absolutely stellar depicting all the characters and giving them live emotions. I will now seek out other novels she's collaborated on because she was that good.

When do we get more of the story?

Intrigue, humanity, surprises
Great for people that like a bit of science fiction. Hoping that the story continues.

Great start to a new series

Frontlines is one of my favorite series. I’m excited for this new start in the existing universe and can’t wait for the next book.

Good story, not may fav narrator

I’m interested to see how the story unfolds in the second book, nice to have a female lead character, love the dogs aspect, I hope the dogs continue in the next book. Narrator kind of sounded like Siri or a decent robot voice. Not much inflection and the different character voices were not very different. Really enjoy the Marlo Kloos stories and I imagine narrators are hard to find. When Front Lines switched from Luke to Eric, it took some getting used to but they were both good. This narrator for this book is too flat imo.

Meh - Not Really Science Fiction

Not a terrible story, but it's not really military science fiction. The protagonist is a young female on a colony planet that was taken over by Lanky's, an extra large alien species. That's about all you get on the antagonist. They're big and alien. The whole story is really the main characters survival story, which was pretty flat.

A touch Feely view of science fiction

If you are into personal interactions and not science fiction this book is for you

Best book series

Love the book series, the female reader just can’t perform the male military voices making a lot of them sound like kids.

Great story

Lots of reality of the military experience woven into a great science fiction story. Highly recommend this book.

Great story!

Loved the novel, it’s a great continuation of the Frontlines universe. Can’t wait for the next book :)