Forging Zero
For lovers of sci-fi thrillers, alien invasion stories, space opera, and sprawling first contact science fiction, this is an unforgettable post-apocalyptic epic about perseverance and survival in a harsh new world where humanity is just another item on the menu…
First Contact doesn’t go as anyone expected. Now they own us.
The Legend of ZERO: Forging Zero is the epic journey of 14-year-old Joe Dobbs in a post-apocalyptic universe following a massive galactic empire’s invasion of Earth. The oldest of the children drafted from humanity’s devastated planet, Joe is impressed into service by the alien Congressional Ground Force—and becomes the unwitting centerpiece in a millennia-long alien struggle for independence. Once his training begins, one of the elusive and prophetic Trith appears to give Joe a spine chilling prophecy that the universe has been anticipating for millions of years: Joe will be the one to finally shatter the vast alien government known as Congress. And the Trith cannot lie.…
But first Joe has to make it through bootcamp.
Zero Recall
It’s been 53 turns after the legendary Commander Zero graduated as a Congie warrior. Joe, now a battle hardened veteran, has spent his life surviving wars he had no right to survive. Yet his real test is coming: New forces are conspiring to start a great war like the universe has never seen, one that would rip apart the very fabric of Congress. Joe is conscripted to fight the very war everyone has been fearing since the rise of the Dhasha—the war against the legendary Dhasha Vahlin. Unfortunately for Joe, at the same time, other ruthless powers are conspiring to kill him before he fulfills the prophecy of the Trith.
To fight the Vahlin, a desperate Congress comes up with a tactic it abandoned millennia ago—the use of multi-species groundteams. Joe, now a Prime Commander, is given command of his own team of misfits and pitted against the Vahlin’s forces in a war whose casualties are millions-to-one. Can Joe keep his group of aliens from killing each other long enough to make them into a battle-ready team? Will he survive long enough to kill the Vahlin? Or is he destined to destroy Congress, as the Trith have prophesized about him?
Zero’s Return
In this apocalyptic addition to the #1 Bestselling Legend of ZERO series, the PlanOps Prime veteran, universal hero, and living legend Joe Dobbs has become an icon of heroism to the Congressional citizenry—but his real adventure is only just beginning. Humanity, unwillingly drafted into the alien Congress during its invasion of Earth seventy-four turns before, has done the unthinkable; building devastating genetic weapons that can kill even the oldest Dhasha with ease, planning to take the fight for its freedom to the very Regency itself. Before it can, however, the alien government discovers Humanity’s plans and retaliates swiftly, killing the experiments, destroying the labs, and reducing Earth’s technologies back to its Stone Age days to serve a Sacred Turn of penance for its sins.
…Or does it? As Joe discovers, one lab gets overlooked in the chaos of Judgment. Its leader, Twelve-A, is determined to keep his fellow experiments alive—even if it means coercing a jaded, iron-faced Congie into helping them…
Forgotten
It’s been 819 years since Congress abandoned humanity to a Stone Age fate on an Earth infested with man-eating monsters, and now the galactic government, in all its benevolence, has come back to force humanity back into citizen status in its great collective…
…Except this time, thanks to Prime Commander Dobbs, humanity has a surprise for our alien conquerors.
ZERO: Forgotten is a post-apocalyptic science fiction adventure where a group of naive genetic experiments take on an alien government in an all-or-nothing fight for the fate of humanity, a unique twist on conventional space opera.
(If you’re already a fan: This stand-alone ZERO novel completes the prophecy begun by Joe Dobbs in Forging Zero, completely independent of the previous books, but also the final chapter in the arc. Yes, there will be one more book between this and Book 3. This is a stand-alone that takes place many centuries after Joe dies. Only the longest-lived characters are the same, and reading this book will in no way undermine the fun, exciting ride of the second half of Joe’s adventures on Earth. [i.e. contains no spoilers])
My Take
I read the first three books in this series so long ago I can’t remember when. But I remember that I LOVED them, so when I saw a fourth book, I had to get it. It took a few beats to get back into the world I remembered. There are lots of characters and lots of alien races; it can be difficult to keep them straight. A good blend of politics and social commentary without losing the story value or forgetting the characters. In many ways the last book is one giant heist. I probably should have re-read the first three books before diving into this, but hey, maybe next time.