The war with the Arduans - profoundly alien invaders who originally arrived in STL ships - is over. Most of those attackers are now probationary (and very productive) citizens of the Rim Federation.

However, many among the Arduans' warrior caste have accepted neither defeat nor the personhood of any of the other intelligence races. Their leader, the ruthless admiral of the second Arduan exodus, Amunsit, is in firm control of the Zarzuela system. Along with a fifth column among the peaceable Arduans, she hopes to find allies in subsequent refugee fleets that abandoned their race's now-dead home system long ago.

But as the victors' diplomats attempt to soothe tensions with these warlike neighbors, two heroes of the last war - veteran admiral Ian Trevayne and young troubleshooter Ossian Wethermere - suspect they have stumbled upon a deeper Arduan plot: one that could shatter the Pan-Sentient Union and perhaps interstellar civilization itself.

Listening Length

16 hours and 14 minutes
Author

Steve White, see all
Narrator

Marc Vietor
Audible release date

March 1, 2016
Language

English
Publisher

Audible Studios
ASIN

B01CE02XBC
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	16 hours and 14 minutes
Author	Steve White, Charles E. Gannon
Narrator	Marc Vietor
Audible.com Release Date	March 01, 2016
Publisher	Audible Studios
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B01CE02XBC
Best Sellers Rank	#179,800 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #2,936 in Space Opera Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #11,164 in Space Operas

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

179 global ratings

5 star		57%
4 star		29%
3 star		12%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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cathy

Good read but it is a series, not a one off book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

Short answer: This is better Exodus and Extremis but if you aren't even passingly familiar with the whole Starfire series, you're going to be really lost and probably disappointed. The whole series covers almost 500 years.

Middle Answer: read In Death Ground at a minimum first. Then Imperative.

Long answer:
In 1977, Task Force Games published a little game of starship combat called Starfire, so small of a game that it came in a ziplock baggie. It was a huge hit. Fans and TFG kept adding to it and in the 1990s, David Weber of science fiction fame rewrote the rules AND made a truly wonderful scenario book called Stars at War, which reads like a novel (combining in depth narrative sections with scenarios) but you can actually play out the battles using the game system. This covered four different wars and the major races in the Starfire universe.
Next came Crusade the scenario book and Crusade the novel, so if you didn't play the game you could read about space battles the old fashioned way...in a book.
Then came In Death Ground and The Shiva Option, both novels, and the massive scenario book ISW-4 Arachnids.
Then there is the orphan novel called "Insurrection" which had just the novel and not a game treatment.
Then David Weber moves out of the picture and revised writing teams take over. This is where Exodus, Extremis, and Imperative slide into place as novels but no game treatment.

BaenBooks has reissued Crusade and In Death Ground as Stars at War One and Insurrection and Shiva Option as Stars at War 2. These are NOT the same Stars at War that David Weber wrote for Task Force Games back in the early 1990s.

The game system is now owned and supplied by Starfire Design Studios

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jim M

Possible spoilers

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 15, 2019

Verified Purchase

I really, really like the Starfire series, especially In Death Ground and Shiva Option. Exodus and Extremis were ok, still decent books.
Imperative unfortunately is simply silly. Spoilers ahead...

One of the main plot points is kinetic kills against numerous systems from generational ships from one source. The ships are allegedly moving at .6c to .8c. Ok, so far I can buy that. They align the ships and destroy them creating clouds of debris that continue at the same relatavistic speeds towards inhabited systems. Still ok so far although starting to get sketchy. The objects destroy planets and installations throughout the PSU. Ok, now we are into LotR fantasy and a complete disregard for basic physics.
The stars in the PSU, as stated many times, are hundreds of light years apart. The kinetic bombardment would have taken hundreds, if not thousands, of years to take place. Sublight objects starting from relatively close together, required by the storyline of fleets fleeing a supernova, would have a gap of 7 or 8 years just between Sol and Centauri, and they are close together. In the PSU three light years was considered incredibly close in an earlier story. The main characters would have been dead of old age generations before the bombardments destroyed the listed planets and locations. I don't mind suspending disbelief under certain circumstances but not when they are trying something like kinetic weapons.

The authors completely lost me at that point. I'm not even going to bother getting into the idea that an object weighing a few tons moving at .6c could destabilize a main sequence star while managing to pass entirely through it.

I wanted to like the book, and I'll read the next one, but I am very disappointed by the complete disregard for science in this one.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

......lookylul

one of the most tense Starfire books I have read...spoilers (kind of)

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 4, 2020

Verified Purchase

I have played the game Starfire since 1982 and have read every book so far in the series. Starfire is famous for large (some would say gigantic) space battles and the never ending race for new weapons and tactics. And frankly....a lot of the Starfire novels are very predictable. Alien threat or civil war, big space battles and lots of straight up action with fighters, x-HAWKS and beams of all kinds. Now enter this book, part of the Exodus saga, we now have spies, subtle tactics and an old threat come back to life. This novel starts off slow but halfway through, I had to keep reading as I really felt the drama and agony of the protagonists. For the first time in my reading of Starfire novels, I felt like humans and allies could really lose and lose badly. Just starting the next book and look forward to the conclusion of this saga. If you like military sci-fi and action, you will not be disappointed. Great job guys! I hope we have a Wethermere on our side in real life.

Helpful

Michael S. Lawson

Another Great Read In The Starfire Series!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 10, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is the 7th book in the Starfire series. The first 4 were written by David Weber and Steve White. The 5th was written by Steve White and Shirley Meier. The 6th and now the 7th were written by Steve White and Charles E Gannon. Despite the author changes this series has maintained a high quality of writing and the story line has remained true to the earlier books. Of course Steve White has co-authored all 7 books and he is an excellent author as well as being one of my favorite authors.
In this one the various human space empires as well as several of their alien allies come under attack from not one but two of their old enemies. This book is an excellent example of Military Science Fiction with good character development and great space battle scenes. The Arduans’ who appeared from space in slower than light colony ships were defeated in a very bloody war and at great cost to the humans and their allies. A few of them however fled and awaited more of their colony ships to arrive to reignite hostilities. During their wait they discovered a hidden colony of "Bugs", a species that had attacked with genocidal intend against all the other sentient species. They had been though to have been totally destroyed but had been in hiding biding their time before attacking again. Now both the Arduans’ and the "Bugs" are attacking on several fronts and things are looking bleak for the humans and their allies.
I highly recommend this book and this entire series to fans of Military Science Fiction and of Space Opera.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Oludare Senbore

Space battles at its best

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 21, 2016

Verified Purchase

What do I say? If you love space opera and space battles, then this book continues in the tradition of the series. It's spectacular.

Scott Osmond

Good Entry

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on January 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

It starts a bit slow, intelligence operations and intrigue, then explodes with action that is familiar to readers of the Starfire universe. Relativistic impactors, new devastating energy weapons and a old enemy returns. I enjoyed this entry. Towards the end the reader gets a look at why the professionals in the military don't just frown at fraternisation but are openly hostile to it, in short sending a lover or spouse out to die can play merry hell with discipline or raise the Spector of favourism if held back.

Amazon Customer

SOrry but I cannot recommend this. As an avid reader of mil sci ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

SOrry but I cannot recommend this. As an avid reader of mil sci fi I can suspend my disbelief only so far. BUt here we have a race fleeing their destroyed home world...that's one world, through real space and without a history of space combat and with way inferior tech able to completely retask their refugee ships into interstellar battleships and go up against at least a dozen interstellar empires with ft long capacity.who have recently fought a huge war against the bugs. Come on. it's like Ancient Rome being able to out produce and outfight the Modern USN after a couple of years of thei initial contact. COuld NOT get that off my mind. I love the earlier books, but skip everything after Insurrection.

One person found this helpful

Timothy Pearce

Not a bad book, but the cliffhanger-end and seeming "how will ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

Not a bad book, but the cliffhanger-end and seeming "how will the good guys ever win?" plotline really takes away from it. I'm not entirely sure if some of the "real world" physics in the book are actually valid either.

One person found this helpful

Divyan

Right start from where he left off

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on March 20, 2016

Verified Purchase

Brought my memories back to earlier bug wars. Maybe the years elapsed since last read , I found this novel lack a little intensity. However, I know the coming instalments remedy that fault.

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Imperative: Starfire, Book 7 Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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